TOP & FLOP CROPS
‘ELEPHANT HEART’ PLUMS: Waimea Nurseries describe this mid/late season Japanese plum (above) as “a superb freestone variety with very large, heart-shaped fruit with dark red, extremely sweet, juicy flesh” which was enough to convince me to plant five trees in my orchard in 2010.
Every spring, they blossomed well but failed to set even a single fruit, despite close proximity to three recommended pollinators (‘Omega‘, ‘Santa Rosa‘ and ‘Sultan‘). Eventually I took a chainsaw to four of the trees, only taking pity on the fifth because it had a nice shape.
No prizes for guessing what came next. The lone survivor produced a February crop of absolutely massive plums. Sigh.
SWEETCORN: Are you a ‘Honey ‘n‘ Pearl‘ traditionalist or do you prefer uniform golden corn kernels? I‘m not loyal to any variety; I just sow whatever takes my fancy at the garden centre. There was only one variety available at the Tairua hardware store last spring – ‘NZ Yellow‘ from McGregor‘s – so that‘s what went into our bach vege patch.
Described on the packet as ”a heavy yielding New Zealand-produced ‘Super Sweet‘ variety with juicy cobs and golden yellow kernels”, it took 100 days from seed to plate and the cobs were large, tasty and sweet. A goodie as well as eco-friendly, as the seed is all grown here in New Zealand and thus doesn‘t need any chemical treatments for import biosecurity. GRAPES: Talk about bad timing. When my husband decided to build a new pergola, apparently it had to be done RIGHT NOW. Never mind that our grapevines, laden with bunches of unripe fruit, were in the way. They got a severe haircut and I made a bottle of sour verjus (or verjuice) for summer salad dressings.
HAZELNUTS: My eight-year quest to grow hazelnuts ( Corylus avellana) feels like a Hugh Grant rom-com about unrequited love. You know the script: a pretty girl, a handsome bloke and multitudes of missed opportunities.
Hazelnuts crop best when pollen from the male catkins of one variety engages in a little hanky-panky with the tiny pink female flowers on another variety. With that in mind, I put in a hedge of ‘Merveille de Bowillier‘ (a vigorous pollinator) and ‘Whiteheart‘ (New Zealand's most popular hazel, with flavoursome round nuts).
However, every year in my garden, Mr Merveille jumps the gun and most of his catkins shed their pollen a full fortnight before Whiteheart unfurls her wee flowers. So last spring I literally took matters into my own hand. I carefully hand-pollinated half a dozen flowers and – success! – three fat hazelnuts subsequently developed. It‘s progress, I suppose, but hardly a top crop.
‘SCARLET RUNNERS’: These perennial runner beans, usually so reliable, barely filled a basket between them this summer. Too hot? Too dry? Or simply time to resow?