Struan Farm

Rogue Romeos Breach the Perimeter

Bit of a sheep situation to report here at Struan Farm this week. It's definitely time for the rams to be put out with the ewes, so I didn't really think about it too much when I saw a ram sniffing around the ewes below our house this week. What was odd was that the ram was brown faced, when Farmer John has white sheep. I was more concerned that a small group of ewes (including Rosie) had been separated from the mob and were down at the river. So I rang Farmer John and left a message that I'd seen the ram out and just wanted to make sure he knew about the ewes that were on another part of the property.

The plot thickens. Farmer John dropped off two white rams the next afternoon. While not wanting to invade anyone's privacy, here's one below, starting the job at hand, which entails lots of sniffing:

And here are this year's ewe pet lambs trying to flee from the other!

It turns out that Farmer John hadn't picked up my message until after the two white rams were dropped off, but when he did he came back straight away. The brown faced ram I saw wasn't his. And when he went out and herded everyone up he discovered TWO ROGUE BROWN FACED RAMS. They looked suspiciously like the sheep next door (think Tootsie, Pip, Pepper and Ruby), and either got through a fence or swum the river. Last I saw him he was headed next door to return the rams and have a wee chat. These days breeding genetics are reasonably important, but I think that may have just gone out the window.

So the verdict is that we may have some speckled lambs this next spring!

The Quest for Quince

I almost titled this post "Quivering for Quince." I want them, really/truly/deeply. It's been five/six long years in the new orchard area here at Struan Farm. Part of the delay in fruiting may be due to too much other stuff around where we planted them originally. John's view was that they aren't terribly attractive trees, so he wanted them out of the way. Karen just wants the fruit and really doesn't care about how things look, at least when it comes to quince. Our problems seems to have been addressed when the trees were moved into the side of the main orchard, after the roadside bank slipped last winter. 

The trees seem much happier in this new spot. Two of the three trees flowered and one has delivered five reasonably sized fruit. 

Enough for one dessert, but not much else. Rock on to next season! Eternally optimistic, that would be me.

Seasonal Seed Saving

It's the time of the year to think about saving seeds and do it. This is definitely an economical way to have heaps of flowers in the gardens here at Struan Farm, even if it does take a bit of time and effort. While I do leave some seed heads in the beds to see what grows back in spring, I also cut them off and store them for planting out and starting seed trays in the glasshouse in spring.

Right now I've got nigella ("love in the mist"), two different poppies, pink and white echinacea, three different types of scabiosa, and dill in my stockpile (oops, almost forgot about the marigolds). I leave the snapdragons to self-seed in the gardens, those seeds are too tiny for me to mess around with. I probably should save some dried zinnia heads as well but haven't gotten around to those just yet.

And of course the tomato seeds are on paper towels drying in the hot water cupboard.

Next I need to take some cuttings of salvias and daisies that might not make it through winter if we have lots of heavy frosts. This is a bit of an insurance policy, and another inexpensive way to grow more plants. 

Pomegranates, Perhaps?

Very excited to see the pomegranate bush I planted as an experiment here at Struan Farm flowering for the first time!

I'm not sure what happens next, but will keep an eye on things. Pomegranates are quite frost tender, so I've planted this bush next to the house in the backyard, an area that is quite protected. It's flourished next to our lemon verbena. Piopio is not exactly a mediterranean climate....fingers crossed.

A Special Weekend

It was definitely a big change of pace for John and me, but guess who we saw on Saturday night, along with 44,998 other people?

Yep, Adele! She performed three sold out concerts in the round at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland. NZ was literally the last stop on her extensive world tour. She has an amazing voice, and what an incredible personality. 

No rest for the wicked though. Now I need to get onto the rest of this week's blog posts, once I get ready for this week's farmstay guests! 

Sunflower Saga, With Apologies to Van Gogh

This is one of two sunflowers that grew in the Homestead gardens near Heidi's green gate  and the Pet Paddock this year. If you knew how many sunflower seeds I planted in this bed you would laugh: over forty. Of various varieties. One thing gardening teaches you is that Mother Nature doesn't always deliver the goods you want. She is in control and you need to accept that to a certain extent. (You know me, I try to negotiate.)

I was striving for a bed full of delphiniums, sunflowers and zinnias, with borage for the bees on the side. Several years ago we had an amazing sunflower garden, but I have never been able to achieve anything close to that since.

Maybe the problem is that I've been wanting them to share the garden with other flowers, rather than being the only show in town? Perhaps they're egomaniacs. To be researched further. I do prefer a mix of flowers and colours, sorry Vincent!

 

 

There's Talk of an Indian Summer

We've been talking about "Indian Summers" recently at Struan Farm. I asked John if he were familiar with the term, which he was. But he couldn't remember if that was because of his days living in Washington State or due to its usage here in New Zealand. He wasn't sure. 

Later that day I went to freshen up the herbs I've got planted out in the veggie garden and came across this:

A New Zealand packet of coriander seeds from Kings Seeds called "Indian Summer." I took that as a sign from the universe that some research was required.

It turns out that "indian summer" is used to describe an unseasonably warm, dry period in late autumn, and is indeed attributed to Native Americans (formerly called "Indians") in North America. It was a good period for hunting. The phrase was used as early as 1778 in the United States and the mid 1900's in the UK, although it wasn't used widely in the latter until the 1950's. Other countries have different names for the weather phenomenon, which in the northern hemisphere can happen from September-November. 

So there's been talk of an Indian Summer here in Piopio, even though we're not expecting one at all. Too much rain happening for that!

Native Jasmine in Bloom at Struan Farm

It's that time of the year when the native jasmine, "Kaihua," is blooming in one of our QEII protected bush reserves. While I can show you some photos, apologies, but I can't share its wonderful fragrance with you! Normally it grows at the tops of high trees, but we're lucky to have some growing at ground level, right by the track that goes past the pond down to the Mangaotaki River.

Cleaning House at Struan Farm

Truth be told, I'm not the best housekeeper on the planet. I'd much rather be outside in the gardens doing something. Planting, weeding, raking, growing. But this is the kind of house cleaning I don't mind: the glass/greenhouse.

It was high time for the annual clean out. The basil crop is (finally!) over and done with, so I carted out all of the benches and did a major clean. Somewhere I found how Martha Stewart cleans her greenhouse, and deployed two of those products, "CLR" and "Simple Green." CLR really worked on the film on the inside windows, which I suspect was from the lime in our hard water. I'm a convert.

It's not sparkling, but it's much better than it was. And these days we've got so much to do that that's good enough for me.

And although we do try to be completely organic, the spiders inside were out of control. We brushed out the webs a week ago to see if just knocking them out and off would work, and it didn't. So I did spray a little bit. I know, bad me. 

I'm just about ready to start winter crops of rocket/arugula, winter lettuce and italian parsley. Also to take cuttings of some flowers like salvia that don't survive in the gardens due to our heavy frosts. Hard to believe it's time to start thinking about all this, but it seems so!

Watching the Grass Grow at Struan Farm

We didn't have the best weather this past summer, as previously advertised. At least in our little corner of the world at Struan Farm in Piopio. We got quite a bit of rain. Our weather patterns are different from Hamilton, Te Kuiti and even Piopio village, ten minutes away. It may be because the west coast is just over the hills, we don't really know. Sometimes our weather is closer to that in Taranaki/New Plymouth.

This summer as farmers and flower gardeners the frequent rains made us happy. But as tomato growers and people wanting to enjoy warm summer weather before cold winter frosts and rains it didn't.

The weather did allow John to sow grass seed, something normally impossible at this time of the year. After we had the digger in for a few (more) infrastructure projects John decided to sow both some paddock and some lawn grass seed on the extended area near the Old Tennis Court and the Pet Paddock. He's redesigning the fencing and gardens here (don't ask me why, I'm humouring him on this one).

It turned out luck was on our side this year. It rained. Here's the time line over two weeks:

The timber has been ordered for the fencing project, that's comes next. I think I'll be deployed to plant a hedge on one side in winter, stay tuned.

 

 

Impromptu Picnic at the River

It was a beautiful, sunny day yesterday at Struan Farm. John proposed a picnic lunch down at the river so that I could see the new deck nephew Mike has built on the boat shed at the Mangaotaki River rapids and sandy beach. And I accepted, happy to have a brief break from the weeding!

I'm getting pretty good at picnics. Salad and sparkling water, under the trees near the BBQ area. I didn't go the whole hog (no flowers, but we did have a tablecloth, silverware and china). It WAS meant to be a quick lunch. After lunch we packed up and drove down to the rapids and sandy beach.

The new deck on the boat shed looks great. Next the shed will be painted red. Note that my attempt to call the boat shed "the cabana" has fallen completely flat. No support for that whatsoever. I know when I'm losing, so have agreed to "The Boat Shed."

Almost Figs

I've been keeping an eye on the little heirloom fig tree in the Old Orchard Paddock at Struan Farm. There are heaps of figs, ripening. They aren't ripe yet, and the birds haven't found them yet either.

Fingers crossed I will beat the birds to them when they're ripe. You know how that goes typically, don't you?

Repairs & Maintenance for the Pets

Cookie, Tootsie, Mickey and Minnie travelled down to the Wool Shed at Struan Farm yet again this past week, this time to spend some quality time with Farmer John. They were shorn and dusted for fly, he also checked Tootsie out carefully to make sure she was okay after her recent close call with fly.

Cookie gets very clingy after this sort of procedure, she stuck right by me on the walk up the hill to the house paddock afterward. Tootsie, Mickey and Minnie barrelled ahead, eager to get away. Mickey complained he was a bit bit chilly that evening, but otherwise everyone is fine.

Autumn Apples

While I'm still contending with the last gasp of this year's tomato harvest, roasting batches of those daily, the apples are starting to land at Struan Farm.

John's been munching away on the Peasgood Nonsuch, grabbing fruit off the tree as he's passed by on the lawn mower. So while I managed to pick a few of those, most of our apples in the main orchard are Monty's Surprise. And we've got a decent crop! I picked the first wave to start to make and freeze apple crumbles for winter. 

There are plenty left on the tree, still ripening. Lots high up so I get to deploy my fruit picker too!

 

The Birds & The Bees

It's just about time for the ram to be put out amongst the hoggets here at Struan Farm. "Hoggets" including former pet lambs Rosie, Ruby, Pip and Pepper. I'm not worried about Ruby, who's probably as big if not bigger than the ram. And Pip and Pepper will take these things in stride, although Pepper might give the ram a kick or two. As you might expect it's Rosie I'm fretting about, she's quite the sensitive little diva...

So we've had a quiet chat about it all over an apple or two. Not the sort of thing my mother did for me, that happened at sex ed class at high school. But I've felt the need to explain a few home truths so she won't be shocked. No little "grandlambs" to look after otherwise.

I know Rosie will be a great mum. She's pretty much organised this unruly mob so needs a new challenge.

Tractor Training Programme

Friends Rob and Lin visited us at Struan Farm over the weekend from Cheltenham, UK. In addition to visits to nearby Hairy Feet Waitomo and Waitomo Caves, we had dinner one night at Piopio's Night Owl Restaurant.

Rob also wanted a chance to drive our vintage David Brown 850 tractor (aged circa 1965 or thereabouts). Fortunately the weather cooperated, and he was able to get out in the Pet Paddock for a spin. Once he got the hang of it John had him go up the hill on the Old Orchard Paddock, and through a gate. 

 

Quite the expert, Rob!

Weekend Flowers

We had friends from the UK in the Homestead this weekend and farmstay guests in the Cottage in town for a wedding. So lots of flowers around the place. Here are a few:

I hadn't had time to deadhead until yesterday, so am taking what I can find with the roses. The dahlias and zinnias help fill some voids. While the hydrangeas are still coming out with new blooms, many are going "vintage" now, that wonderful mottled look florists (and I) love. I did a mixed arrangement of those for our dinner table:

I save the fancier things for the farmstay guests!

Tomatoes Up Close

They just looked so beautiful sitting on the kitchen bench I couldn't resist!

Meeting in the Mesclun

I had a brief window of time this week to hit the veggie gardens here at Struan Farm. It's that point in the season when most summer veggies have done their major dash, but there's still a bit of time for a second crop of some things if the spent crops are pulled out and seeds planted for a new one, especially those vegetables that germinate quickly.

The italian parsley and lettuce/mesclun were in my sights. But guess who I bumped into in the mesclun trough?

Mr. Cicada, humming away! He wasn't all that happy with the interruption, or with being photographed, but I had never been this close to a cicada before and didn't want to miss the opportunity. Their colours and markings are quite detailed and interesting. He flew off annoyed once I started to water.

I also carted off about sixty odd basil plants going to seed in the glasshouse to the compost heap. The remaining plants with basil that looked useable have been passed on to our friends at The Fat Pigeon in Piopio or converted into pesto for the freezer here. It's safe to say I'm well and truly over basil for the foreseeable future, and have learned my lesson about staggering plantings of seedlings.

Next comes the BIG GLASSHOUSE CLEANING, watch this space...

Perspective from the Pergola

We've made some progress on the second recycled pergola at the new(ish) house at Struan Farm. It took us awhile to decide where to put it on the front lawn, but nephew Mike has now got it up and concreted in. Grey paving stone have been laid in the middle, we're still brushing sand on top to help fill the spaces between the tiles.

This weekend enough of the work was finished for me to be able to plant table grape plants at two of the corners, "White Diamond" and "Festivee." The former is a white grape, the latter dark. I'll get two more grape plants for the other corners this week. I'm not the best at training plants to grow up things, but I've run a wire from each plant up to the top of the pergola to give it a decent try.

What we're really happy with is the view through the pergola out to the hills beyond. John and Mike still have a tree or two to take down to improve this further, but we know where we're heading.  Things are starting to come together in the new gardens!