How superb are these .. the fruit not the flowers!

What are feijoas? They are an evergreen, perennial shrub originally from South America that has delicious perfumed fruit which are ready for eating anytime from March/April. They are absolutely divine raw, or in jam, muffins or topped with crumble and cream. Yum! They arrived in NZ around the 1920s … of course being a kiwi,  I have grown up with them in the backyard as have many New Zealanders. The possums at our place are also growing up with them in their backyard … and believe me , I’m not happy about sharing my fruit with these guys!

The weather by the way, is gorgeous. Morning haze, followed by crystal blue skies and autumn hues, which believe me inspires all gardeners!

Not a bad kumara crop …

I hauled out the kumara last weekend. Ferreting around in the soil, I dug out about 12kg of wonderful tubers, with one weighing in at 873g. Gorgeous specimen it is too. Kumara are a little power pack being high in potassium, antioxidants and having on board vitamin A, C & E. We had roast for dinner last night … wonder what we ate baked?

Back to the bed. Given the amount of rain we had last week, I couldn’t believe how dry the soil was nor how few worms were in this space. But this was soon remedied with loads of composted horse pooh which was chocka with worms.

As I grow different varieties of garlic each season, I like to pop signs up to designate the rows …  this year there were heritage varieties of Rocambole and Kakanui which I had purchased, plus loads of splendid homegrown bulbs all acclimatised to our environ.

Rocambole clove …

I used to grow Elephant garlic – which by the way doesn’t need any TLC, is a prolific producer of massive bulbs which are mild and less intense than normal garlic. As Elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks I’m guessing that it probably doesn’t have all the wonderful medicinal properties of garlic.

So I poked into the soil a grand total of 188 cloves – 76 into the raised bed up the hill and 112 into RB4 which by the way has beautiful soil, loaded with worms and lots of organic matter which garlic like. Yay! I do know from previous experience that the best crop will come from the second garden.

Yacon flowers looking super in the autumn sunshine

In another post a few months back I mentioned Yacons which we have planted. They are in the sunflower family and have a tuber which looks much like a Jerusalem artichoke. They are so easy to grow, just plant them and leave them to it.The bed that they are residing in again has loads of organic material and is in an area with its own microclimate. The plants are just starting to flower now and those tubers are developing nicely … so we will start harvesting the odd tuber from now on. Originating in Peru (another super import) this tuber is very nutritional, and tastes sweetish, although in saying that you can boil, steam and bake them, or enjoy it raw on salads or in smoothies.
So, camera in hand I pulled back the greenery today to gloat at the tubers busting out of the ground! This is going to be some crop.

Lots of smoothies here!

Happy gardening …