Garden Produce

Yesterday I had a visitor to Pine Haven. A very savvy, fruit tree and plant expert. Jack and I share and swop stories of bugs eating our fruit and vegetables and what to do about it. He offers me advice and solutions and I do the same. We are both organically minded and do not want to use chemicals to ward off the bugs. Recently in the mail, I received a notification that our property is to undergo an audit sometime during April and July. Due to fact that we are breeders, all precautionary measures must be taken to ensure the livestock we keep and reproduce is of the highest standard. I’ve never had this before, but going through the checklist they provide, I’m confident I meet the criteria as I ticked all the boxes. It seems that first and foremost the concern is about pesticides used on vegetable patches and chemicals used to treat termites long ago, which have since been banned. Jack and I took a walk around the garden as we usually do each time he visits and I showed him what is growing and what’s not. We picked beans and chomped on them as we discussed the type of passion fruit I was growing. At long last the passionfruit vine is thriving. I’m excited to see the fruit and enjoy lots of yummy things with it. The snow peas are doing well but the baby marrows are struggling. It looks like they are being attacked by lady bugs. The capsicum’s are edible but very small and appear stunted. This doesn’t bother me as they will get used irrespective. Finally the tomato plant is reproducing some fruit and I picked a small bunch off the vine to ripen indoors. The chilli tree is just the star of the show. Each time we go to pick, I pick at least two dozen chillies. The nectarine tree worried me for a bit as I think I made a mistake planting it where I did, but it’s doing okay. I commented to Jack how proud I was of my fruit trees. The orange tree has scale on it and caterpillar’s and grasshoppers think it’s their grocery cupboard. I’ll have to keep an eye on that one. I have two oranges on the tree now. The trunk of the tree is solid and strong and I think in years to come, we will enjoy much fruit from this tree. The pickings from the garden are growing at a wonderful rate. As I filled a basket this time, I smiled and thought how rewarding this is. Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace and Grace was a little girl who never washed her face. My mother taught me this proverb long ago and I know now that gardens, be they vegetable, fruit or flowers are labours of love. They take time and patience to develop but if you stick it out, you will never be sorry.