Who doesn't love Monarchs? These beauties are reliant on the home gardener for their continued lifecycle in NZ, because the food for their caterpillars - the Swan Plant - does not grow wild here, but only under cultivation. This beautiful butterfly is NZ's largest and most colourful, and it's lifecyle is fascinating to observe.

I've grown swan plants in various ways over the last few years. I quickly discovered that unless I managed the number of caterpillars on the plants (by limiting the butterfly's access to lay eggs), the food would run out, with the plants being completely devoured, leaving hungry caterpillars. Substitute foods such as pumpkin generally result in deformed butterflies, unless only fed to very mature caterpillars almost ready to pupate. 

This season, I decided to plant lots of seedling swan plants at one end of my large blueberry/strawberry patch, which is already covered in a permanent framework and netting. I also planted one seedling outside of the netting, to serve as a "birthing room" - a place where the Monarchs could lay eggs, and then once hatched, I could move a suitable number of caterpillars into the "nursery" to feed, grow and mature. Once I had enough of them, I would chop down the other plant, preventing the laying of more eggs for caterpillars I could not feed. 

Over the last few seasons I have deliberately been planting with beneficial insects in mind - I don't use sprays or chemicals, and I want to attract those creatures that help do my work for me, dealing with pest insects on my behalf. And that has worked really well! My garden is teeming with creatures, many of whom keep pests such as the white butterfly and diamondback moth larvae from decimating my brassicas, control the green loopers that would otherwise devour my tomatoes, beans, basil etc, or who eat aphids and other pests. 

*Unfortunately*, some of those beneficial insects are not choosy and will also "control" Monarch caterpillars - apparently no-one gave them the memo on not touching bugs the gardener likes! Though really, it's not so unfortunate - all living things in the environment are part of a natural ecosystem, and without natural predators etc, things get out of balance. Just as we have to have some "pests"  available as food to encourage the predators that control problems for us, also "good" bugs need to be controlled so that their numbers don't overwhelm the available food supply. 

Due, I think, to the cold, wet summer, all my plants flowered this season - both the second season plants, and the new ones. I will have lots of seed for next year! Also, the flowers drip with nectar, and are very attractive to the bees!

To date, about 30 butterflies have hatched in my garden this season. There are another 10 or so crysalises hanging about. Now we are starting to get light frosts, they may not all make it. And there are still caterpillars on the plants, which still have plenty of food. My most successful year yet! 

Monarch butterfly life cycles are fascinating to observe. In summary, they go like this:
1) Adult butterfly spots a swan plant and lays eggs on it. One female butterfly lays and average of 2-300 eggs per season, but can lay up to 1000!
2) 4-8 days later (depending on temperature) the baby caterpillar emerges - and it's tiny!
3) The mini eating machine chomps and chomps on the swan plant leaves - growing to about 2,700 times it's birth weight over 2-3 weeks, and molting 4 times during this process. 
4) The now fat, mature caterpillar will be about 5.5cm long. It's time for it to begin the metamorphosis process. It will likely crawl off the plant and look for a sheltered spot - which could be anywhere! This year mine have chosen nearby feijoa trees, the wooden framework over my garden bed, various spots on the bird netting, and some decided to stick to the swan plants. The caterpillar first produces a tightly woven silk mat, into which it hooks it's hind legs, and then hangs downwards in a classic J shape. Within 2 days, it will moult, splitting it's skin from the head end, and emerging as a pupa - the wiggling of the pupa cause the skin to wrinkle up and end up hanging from the top of the cryaslis until it falls off, and the pupa to "shrink" upwards and finally turn into the beautiful green crysalis with golden spots. This is fasinating to watch! Here's a short 2.5 min time-lapse video of the process:

5) Inside the beautiful crysalis, the butterfly is developing. This can take from 10 days to 3-4 weeks. Near the end of the time, the crysalis becomes translucent, and you can see the butterfly's wings inside it. When it is ready, the butterfly emerges from the crysalis
6) The newly hatched butterfly has a very fat abdomen and crumpled up wings. The abdomen is full of fluid. The butterfly hangs for several hours, slowly turning from side to side, pumping the fluid into the wings, and then eventually opening and closing the wings as they dry. (See pics below)
7) Once it is ready to do so, which may be the next day, or longer if it is cold and wet, the butterfly will fly off and find a source of nectar for food, and then mate and begin the new generation.  Usually, adults have a lifespan of 60-70 days, but this can extend to 6-7 months if it pupates in autumn. Adults overwinter in sheltered locations, often near the coast. 

Time for a photo tour of my garden! Over the past year, I totally haven't kept up either the garden or my usual monthly photos of it. So the past month or so has been one of trying to tame the jungle once again, and get things back in shape. I've still go a ways to go, but it's starting to look like a functional garden again! On the plus (or minus, depending how you look at it) side, the season's weather itself has been very behind too - temps are still in the single digits at night, on the 2nd of Jan we had the fire going all day, and the winds have been very strong. Now, of course, one hopes that summer will last longer to compensate, otherwise some crops won't stand a chance of maturing, but as usual, it's a game of wait-and-see, and the gardener can only do what they can and hope nature cooperates!

So, let's have a wander through the area I refer to as my vege garden - there's quite a lot to it, so I'll leave the greenhouse and other parts of the section for another day. Follow me.....this gate to the garden area is just a few metres from the door to the house. My daughter and I build this fence, arch and gate 3 years ago, to keep dogs, chickens and later ducks from the garden. The banksia rose on the high side to the left is very lush - it started out as a bedraggled nearly dead bargain plant from the garden centre. 

Note: basically everything in my garden is grown from seed. I very, very rarely buy seedlings (and haven't this year so far). I do occasionally buy small herb plants from a local lady who grows them from cuttings, which is how I got my rosemary, lavendar and oregano plants. Otherwise the only plants I buy are occasional fruit trees. I grow vines and fruiting bushes from cuttings, and some of my trees have also come from seedings or root suckers that have been gifted to me or found by my foraging son.

The path goes in three different directions. Let's take the middle path, head over to the washing lines, and turn to look over my main vege beds, and then walk a circuit around them, checking out what is growing......

The first bed, in the foreground of the above photo, was recently planted with Sweet Granite melons at the front, and Sugar Baby watermelons at the rear. In the adjacent bed, my favourite beetroot (Detroit Dark Red), are producing seed for future crops, while behind them the experimental popcorn crop is growing well (experimenting with colour genes; I've grown plenty of popcorn before), and the front edge of the bed has some extra chives in it. 

In the next row, first are two beds (below), one of which, as you can see, is completely overgrown and yet to be cleared. Between the beds is a Cox's Orange apple tree, with shallots around it's base. The second bed has recently been planted with spaghetti squash, which will climb the ladder and trellises. Two of them are also against the trellis on the side fence, the rest of which I will probably plant with climbing beans. 

This next bed (below) I'm very pleased with! I've NEVER been able to grow good cabbages, at any time of the year - they are always small and then bolt. Now I have 6 lovely Premiere cabbages with good, firm heads on them! At the other end of the bed are Mini-white caulis, and there are also spring onions (in clumps), pyrethrum (to see if it deters white butterflies), and marigolds around the edges. The rest of the bed, as you can see, currently has a "living mulch" lol of weeds - though most of them are edible! I need to get in and weed this bed, and put down some "official" mulch. I think the main difference with this bed is that since the former wooden frame was completely rotten, I dug this bed extra deeply in the process of not only weeding it, but putting in new sides with bricks laid in trenches etc, and the resulting bed was not only very well dug, but quite mounded too. Some more Quash slug bait is also needed!

Stepping back a bit and showing a wider angle of this area, you can see the empty space between my blueberry bed/cage and the Chilean Guavas pictured above. Those wooden frames are from the area my helper cleared; I'm going to lay cardboard down over this area and lay out the wooden beds, and plant them with potatoes. Behind this area is a row of feijoa bushes, mulched with more sheep's wool/dags, and underplanted with NZ spinach. The path runs behind them from by the berry patch shown above, to the paddock gate. On the other side is a row of compost bins made from pallets, underneath a large old grapevine. Behind the grapevine is my glasshouse where I start all my seeds off, but that will be shown in another post.

Old bathtubs have so many uses in the garden! And they're even better if you can put them on a stand. Fortunately my lovely, handy husband has made me two bathtub stands now - the first which is set up as a wormfarm, and then more recently, this one for my strawberries. I wanted a new bed of strawberries close to the house for easy picking - and because I've noticed that birds are less likely to bother them right in front of the house where people (and cats) are frequently visible. I do want another, bigger planting elsewhere, but with my garden in serious need of work, and some potted strawberries in need of planting out, this was a perfect project to get things under way. 

As for the bathtub itself, I first placed a broken brick over the drainhole, to keep stones out of it, then filled the bottom of the bath with a layer of stones, for drainage, covered the stones with a double layer of shadecloth (to keep soil out of the stones), covered that with a layer of home-made compost, then a layer of sheep's wool/dags from our sheep, then more compost, a sprinkling of rock dust and plant food, and topped it with some strawberry potting mix followed by plant matter I'd put through our garden shredder (mostly grapevine prunings).

And now, the berries have been producing nicely, the mint is looking lush, and the whole thing is working very well! :-). 

Life has seriously got in the way of gardening this year. But even though my garden has been almost totally neglected since February, I am amazed at the abundance of food it is producing. It's full of veges I didn't cultivate, and herbs and fruit that just keep on coming, as well as wild foods.

And it reminds me of these wise words from The Resilient Gardener by Carol Deppe:

You see, this year I planned to do plenty of gardening. To keep on top of the weeding and compost making and spreading, the planting and harvesting and pruning. But I didn't count on a series of life events that made this near impossible. This year, 4 of my 5 kids have left home and/or moved away, 1 got married, and then my dad passed away suddenly, leaving me as executor with all the responsibilities of organising his funeral, and taking care of his fairly complicated estate. On top of which, we were burgled, and my autoimmune disease has been in full flare, making every day life extra difficult. When you add in my nearly full-time responsibilities in advocating for and mentoring home educators, as well a bookkeeping for my husband's business and looking after our 65 odd animals, it's little wonder my garden has been neglected!

And yet, now I am finally spending some time in the garden, clearing beds, reclaiming the jungle, and actually doing some deliberate planting, I am so thankful that my garden, even in my essential absence, has kept right on growing food, including a lot of things I didn't plant as such. Before we take a look at what foods (and potential foods) I can find in my garden right now, let's talk about what a resilient garden is.....

To me, a resilient garden system is one that:

• Provides us with a wide array of nutrient dense foods
• Whose output (food and useful products) is considerably greater than the required inputs (time, effort, money)
• Is set up in such a way that it can survive and thrive even when the gardener is unable to tend it
• Contains plants that will keep on regenerating and producing without the direct action of the gardener
• Produces abundant viable seed that can be saved, stored, shared and replanted
• Minimises the work needed by the gardener to keep it producing well
• Whose foundation - the soil and it's life - is continuously being built and improved by the system itself
  
• Provides food, shelter and habitat for beneficial creatures that do a lot of work for the gardener by controlling pests and diseases, pollinating fruits and veges and generally improving the overall well being of the system
  

I've probably forgotten a bunch of things, or will discover more as I continue to weed and clear beds for new season planting, but as you can see, my garden has an abundance of food and other useful products, even though I've neglected it for most of the year! There are really only three things I wish would not grow in my garden - couch grass, creeping buttercup and convolvulus - the rest all have their uses! (Ok, I can use mown couch for compost, but still, I'd rather be without it!)

I'm very thankful for my edible garden, it's natural resilience, and all it's determined efforts that feed me and my family!

This month's round up of what's currently flowering in my garden. My garden is humming with bees of all kinds - honeybees, bumblebees, wool carder bees, and various natives, as well as other beneficial insects and pollinators. I'm slowly weeding and planting, and have just put in some flowering annuals, but most of what's currently flowering is still perennials or self-sown plants, or those that I planted last season. Let's take a look at what's flowering now (and a few that flowered since my October round up, but have now just finished).....

Corn (be that sweetcorn, popcorn, or flour corn) is wind pollinated, rather than pollinated by insects. For this reason, it is advisable to plant corn in blocks rather that rows, at least 4 plants across, so that when the wind blows the pollen about, it increases the chance of good pollination occurring.

We are also told to be careful about planting different varieties close together or at the same time, due to the effects of cross-pollination. I'll cover this in more detail in a moment. But first, let's quickly cover the basics of corn pollination for those unfamiliar with it.

Why do we grow corn in the home garden? For the cobs, of course. (A farmer growing it for silage cares less about the cobs, because he's going to put the entire plant through the harvester/shredder and turn it into silage, but for gardeners, it's all about the cob.) In order to get good cobs, though, we need good pollination.

A gardener can aid pollination by picking tassels off the top of the plant and wiping them over the silks, or by gently shaking the plants to encourage the drop of pollen.

When one variety of corn is pollinated by pollen from another variety, this is called cross-pollination.

With other species of vegetables, let's say pumpkins, where cross pollination happens easily - in the case of pumpkins when bees visiting the flowers are carrying pollen from other related varieties -  cross-pollination is not of concern to the pumpkin grower if he's only wanting to grow and eat the pumpkins, which will be unaffected, but IS of concern if he's wanting to save seeds from those pumpkins to grow the next year. That is because the seeds that form inside the pumpkins as a result of pollination will carry the DNA of both that plant and the one it was pollinated by, which if it's a different variety means the pumpkins grown from those seeds will not be true to type, and may turn out to be quite different from what the grower wants, even inedible.

However, for plants where pollination produces seed and it's the seed we eat, as in this case corn, then cross pollination by different varieties can affect the "vegetable" itself, as it is the seed we want and eat. (Technically, corn is a grain, not a vegetable). That is, the kernels on the cob are in fact the plant's seeds, and we want them to be true-to-type. If, for example, a sweetcorn plant is pollinated by a popcorn plant, the popcorn will be fine, but the sweetcorn will be have drier, tougher kernels and potentially not be nice to eat. Generally, the tougher/drier types of corn tend to be dominant over the sweetcorn types.

So, to avoid this occurring, gardeners have 3 main choices:
1) Grow only one variety each season
2) Stagger planting so that each different type flowers at different times - this usually means planting 4-6 weeks apart. Further precaution would be to remove any remaining tassels from the first variety before the second one's silks emerge (by with time the first one should have been well pollinated - you could wipe the removed tassels across it's own silks for good measure)
3) Isolate by distance - but since corn pollen can float in the air for huge distances, this is usually impractical in the home garden, though isolating by means of a large structure may help - eg planting one variety on one side of the house, and a different one on the other.

If you don't take any of these measures and grow more than one variety at the same time, then you risk having results different then you hoped for - eg tough sweetcorn. At least that's the theory. I have heard some gardeners say they've grown popcorn and sweetcorn next to each other, and the sweetcorn was fine. However, the science of it says that the sweetcorn, of cross pollinated by the popcorn, will be tougher. Here's the scientific explanation for those who want deeper understanding:

The proper development of corn kernels requires double fertilization — that is, two sperm (carried in the pollen) are required to fertilize an ovule. One of the sperm fertilizes the egg within the ovule, which becomes the plant embryo. The other sperm fuses with other nuclei in the ovule to become the endosperm of the seed, which will develop into a food source for the developing plant. The endosperm makes up the majority of a corn kernel, which is why the genetics of the pollen source matter so much. In contrast, there is very little endosperm in the seeds of other garden plants, which instead put all of their resources into developing the cotyledons (seed leaves). (1)

All of the alleles responsible for sweet corn are recessive, so it must be isolated from other corn, such as field corn and popcorn, that release pollen at the same time; the endosperm develops from genes from both parents, and heterozygous kernels will be tough and starchy. (2). Allele = one member of gene pair, such as will be found in the egg or sperm of a mammal, or the pollen or ovule of a plant. Heterozygous = having two different alleles for the same gene (usually one is dominant and the other is recessive).

On the other hand, deliberately allowing different coloured corn of the same type (eg both popcorn or both sweetcorn) to cross pollinate can result in some interesting and fun results. In this case, though, the results of the cross won't be immediately obvious. This is because the science for this part is a little different:

The outer coat of the corn kernel is called the pericarp, and the pericarp is where the colour is - eg you can have yellow popcorn or red popcorn, but if you pop them both, the insides of each are white - the colour is only in the pericarp, or hull. The colour of the pericarp is determined only by the genetics of the mother (female plant part, ie ear). This means that the cobs resulting from the immediate cross will be coloured according to the genetics of the plant on which it is growing, but the cobs on plants grown from seeds saved from those are carrying the genetics from both parents and so can show variety.

Let me show you that in practical reality.....

Now, if I were to grow a patch of corn using the kernels from these mixed-colour cobs, what colour would the offspring cobs be? Well, that depends.....on which kernel the plant comes from and the genes it contains, along with the genes of the pollen that pollinates it's silks. Remember your high school genetics:
Parents 1 & 2  has two genes for colour - one dominant and one recessive shown as Pp.
Pp crosses with Pp
Possible offspring are:
PP, Pp, Pp and pp
One has two dominant genes, two have one dominant and one recessive, and one has two recessive genes. In theory, 3 of the offspring will be the dominant colour, and one will be the recessive colour.
But in my corn it gets more complicated - there are three colours here, and each colour kernel potentially has a number of different combinations. And of course it will depend which colours are actually dominant. And which plant's pollen pollinates each one.

So, I actually wasn't going to grow popcorn this year, but this is just too much interesting fun to pass up! I will update on the results in autumn!

So, what are YOUR experiences with corn cross pollinating? Have you had tough sweetcorn due to also growing popcorn or flour corn varieties? Or do you believe there was no effect? Have you specifically bred for colour? How did that turn out? Leave a comment so others can learn from your experiences too!

A quick whip-round with the camera to see what's flowering in my garden at the moment. Flowering plants are not only pretty, but essential for attracting and feeding bees and other beneficial insects.

Last month was bee awareness month, with people counting bees, being encouraged to plant wildflowers and so on. Bees and other pollinators are very important for good production; some crops will not produce without them. My garden has been very neglected for most of this year, due to a multitude of things going on, I'm just starting to work on it once again.

So, anything that is flowering now is either a perennial, a weed, a vegetable that's gone to seed, or self-sown! Let's take a look at what's out there....

What flowers are in your garden now? What are you planting? To see some pics of 10 flowering plants that were attracting lots of bees and beneficials in my garden one January, as well as a list of what else was flowering, click HERE. It might give you some ideas of what to plant now for summer flowers!

Autumn is well upon us, but it's not too late to plant crops for winter eating. Some things, like brassicas, should mostly have been planted by now, and be fairly well established, though there are a few that are worth trying now. But this is the perfect time to plant those crops that prefer the cooler months. You might also try putting in some more brassicas, but until you know if that works in your garden, don't count on them as a major winter crop if planting now.

The following is my list of what I can sow/plant in my garden in April. Where you live may have different conditions, but this could be a good starting point for you to investigate or experiment to see what does well in your garden when planted in April.

Keep in mind, for a lot of plants growth slows to almost a complete halt once the daylight length gets below 10 hours a day. So it's important to get plants established enough before winter to provide edibles over winter, when new growth isn't really happening.  

There's a lot to do in the garden in April! Apart from preparing beds and sowing or planting the above, some of the key tasks might include:

• Clearing away spent plants and weeds
  
• Spreading compost/manure/mulch on beds
• Covering beds that will not be used over winter with thick mulch and/or a light-excluder such as old carpet or black plastic
• Harvesting and preserving/storing produce - in my garden that's mainly pumpkins, watermelons, quince, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, beetroot, spaghetti squash, nasturtiums, some late berries & grapes, marrows, late sweetcorn and chestnuts
• Collecting and drying seeds from flowers and herbs
• Cutting and drying herbs (if you wish - I don't generally bother as there are plenty of fresh herbs available in the garden all year round).
• Pruning away spent raspberry canes and bramble vines (blackberry/boysenberry)
• Making compost piles  - as much as you can!
• Prune and mulch citrus - and feed if in warmer areas (not down south)
• Sharpening up the pruning tools and making a list of what needs pruning when - pruning done at the right time, a lot of it in winter, sets plants and trees up for good producing next season.

So, happy April gardening! What will you be planting?

I like growing food. I believe passionately that home grown is best - free of nasty chemicals, and as fresh as it gets, plus growing your own is a way of being less reliant on *the system*. But I have a problem. And today it occurred to me there is a parallel in the housekeeping word. Are you familiar with the 3 Sisters - Mt Washmore, Mt Drymore and Mt Foldmore? I've always found it easy (if never ending!) to wash dirty laundry and hang it out to dry, then bring it in. But the folding and putting away stage is something many of us put off - and the pile grows and grows.

In the garden, I find I like growing things. I don't mind looking after them. I don't mind harvesting, but it's the next stage that is my problem....IF I harvest things and bring them in, then I have to DO something with them. Unfortunately, unlike clean laundry, harvested produce can't just sit in a pile for weeks until I get around to it...it will deteriorate, in some cases quickly and messily, if not properly stored or processed. It's not like I don't know how - I spent years storing or preserving every bit of fresh produce I could get my hands on to feed my growing family - and I derived a great deal of satisfaction from it. But these days I just seem to have an attitude problem - an "I don't wanna" attitude. Maybe it's because my family is fast growing up and doesn't go through as much food as they used to. Maybe it's because our diets have become more complicated due to health issues and food sensitivities. Maybe it's just being too busy. I know part of the problem is after I process the food I have to find somewhere to PUT it - always a major challenge in this little old house with minimal storage.

But when I see all the wonderful produce we are blessed with, I feel guilty for my attitude! I know I should be grateful (and I am!) to have room to grow and fresh produce available. Processing, serving, or storing it is just a part of that.

So I need to overcome this attitude problem. Anyone have any practical suggestions? My favourite fantasy at the moment is to find some lovely person/couple who wants to live in, process all my produce and take part in the chores, in return for food and board. Or maybe someone who wants to live out, come and help a couple of days a week, in return for a share of the food. Or to find seeds for magical plants that deliver themselves pre-packaged ready to store on shelves that they grow themselves. Or just to put my big-girl britches on, find a few extra hours in the day, and get everything done. Not sure which of the above is the biggest fantasy! ;-)

Meanwhile, I did roll up my sleeves enough today to go and pick a few things. (See photo above - the marrows were harvested a while ago but have been sitting in a wheelbarrow waiting for me to deal with them. The rest was picked today). Now to get the wild venison roast rolled up in bacon and into the oven while I go deal with everything I've harvested so far......(see captions below photos for details)

Another lovely little allium I grow in my garden that is super easy care are bunching shallots. I don't know their proper variety name, as my first ones were given to me as bulblets by a friend, and I was simply told they were "bunching shallots." Mine are red-skinned and have a pinkish-tinge to the flesh.

Each year in late winter/early spring, I plant some bulblets in a row wherever I have space, saved from the previous year's crop. I bury them up to the neck in the prepared garden beds. When preparing my garden beds I usually add a spreading of compost, perhaps a sprinkling of rock dust and sheep pellets, and a fresh layer of woodchip mulch. I don't do anything special in addition to this for the shallots.

They sprout fine green leaves - similar to large chives in appearance. As the season progresses, the plant will develop a rosette of small shallot bulbs, held together at the bases. Mine usually number between 3 and 7 in a bunch. The bulbs tend to develop on or close to the soil surface - by the time the greens have died off completely, there is an easy to lift bunch of shallots just sitting there waiting.

After letting the harvested bulbs sit in a tray for a few days, I clean them up by removing a layer or so of the outer "skins" and trimming the roots, separating the bulbs at the same time. I then lay them out on a fresh tray, and leave them to finish drying somewhere cool and airy. I put the tray up on some blocks to ensure air flow underneath. They store pretty well - though best kept in cool, low humidity conditions. If only I had a root cellar!

Shallots are well worth growing - start with a few bulblets purchased or from friends, and then build up your numbers by saving a few more each year to plant.