Author Archives: lyndahallinan

I’ve been in panic mode this week. I’ve been trying to tackle all the weeds in my garden before the ladies from the Clevedon Garden Circle come to visit on Wednesday. (I’m sure I wouldn’t be worrying half as much if it was just called the Clevedon Garden Club, but somehow ‘circle’ makes it sound so much more official. I’m half expecting the ladies to turn up in floral hats with matching handbags and posh packed lunches of cucumber sandwiches and tiny squares of Louise Cake.)

Anyway, as well as weeding, I’ve been mulching. What a difference it makes! It’s like sweeping all the dust under the carpet. I’ve used a truckload (literally) of Living Earth’s More than Mulch. It’s made from recycled untreated packing pallets, chipped and coloured with a natural black dye, then mixed with 20 per cent compost. It’s very spiffy stuff! Here’s a few more pics:

I didn’t think I could grow citrus successfully in Hunua, as when I moved here, there was only one citrus tree in the garden and it was the saddest, most miserable looking ‘Meyer’ lemon you could imagine. I think we got one lemon off it that first winter. Our garden isn’t just frosty, it’s largely south-facing, making those frosts even more frosty, if you get my gist.

When we were carving the hill below our house into terraces, we ummed and ahhed over whether to keep the scungy lemon tree (and a non-fruiting feijoa) or rip them out. I felt a stab of pity for the citrus tree and figured I’d give it another year, with a bit of care, to prove its worth. (As part of the landscaping, we’d also pulled out a shelter belt that was casting quite a bit of shade over it.)

After a good feed and a stern talking to, it has had a Lazarus-like recovery. We got at least 100 lemons off it last winter and there are hundreds more developing this year. Buoyed by its change of heart, I had a change of heart too and planted a whole citrus grove last August. Four days later it snowed and killed the tops off all my trees. Ain’t that always the way? I sense potted trees that can be shifted under the wide porch across the front of our stables may be the best long term solution.

See below for my ‘How to Grow’ citrus video for The Living Channel.

I’ve never been the silent type, so if you’re wondering why I’ve gone a bit quiet on the blogging front lately, it’s because (a) I’m writing a book that’s due at the publishers next month, (b) I’m writing NZ Gardener’s special edition on roses (we’re launching it at the Ellerslie Flower Show), (c) Lucas has mastered the art of crawling and that means I can only write half a sentence before he manages to make his way from his bedroom (on one side of the house) to the cat biscuit bowl (his current fascination) or to the stairs (his other current obsession) and (d) the Clevedon Garden Circle is coming to visit next month and my garden is a shambles. There are more weeds than flowers… which means every spare minute must be spent in the garden.

On the plus side, all those weeds are fabulous free fodder for my triple-bay compost system, which you can check out in the video below. Happy composting!

And now, back to the book!

I can never quite believe how nice my vege patch looks on tv. Here’s a segment on my favourite easy summer veges from The Living Channel.

And that reminds me, it’s time to save the seeds from my red-flowered broad bean. I also harvested my red mustard seeds today. I’m going to have a crack at making my own corn chips with homegrown mustard and poppy seeds for a bit of extra flavour instead of flaxseeds.

The rain this week has made a right mess of my garden. The dahlias are bedraggled, the roses ruined. I figured my berry bushes would be sad and soggy too, but I was wrong. I just picked the first 1kg of sweet ‘Thornless Jewel’ boysenberries from our orchard. I’ll have to pick them daily from now on because my bird netting isn’t all it should be: in fact there must be a border collie sized gap at one end because our dog somehow managed to get stuck under it.

I just love this time of the year, even if I get nothing done outside (or indoors on this blog!). I always go out into the garden with the best of intentions to get stuck into all those pressing spring chores, to weed, plant and sow… only to find myself wandering around absentmindedly, sinking my nose into the first roses, admiring the rhododendrons, ooh-aah-ing over the sweet peas and poppies and lovely blue larkspurs. (Mind you I have to lean in on an angle to admire anything, as Lucas has just discovered that he can pull the petals and leaves off anything within reach.)

It has been ages since I’ve had a garden full of flowers as well as food. I’ve been giving my secateurs a workout by snipping buckets of blooms to take indoors. If you’ve got roses and perennials (the verbenas, aquilegias, carnations and lacy white Orlaya grandiflora are my favourites at the moment), you really don’t need any floristry skill either. Just take an old jug and cram it full of whatever you’ve got. Or, even better, take every jug in your house…

I just couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve been itching, and fair scratching, to dig up some of my new season’s spuds to see what, if any, action was going on underground. So when Jason wasn’t looking (he’s come over all territorial about these orderly rows of tubers), I snuck out with the spade and dug the last plant up from the first row of ‘Jersey Benne’ potatoes. The plants have only just started to flower but they’re ready to eat: I hauled eight waxy white tubers out of the soil. We boiled them with sprigs of fresh mint and ate them straight out of the pot.

The pink tubers are the self-sown sprogs of the third-generation ‘Desiree’ potatoes that keep coming up in my asparagus bed. I thought I’d defeated them last summer, but I was wrong. At least we got a free feed from them.

And the little dark purple marbles are ‘Purple Heart’. Guess they’re still a while off yet.

Turn your back on spring asparagus at your peril. It has taken my asparagus bed four weeks to produce its first four spears. But tonight I picked 13 finger-fat ‘Pacific Purple’ spears (one was 30cm long!) for dinner – we ate it steamed, with fresh egg pasta, smoky bacon and parmesan cheese – and there are another 21 spears still out there, poking their heads out of the soil. Guess what we’ll be having for dinner tomorrow night… and the next night… yum! 

Ps. In case you’re wondering, the answer is yes: purple asparagus, like purple beans, loses its colour when cooked. It doesn’t turn completely green though, more like a greeny-purple.

I haven’t had any time for blogging this week; we’re up to our eyeballs at work finishing Homegrown Flowers (if you order it now, you can get it for just $11).  So here’s a pic (click on the picture to get a better look) of all the homegrown flowers in my garden this morning. (One of the joys of being horribly late getting my bulbs in over winter is that I’ve still got loads of daffs in bloom now.) The tulips have been particularly stunning this spring; I’m amazed how well they’ve stood up in the torrential rain we’ve had this week. The bluebells and forget-me-nots under our liquidambars are gorgeous; my globe artichokes are delicious; and all my peaches, plums and cherries are blossoming.

Meanwhile, in the vege garden, we’re going to have enough spuds to feed half the local community. Inspired by all the furrowed fields in the market gardens around Pukekohe, I just can’t stop planting them! 12 bags to date… it will be interesting to see which varieties do best. I’ve put in ‘Jersey Benne’, ‘Cliff’s Kidney’, ‘Purple Heart’, ‘Ilam Hardy’ and two new varieties from Tui called ‘Moi Moi’ and ‘Summer Delight’.

It’s incredible how quickly everything takes off after a couple of nights of heavy rain. My lettuces have gone from scrawny seedlings to big-headed beauties (better start eating them). And I’m as pleased as punch with the progress we’ve made planting everything in rows around the lawn. But I really wish I’d stood my ground in the discussion (translation: argument) that my darling husband and I had over the design of our vege garden.  He was adamant that I was not allowed to plant right up to the edge of the rock wall around the lawn, because otherwise we’d end up leaving muddy tracks all over the lawn every time we lugged a load of compost down there, or pushed the wheelbarrow, or dragged the hose along. So instead we’ve got an ugly (but practical) 40cm strip down the side… that’s slowly filling up with weeds… except those weeds are all self-sown wildflowers, and I can’t bring myself to pull out free plants, so I guess I’ll get my way in the end.

I’m so glad I took this photo of the cherry blossom tree in the bed beside our front door yesterday. For weeks it has been sporadically spitting out the odd blossom, but at the weekend it was as if every bud suddenly burst open at once. It was magnificent. Was being the operative word. After a day of wild, wet, windy weather here, there’s barely a blossom left on its branches. Ah well, at least the rock wall under the cherry tree looks quite pretty in its candyfloss pink coat.