What's going on in your garden (2024)?

Newest garden flag:

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MrsT complained she didn’t think we had any springtime ones, so I picked that out yesterday at the international market.
 
I thought I'd posted this before, but looks like I didn't. Anyway...
The plant in the picture is a bromeliad, one of the largest in the world.It was sold to me back in 1996 and is called Alcantarea Imperialis, a native of Brazil.The bromeliad itself is almost 6ft tall, just to give you an idea of the magnitude, and it only flowers after 20 years, minimum. Imagine my surprise, shock, delight, astonishment etc. when I noticed a flower appearing a couple of weeks back. This is NOT something that happens every day.
The flower has grown about 60 cms (2ft) in the past 15 days, but it hasn't stopped yet, because the full flower is 2 mts or so (6 to 7 ft) in height.
I'm off to the UK tomorrow for my granddaughter's baptism, so I hope the flower will be in full bloom when I get back.
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The raspberry harvest is starting to slow down now. Only the 275g today. There are a few more baby courgettes, 2 butternut squash, loads and loads of collard greens, potatoes and NZ yams, apples and pears as well.

The figs are pretty much done now that the temperature has dropped. They don't like the cold nights sadly.

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This one is just starting to ripen.

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But this one had a way to go yet.
 
The first of my saffron harvest. These are the stamen from 6 flowers. I'm not worried about how long the stamen are because I'm not selling them, so maximising the saffron by weight isn't an issue for me. Ordinarily, commercial saffron would have the yellow and white section cut off to increase the quality of the saffron by weight.

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Actually I hadn't planned on harvesting the saffron this year because I only moved them back last winter. They were given to me by my neighbour after she learnt her cancer was terminal and she knew I was wanting to buy some. She had already told me that we'd lift them and split them when they were dormant and she'd give me half, but then life changed.

I moved them and split the very packed bulbs whilst they were in leaf last winter. Not a good time to do it, but it had to be done then. There were around 400 bulbs once I'd split them up.

The plan was to let them settle in, but they needed a weed after the rain and then my chooks helped. These 6 flowers were damaged by the chooks, so I picked them (2 of them were a pick them up off the ground job, rather than pick them)... they are now fenced in so the chooks don't try to use the clear soil as a bathing area or dig for insects or worms which they are very prone to do on recently cleared soil. Tomorrow I'll try to weed them again before the chooks are (automatically) let out to free range. Some things are easier without the help of chickens!
 
Still far too early to do any real gardening here - I like to wait until mid-May. It’s recommended due to the hollow stems and leaves in the ground being overwintering ground for beneficial insects and bees, so I wait until they’ve all emerged to start cleaning up and preparing for the growing season.

However, I started a few veggies indoors. My jalapeño plants have finally sprouted, cayenne peppers look like they’re starting, and I just got a few of the tomatoes starting today.
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We have have had a lot of rain recently so our gardens look a mess, this afternoon we got to work on the front, lawn mowed, weeding done etc..not perfect but better. Tomorrow we tackle the back :o_o:
 
Due to the very wet weather we have been having and us being away for 2 weeks our back lawns were shockingly long so this afternoon I managed to mow, after removing 'waste', did some weeding then started to clean out the pond. Scooped out some gunk and fond something wriggly, just managed to catch it and return to the pond..we have life :hyper:
 
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