Struan Farm

Avos by Accident

I've been wanting to grow an avocado tree at Struan Farm as an experiment for awhile now. Our friends Malcolm and Theresa and Richard and Sharron, who grow them commercially, will be laughing if they read this. Avocados are frost tender, so aren't meant to grow here. But I haven't killed the pomegranate yet so there may also be hope for avos. Friends in nearby Te Kuiti are able to grow them, but their microclimate is just that little bit warmer than Piopio.

When I was in school we used to grow avocado plants from the pits, submerging them partially in a glass of water supported by toothpicks. Fortunately I haven't had to resort to that, since I've found several wee plants growing up in the mulch we tossed on the gardens this summer. Remember the hundreds of tomato plants I had sprouting? Well I've found four avocado trees that have grown from pits in the compost that was part of that same mulch.

 

So they've been dug up and put into pots in the glasshouse, with fingers crossed. At this rate we're heading toward self-sustainability, aren't we. John seems to think he can milk a cow and look after chooks, now I just need to figure out how to grow coffee and we'll be all set.....although fortunately we can always rely on Piopio's Fat Pigeon Cafe for that!

Tall, Mighty or Great

You will know many trees grow in Piopio, especially here at Struan Farm. I was interested to catch up recently with the self-seeding oak trees I potted up a few years ago. This summer John planted them in a mini "tree farm" at the back gate to grow them on to a certain point before they're planted out around the farm. 

These cropped up from acorns in the autumn leaves dropped by the huge pin oak tree in our front Pet Paddock, leaves that we rake up and use for mulch around the place. I discovered the wee trees growing amongst the tulips near our front entrance and dug them up to see if they would grow into trees we could use around the property. We're into year four now.

 

I've just picked up some acorns to see if I can get them to grow into more trees in soil and pots, without the medium of the damp, fallen leaves. Here's a photo of Mum so you can see what these are meant to grow into:

So yes, it does seem that "tall oaks from little acorns grow," even if there is debate about whether they're "tall," "mighty," or "great."  I'm also not sure how long it's going to take for these guys to resemble Mum.

Monty's Surprise Applesauce

That big basket of Monty's Surprise apples here at Struan Farm has been calling out to me. A few more apples also remain on the tree to pick, so I need to continue working away to use the bounty.

I woke up a few days ago to a wet, foggy morning, which meant the next installment of extreme weeding would be deferred until the sun started to shine. There's laundry and ironing, yes, always. But I decided to make a few batches of applesauce. When I was growing up my mother made applesauce for the family annually each autumn using her favourite "McIntosh" cooking apples, so making applesauce is nothing new to me. The apples are quartered (yes, with the peels and cores, don't worry about those) and put into a pot covered with water, then brought to a boil and simmered until soft. The cooked apples are then drained and pureed using a food mill, after which sugar and spices are added as you see fit (or not). It can then be eaten warm, kept in the fridge for a few days, or frozen.

I decided to try something a wee bit different, tossing cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise and cardamom pods into the water to infuse those spices into the cooking apples. I'm not sure it's necessarily a good thing to mess with what works, so we'll see about my little experiment.  I also decided to use golden caster sugar instead of granulated, toyed with rapadura, light muscovado, raw sugar and/or maple syrup as well. At some point I'd like to test the choice of sugar further to see what that does to the sweetness, but we don't eat all that much applesauce so it's one sugar experiment at a time.

Once the apples are pureed sugar and ground spices are added "to taste." The straight apple puree tastes good without any sugar, just not sweet. I enjoy my applesauce spicy, so I cranked up the cinnamon. It didn't taste "right" until I added just a small quantity of ground cloves, which rounded everything out for my tastebuds. I'm not sure my aromatics tossed into the pot made much if any difference, except I had to pick them out of the hot apples before I milled them. (Note to self: scratch that idea!)

Let's just say applesauce isn't the most photogenic food in the word, okay? But it tastes great. And you may or may not know that NZ's Monty's Surprise apple has considerable health benefits, with very high levels of procyanidins and quercetin flavonoid compounds. Without the jargon, research overseas has established that this apple has properties that inhibit the growth of certain cancer cells. Homemade Monty's Surprise Applesauce is incredibly good for you, especially if you keep the added sugar low or non-existent.

Mother Nature Trumps Karen

Let me say upfront that I use the word "Trump" these days with considerable caution. But anyone who thinks Mother Nature doesn't has a sense of humour needs to reconsider after hearing my story. Take my violas here at Struan Farm. Take them, please! I've been trying to grow violas from seed as part of King's Seeds edible flower mix, along with calendula, borage, nasturtium and cornflower for three years now. Violas were the only flowers that didn't grow, the seeds never germinated out in the garden. I'd given up on them.

Then this spring sister-in-law Anna arrived for a visit with a bag of white violas for the garden. She said rather quietly that they would self-seed, but then much of the flowers I plant around the place do.  I took that as a good thing and not a warning. In fact I liked them so much I decided to buy more and plant them in a ring around one of the new round flower beds at the house. They thrived and looked fantastic. I even crystallised some recently for my birthday/anniversary cake.

I now find myself on a mission to eradicate violas. They are self-seeding everywhere. I realised that this was Mother Nature playing games with me. I wasn't able to grow them, but she obviously can, in a big way!

Brainy Once Again?

A few days ago I noticed some rather large fungi cropping up at the front entrance gate here at Struan Farm. I'm meant to be planting more tulips and daffodils in the roadside wooded garden here, also some purple crocus, and was contemplating the project. It's still a bit warm to plant the tulips, but the daffodils can go in any time.

A year or so ago we had a somewhat similar fungi pop up that grew to the size of a human head. I sent a photo to Geoff Ridley, author of the invaluable field guide "Mushrooms and Other Fungi of New Zealand." He was kind enough to identify it as a Skull Puffball, "calvatica caniformis."

I'm wondering if these are the same, and have emailed him again. One cluster looks slightly different from the other, perhaps it is older or something else entirely, but there aren't the same corrugated ridges as I noticed on the previous Skull Puffball. They may be forming on the one at the bottom.

I know, you'll be holding your breath until I get to the bottom of this fungi mystery, right? You're thinking I would probably do just about anything to avoid the ironing and the weeding, maybe even those daffodils too, and you may be right on that score. But guess what? Geoff got back to me shortly after I emailed him, and they all are skull puffballs. Mystery solved!

Peachy Keen Pruning

You may recall I am supposed to be weeding the gardens here at Struan Farm, and I am getting that done, I am. But it's been warm and sunny and it's also time to prune the peach trees, so I seized the moment, along with the loppers, secateurs and pruning paste. 

We have five peach trees in our house orchard area: one Golden Queen (five or so years old), one two year old Black Boy, two young "Mrs. Preston's" gifted to us as seedlings, and one I can't remember that has been moved around twice by John now and is doing its best to recover with my tender loving care. On the other side of the drive we have a second orchard area with our Luisa plum trees, two Karen Jones' Piopio seedling peach trees, and one "June's nectarine" from Northland. So eight peach/nectarine trees in total.  I spray them all with copper in autumn and spring and we're managing to keep leaf curl at bay, mostly.

Peaches are meant to be pruned heavily in a "vase" shape to keep light and air circulating through the tree to reduce disease and help the fruit ripen. I'm always a bit hesitant about over-pruning, although I've been advised while one might impact the next season's fruiting if one is overzealous, it's pretty hard to kill them. "The Art of Mindful Gardening" refers to the "Five D's:" Dead & Dying, Diseased & Deformed, and Direction. I'm not the best with the pruning saw, so try to do what I can with secateurs and loppers, bringing in John if more major surgery is required. At the moment that sort of exercise is usually restricted to the apples given the age of our trees, and done in winter. But I take the time to do the trees in increments, one step at a time. Yes, I'm mindful.

A few "before" and "after" shots. The changes are subtle, I agree. I don't get up there on a ladder and lop the tops off, which could be done.

 

 

Cercis at Sunset

I haven't had much if any time of late to stop, look around, and enjoy the late afternoon autumn light here at Struan Farm. Until this week, when I took some time after a few stints of extreme weeding. We've had some magical days, with brilliant warm sunshine and golden light in the late afternoon as the day ends and starts to cool down.

Yesterday I grabbed my camera and walked around the gardens. I ended up sitting underneath and beside our burgundy weeping cercis, which has started to transition to autumn colours. Sunset was streaming through the leaves, and the combination of texture, line and colour was just my kind of abstract thing. Beautiful, really!

Greens, Saintlike & Other

The lettuce and spinach I started in big planters in the glasshouse for our winter salad consumption here at Struan Farm are thriving. So much so that I've already had to start the next generation, I think they call this "sequential sowing" to toss around a gardening term (or perhaps not, I could be all wet in my effort to impress you).

The lettuce is tender and sweet, and we're loving this variety of spinach, King's Seeds' "Spinach Santana."  I don't think it's related to Carlos; the word actually means "saintlike" in Spanish.

My favourite salad at the moment is Santana spinach, fresh mandarin sections, slivered almonds, low fat feta and sliced red onion with a homemade vinaigrette of lemon juice, River Estate Olive Oil, dijon mustard and a bit of honey. For more of a meal cooked chicken or salmon could be added. I'm thinking I should probably call this the "Santana Salad." We've been having the lettuce with fresh figs, shaved parmesan, almonds and the very same vinaigrette.

Getting Figgy

John and I were away from Struan Farm for a few days at the end of last week, up north for the opening of a new medical centre in Papakura. We returned to quite the harvest of figs and feijoas, so I'm back on the job of putting all this organic, homegrown fruit to use.

I've done two different things with the figs. Made several jars of Rowan Bishop's wonderfully aromatic "Spiced Figs in Brandy." While she recommends eating them with a sliver of blue cheese on crackers, we are rather partial to them warm on top of ice cream (on yogurt is good as well). The figs are poked with skewers than simmered in red wine, sugar, star anise, sumac, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, balsamic vinegar, and cloves. Brandy is added to the pot after they've simmered for an hour or so, and simmered briefly just before they're popped into sterilised bottles. I store them in the fridge.

I also decided to try the shortcake recipe I've been baking with apples and feijoas for the winter freezer stash with apples and figs instead. I figured this combination would work, but I'm sure figs alone would be good too. 

This was delicious. I used 1/2 cup of each fruit, slicing the apples and halving the figs. This is not an overly sweet cake, the sort of thing I prefer. Not sure about you!