Struan Farm

Madame Butterfly

It seems that the monarch chrysalis has hatched and Madame Butterfly has flown the coop!

Here's to more monarch butterflies sailing the skies around Struan Farm. Next year I will plant more swan plants for sure.

Treading Tomatoes

I'm managing to keep up with the daily wave of ripening tomatoes here at Struan Farm, just. The crop isn't like last year, where there were buckets of beautiful fruit each day. I'm working for this crop, picking ripening fruit and bringing it inside to finish the job away from rats, snails, slugs, crickets, dog and birds and cutting out the bad bits. I want these tomatoes!

Several more batches roasted and in the freezer. I'm basically doing two per day just to keep up, treading tomatoes.

I also made the first gazpacho of the summer this past weekend, even though it's technically now autumn. One cup of chopped fresh tomatoes is combined with 1/2 cup chopped green pepper, 1/2 cup chopped cucumber, 1/2 cup green onions, one clove garlic, 1 tsp. worcestershire sauce, 3 Tbs. white wine vinegar, 2 Tbs. olive oil, salt, pepper and 2 1/2 cups tomato juice in the food processor and blended until smooth. It's healthy and refreshing for lunch or dinner, yum.

And yes, thanks for asking, that is basil in the background. I'm just finishing up a few more batches of pesto for the freezer with the last of the plants before giving the glasshouse a major clean out. It's almost time to start thinking about planting rocket and lettuce for autumn/winter, much as I really don't want to go there just yet!

Weekend Flowers

Had a bit of time before making dinner on Saturday night to head out to the gardens at Struan Farm, scissors in hand. I wanted flowers for the table. We've been so busy no one has had time to stop and smell the flowers, let alone cut any. Except those for the farmstay guests!

The Scabiosa Black Knight and the Chocolate Cosmos were calling out to me. I've grown both from seed, they're available from Kings Seeds. Both are a deep burgundy, quite unusual. I mixed them up with a few sprigs of snapdragons, small zinnias just starting to come into flower, and some wee daisies.

John announced they were an appropriate "evening arrangement" and that a decent red wine was in order to match the flowers!

We're Buzzy

We're both busy and "buzzy" right now here at Struan Farm.

On the busy front we've got lots of farmstay guests coming to visit, at least through Easter. My gardening is slipping but I'm on top of the laundry and cleaning (and the ripening tomatoes). We're pretty much booked out for the month of March except for Jim's Hut and a random night here and there for the Homestead.

On the "buzzy" front what's really amazing is the number of bees flying around in the gardens. Both bumblebees and honey bees, although the latter move so fast I can't manage to photograph them. A few evenings ago I went out to stroll and was staggered by the numbers. I've planted lots of blue and purple flowers, which I know they love. Plus the fact that we've planted real flower gardens draws them to us as well. Lots of colours and food.

I know that moths are sometimes pollinators too, and caught this one trying to compete with the bees!

 

Monarch in Waiting, Stage 2

The monarch butterfly caterpillar eating away at our swan plant in the gardens here at Struan Farm has transformed itself into a chrysalis!

Here's hoping we will see the butterfly when it emerges....I've already decided to plant more swan plants next year so that we can encourage more monarchs.

 

Strawberry Fields Forever?

I wish! Strawberry season is coming to a close this week at Piopio Berry Orchard, and I'm quite sad.

Normally by the end of the season each year I've had my fill, and am ready for a change to blueberries and even raspberries. But this year I don't feel like I've had enough strawberries just yet. Or blueberries either for that matter. Maybe it's because we really haven't had much of a summer.

I'll get over it, but I'll miss them until next year.

The Digger Returns

The digger showed up again a few days ago at Struan Farm. Yep, some projects in the works. The Old Orchard Paddock near the Pet Paddock has been "re-contoured," making an improved walkway down from the gate above (and the helicopter landing area). John is also changing fencing to extend the Homestead garden and lawn area somewhat, near an area we still call "the old tennis court." (As you might guess, there hasn't been a tennis court there for many years.) The digger deposited soil around there there under John's direction. I have a vague idea what the plan is, but it's something John wants to do so I'm staying out of it. I have enough to do!

The digger also carved out along the edge of the drive/track that goes through the Cottage Paddock to allow for better runoff. Rain had been eroding the track and washing metal off, so hopefully this will fix that problem. 

Last but not least the real reason the digger was here: we're having a small plantation of radiata pine trees (non-native) taken down later this year. The digger was here to get the staging area started for the timber company. John's dad Maurie planted the trees as an investment 25 or so years ago when everyone and his brother was doing so. It's now time for them to come out. We've hemmed and hawed, since it will create a major mess and the economics aren't entirely clear. But we've been told that they start to fall over and create a different sort of mess if we don't take them down and sell them. So we are. That area of the Old Road will be off limits for awhile.

Our next big decision will be what to re-plant on the rather large hillside. John remembers a time when it was grass, but we will of course plant trees. They won't be pines, we've thought about redwoods, but most likely they will be native assuming that complies with the carbon credit scheme. Research to follow.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again: we'll be planting trees for the rest of our lives.

High Stakes

I have seen the "Holy Grail" of tomato staking, and this is it:

Serious stuff, eh? This is a trial at the Auckland Botanic Gardens. I stumbled upon it wandering around the gardens when I was up in Auckland recently. (At a certain point I get bored and need to seek out gardens and bush. Plus I was wanting some inspiration for our new beds to be planted this winter here at Struan Farm.)

The trial is testing different growing media: compost vs. mulch vs. topsoil, e.g. But as you might suspect, what caught my eye was the "staking infrastructure." WOW! A high metal grid to assist the growth of ONE VINE per plant and its fruit up a major fence post. No laterals or foliage at all really. Serious plastic ties were used as well. And yes, irrigation.

So now I have seen the light. It's not pretty, but I guess this is how you're meant to get perfect tomatoes.

I can see us trialling one row of this kind of structure in the raised bed next year, provided I can get John to assist with the construction. I'm smiling as I write this, thinking I might need to score some recycled metal grid from somewhere, at which point he'll cooperate I'm sure.