June top & flop CROPS
Lynda’s regular round-up of the best and worst performers in her Hunua garden.
WALNUTS: To be honest, this should say “walnut“because my six-year-old ’Wilson’s Wonder’ tree produced precisely one large nut this year. But it was its first ever nut and I was chuffed. I thought the occasion worthy of some sort of pagan celebration, such as a ritualistic thrashing – legend has it that beating walnut trees makes them crop more prolifically – but while I was away in India, the nut fell off and some critter (most likely a rat) made off with it. Despite a thorough search on bended knee, I found no sign of it under the tree.
I started with three walnut trees but lost two of them (drought killed one and the other got the chop to make way for my husband‘s flying fox). So it’s good to know the sole survivor has come of age.
TOP & FLOP CROPS
‘WILDFIRE’ CHILLIES: The autumn rains turned much of my chilli crop to mush but there was still plenty to preserve. I froze some whole, for throwing into casseroles later, and bottled the rest as sweet chilli jam. I find that the easiest way to deal with a glut of chillies is to don a pair of rubber gloves, deseed them by the dozen and then finely chop the lot in my food processor. For every cup of chopped chilli, add 2 finely chopped red capsicums and 1 cup cider vinegar. Bring to the boil and stir in 1kg jam-setting sugar. Boil for 5 minutes then pour into jars and seal.
CORIANDER: I thought I was pretty smart saving a bucketful of coriander seed last summer. Yet for every seed harvested, I must have missed a handful, because self-sown coriander has now come up as thick as grass in the gravel paths around my herb garden. (Weirdly, there’s none in the bed.)
TAHITIAN LIMES: It looks like it’s going to be a good season for limes; my tree has almost as many fruit on it as my ’Meyer’ lemon.
‘GREAT LAKES’ LETTUCE: It feels like a vege patch victory when all the fresh ingredients you need for a favourite dish, such as Thai chicken larb in lettuce cups, are there for the taking. I have chillies, coriander, lime, lettuce… and two surplus young roosters.
BABY LEEKS: These count as a top crop because although rabbits chewed the tops off my entire bed of leeks, they have grown back!
RHUBARB: Be wary of sturdy green-stemmed summer rhubarb. Seedling varieties are much more vigorous than the red-stemmed old timers such as ’Victoria’ and soon start to shade them out if grown together. In my trial bed, I started with 16 rhubarb plants but the biggest clump (a green-stalker) has now starved its three closest neighbours of any sunlight. Its stalks are three times as fat and its leaves three times as big, which I guess means it will take me three times as much effort to evict it from my plot.
WEEDS IN PATHS: Oh boy, do I have a bumper crop of these. After all the rain in autumn, my gravel paths now sport almost as many seedling weeds as pebbles. In the past, I’ve got down on my hands and knees and painstakingly pulled out all the interlopers, but I can’t face it this season. The creeping speedwell, in particular, has taken off and it’s a pig of a thing to dig out. The easiest course of action would be to throw my organic ideals to the wind and go hard with a knapsack of glyphosate (I’ve tried the organic alternatives and, in a large garden like mine, they’re neither cost-effective nor particularly aromatic). The problem is, I can’t spray – or hoe, steam or flame – because tucked in amongst all those stubborn weeds are loads of freebies to prick out, including blood sorrel seedlings, baby parsnips, perennial rocket and echinacea. The more I garden, the more I like the idea of sowing grass paths. At least you can mow the weeds down with the grass.