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I have almost finished pruning the grapes. This task has dragged on longer than I’d hoped, partly due to all the rain we’ve been having, and partly because it has taken me a long time to fight my way through the tangled mass of vines. Last winter, we were foolish enough to neglect this task, and ended up with a mass of rampant grape vines bearing hardly any fruit. What a waste! When we moved onto the Farmlet, one white grape and three purple grapes were already well established along the fence bordering the house paddock. They are good varieties, and should bear lots of delicious fruit if we look after them properly! This year, we were determined to do our best with them.

Pruned grape vine

Having never pruned grapes before, I looked out the window a couple of weeks ago at the overgrown mass of vines, and felt very conscious of my inexperience in this matter. The following excerpt from The Encyclopedia of Country Living made me feel more hopeful about the probable outcome of the pruning:

An early settler planted a grape vineyard. It grew fine for several years, but eventually the settler moved on and the vines were left and the vines were left unpruned and neglected. Eventually they grew out of site and rambled along the ground. The grapes were poor in quality and out of reach. A new owner bought the property with the intent of raising livestock and pack animals in the forgotten fields. A year or two later the animals had nibbled back all of the vines. Thereafter the vines returned and fruited magnificently. The moral: Any ass can prune a grapevine.

Based on advice from a neighbour, and the instructions in The Encyclopedia of Country Living (which are beautifully simple and to-the-point), I set out with a rough idea of how to prune “European variety” grapes. The goats have been the happy recipients of any grape prunings that still had leaves on them. Of course, I’ve been finding that my nice neat pruning intentions are rather challenged by the tangle of vines I’m working with. They have snaked their way up trees and through the grass. I’ve heard that it is possible to over-prune grapevines, resulting in increased leafy growth and less fruit the following season. For that reason, I’m not pruning the grapes quite as hard as I might. Perhaps the vines will fruit better if I put off the last of the “taming and renovation” project until next winter? In any case, we hope that eventually the effort of pruning will be rewarded with an abundant harvest of delicious grapes.

Imagine you are visiting the Farmlet: As you come through the gate into the house paddock and head for our front door, there is a narrow strip of garden running along to your left, between the concrete footpath and the side of the house. (There are now vegetable beds on the other side of the path.) When Kevin and I moved onto the Farmlet in March 2006, this was the only area of cultivated garden on the entire place. Through the first autumn and winter, while we worked on preparing more space for our vegetable gardens, we crammed as many vegetable plants as we could into that little strip of garden. It has produced all kinds of vegetables over the past year, from celery, collards, kale and swiss chard, to peppers, potatoes and garlic. By now, we have more space available elsewhere for planting vegetables, so we have started converting this strip of garden that runs along our entrance path for another purpose.

Path between “entrance” garden and veggie beds

Because this entrance garden is on the eastern side of the house, it gets plenty of sunlight, especially in the mornings. Also, because it is close against the downhill side of the house, it is protected from any cold currents of frosty air coming down the hill. It’s an excellent site for frost tender plants that might be marginal for our climate if grown in more exposed parts of the house paddock. We hope that one day the house will be lined with a row of perennial fruit trees (mostly frost-tender sub-tropicals), inter-planted with a few herbs and flowers for ground cover and extra colour.

At the moment, a few vestiges of the vegetable garden still remain — some swiss chard and the occasional potato. These will eventually be phased out, as the garden transforms. Already in the garden are a passionfruit vine (for which we need to erect a trellis on the fence next to the gate), a pepino, two young tamarillo plants, a red hibiscus and a couple of perennial chili peppers. A couple of days ago, I added a naranjilla to the mix. I’ve started all these plants from seed, except for the naranjilla, which we picked up from a local nursery. It’s fun to be on the lookout for more tasty morsels to propagate or plant in this sheltered garden.

It seems like time for an update on the state of our vegetable garden. Parts of the veggie garden are still looking very scruffy, with late summer crops dying, and/or going to seed. Other areas are bursting with new Autumn plantings, or offering up long-awaited goodness.

Red cabbage

We are having a long, mild autumn here, and are still picking bell peppers, as well as a few last miserable looking tomatoes (they taste fine!). With the changing season, we are now enjoying lots of delicious leeks and beets, as well as greens such as swiss chard, garden cress, and mustard lettuce. Also, we recently harvested the first of our autumn crops of turnips and sugarsnap peas. Yum!

Peas

As last season’s collard greens and kale go to seed, it is gratifying to see little collard, broccoli, and red cabbage seedlings thriving in newly mulched beds. We are amazed at the improvement in soil structure in the garden beds after just one growing season. As we replant, we are adding lime and sometimes gypsum, and mulching heavily with dried-out kikuyu to protect the soil and improve the tilth.

Also planted and thriving: more leeks, beets and green onions. Salsify, peas and cilantro.

Leek

Big failure: Carrots. We got a good strike on both batches, but all got eaten by mystery pests. I suspect slugs, but Dad says it might have been woodlice. We’d really like some carrots, so will try again with more coffee grounds sprinkled about as a slug deterrent.

Jobs to do: Clear out dying summer crops, and prepare the remaining beds. Put some of our scavenged weed mat around the edges of the newer beds to the north of the house. They are a weedy mess without it! Start onion seed, and more turnips. Plant corn salad and miner’s lettuce for tasty winter salads.

We have harvested our first pepinos. There were only two of them this year, but we hope to have a better harvest next season when the plant is more mature. I started our pepino plant from seed in the spring, and have been watching the fruit ripen with great anticipation.

Pepino

We think the pepino fruit look a bit like pretty yellow and purple Easter eggs, so this is surely the right season to be eating them! They are a member of the solanaceae family (a relative of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants), with delicious flesh that tastes like something between a cucumber and a sweet melon. This refreshing taste has earned them the name “cucumber melon” or “tree melon.”

Kevin and I never saw any pepinos when we were living in the US, although I’m sure they must be growing in some warmer parts of the country. This little harvest was Kevin’s first chance to taste one. It turns out that he enjoys them as much as I do, so we are planning to start more pepino seeds in the spring. Pepino plants are easy to start from seed, but are quite frost tender. I’ve planted ours in the shelter of the house, to give it the best possible chance of surviving the winter. Actually, we are working on transforming the sheltered bed next to the house into a space for frost-tender perennials: pepinos, a tamarillo, perennial chilis, and perhaps some other treats as well.