If you don't know, it is Boring Old Fart!
This post is entirely about my time spent in the garden (yard) today, so if you are under 60, look away now .... even I can't believe I am posting this! :)
Strawberry plants have been looked after over the winter with some sulphate of potage. Strawberry food has now been added and in a day or two, I will add the actual straw around the plants.
I wish everything was as easy to grow as rhubarb! This plant comes from a cutting taken from Ruths grandmother garden to her mother's family home in the mid-fifties, where we took a cutting about thirty years ago, and have taken the same plant (via cuttings) through three different homes we have owned since around 1990. Its indestructible!
This is a Passionfruit vine - well, maybe some readers in the northern hemisphere don't know - I had not heard of a lot of the fruits here, before I arrived "in country"!
The blossoms develop as below ....
.... then the fruit appear.
We have already had about a couple of dozen to eat ....
The apple tree has lots of blossom so hopefully will fruit well.
This is the mandarin tree which gave up the last of the previous year's fruit around June, and a month later, already had the beginnings of the next crop!
And last but not least, the lemon tree, which does not seem to have a season at all - it basically ALWAYS has some fruit on it although there is definitely more in spring/summer than in the rest of the year.
And finally, a couple of shots of last night's sunset over our back fence. It came and went so quickly that, by the time I went out to the car to retrieve my phone, it was only half as spectacular as it had been a minute earlier!
BLOGGER UPDATE!!
Loading these images today, I note that the process has reverted to how it was 3-4 days ago, before the latest change was seen ..... I wont worry too much about why or what's going on at Blog HQ :)
Well this BOF (just under 60 BTW!) found the post interesting and you can certainly grow quite a bit of stuff that would struggle here in Bristol. Good job SWMBO can't see the passion fruit, nor the lemons, as I would be tasked with trying to grow them!
ReplyDeleteIf there was one reader, I thought I might rely on for some interest in this subject matter Steve, it was you! I don't enjoy gardening - to me, it's just work - although I don't mind so much doing an hour now and again to produce something I can eat - then there is the bloody grass, of course!
DeleteI don't enjoy gardening either but as you say at least it is better when the result is something you can eat! A great garden with a lot of crops there.
DeleteThanks Ben...hopefully, all the crops come to fruition...pun intended!
DeleteI'm nothing if not predictable Keith;)! For me it's a nice break from parent carer duties and after a career in workshops, the contrast is wonderful. Weather still lovely here so off outside soon...
DeleteThanks Steve - and as it happens, I have had more comment on this post than I was expecting!
DeleteDidn’t want to read the post but now find im required to since I was 60 in September and I think it’s in the small print somewhere. Anywhoo. Weird to think you’re stuff is just coming to life while mine has just all died off. My wife gets to do all the fiddly stuff and I do the digging etc and while it is « work » I do admit that it’s jolly nice sitting in the sunshine amongst nature. R okay then duty done I’m off to look through my latest Saga holiday brochure for OAP’s.
ReplyDeleteCheers JBM....I thought it was a different SAGA you were off to check out!
DeleteGood to see your garden Kieth- we use to live in a Flat and over 40 years ago when we moved into our Home here at Bradbury- the first thing I did was make up 4 Vegetable Gardens- I grew: Tomatoes, Carrots, Beetroot, Khol Rabi, Lettuce, Onions and yes even Stawberries. The Gardens are now long gone and we do have a Lemon Tree and Orange Tree which do very well. Cheers. KEV.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Kev! My wife used to be quite a gardener too but nowadays she is less so.
DeleteGreat post Keith. As my garden is firmly in Autumn it is nice to see spring emerge elsewhere. Soon the summer will be with you and Pimms in the garden
ReplyDeleteHmm...now that's an idea Richard...haven't had a Pimms for a while...watch out for a post about that later 😀!!
DeleteMy garden is in the abandoned building site style… You would be surprised at the amount of effort goes into keeping in shape 🤣
ReplyDeleteMy first job was working in a fruit shop (Rankins in Tollcross) after school…One day we received a delivery of Passion Fruit… Everyone including the manager just stared at them… After a while they were chucked in the rubbish bin…The assumption being that they were something that had gone rotten….Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) I wasn’t there when the area manager turned up and blew a cog after discovering what had happened to those very expensive imports.
I don’t know what they had expected…At that time Broccoli was considered exotic 😁
All the best. Aly
Haha...I know exactly where you are coming from Aly. When I was 17 and for the next four summers during uni holidays, I worked in a frozen food factory. It was literally the first time I ever saw broccoli 🥦! We were allowed to take a 1kg bag home and no one in my family had ever seen or eaten it before. This must have been a British ( or Scottish) thing though, as my wife has eaten the stuff since she was a child. Kumara (sweet potato) is similar....I noticed it on sale in UK supermarkets on one trip home...we never used to know what it was when we used to sing about them popping from the ground as we were marhing through Georgia!
DeleteI wish broccoli was exotic, I would not have eaten so much of it.
DeleteHaving now eaten the stuff for over 35 years, I don't think I missed much by being unaware of its existence for the first 25, Joe!
DeleteFine looking strawberries - all except one of mine died out some time ago. And those rhubarb really bring back memories as a kid!
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg....these all stated from half a dozen or so " free to a good home" plants that I have divided and propagated the runners from over the last ten years or so!
DeleteLol! I'm only slighly over the age disclaimer warning (turning 62 before the year is out). I post my wife's garden stuff on my FB all the time - as well as foodie pics. Thankfully most the audience is as old, if not older, than me - so they usually get "likes" :)
ReplyDeleteHahaha...you don't look that age in your pics Dean...I had assumed you might have taken early retirement recently! Mind you, I guess 61cis early...I am that age and won't be able to throw off the shackles for some years yet, I imagine!
DeleteI am definitely not a fan of gardening either, but even after having spent several thousand on gardeners recently there is still work to be done in picking up palm fronds. On Friday I got bitten by bull ants, scraped by thorns and a palm stalk square in the eye which I am still recovering from, so strawberries look much more docile and appealing to me.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the perils of Australia and its dangerous flora and fauna Lawrence. That is a country where our mate Stews opinion that "the outside" is a dangerous place to be avoided has some truth to it!
DeleteFine looking garden, Keith. You are lucky to have such fine fruit at hand an on demand. I would rather be painting figures than gardening but I do what I must.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jon - that about sums up my attitude too - although my wife might claim I DONT always do what I must!
DeleteYou are not alone, my friend.
DeleteSo say all married men Jon - or those with any kind of female "life partner"!
DeleteGardening is time consuming and easily as much a black hole to funding as miniatures. That said, does keep my wife happy. That's important. Take it from an old man. (71).
ReplyDeleteAs they say Joe....happy wife, happy life!
DeleteWeeeellll...it's topsy-turvy in more ways than one on this topic. We're getting the start of flurries and heading into winter. And I despise (despise, I say) all forms of garden toil ("yard work" as we would say in the US). So I shan't be posting any pix of me slaving away at the damn leaves or other bits, I'm afraid. Good on ya (and all others) who do happily dabble in their gardens, though!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed...I am more in your camp when it comes to "yard work" but sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it...like painting cavalry or limbers!
DeleteRhubarb is a wonderful weed. One of my fav creations my mum would make was Rhubarb Crumble. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso rather envious of the Passion Fruits! Such a yum flavour!
(I'm 13 years away from 60, but I still enjoy a teeny bit of gardening.)
Yeah, rhubarb crumble is still a good use for the stuff Dai!
DeleteEnjoying gardening eh....you are on a slippery slope to BOF-dom mate!
I said "Teeny bit". Emphasis on "Teeny". LOL Not quite at that slope just yet.
DeleteLol.....teeny is about my level if gardening appreciation too mate!
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