I've got two hazelnut trees that I planted in the first year that I arrived here. They are yet to produce any nuts but I'm starting to feel hopeful that this will be the year. The long male flowers look beautiful on the trees that have mostly lost their leaves now. Not knowing much about nut growing on these trees I've just checked on Google, as you do, and found that hazelnuts flower in winter, spreading pollen from the male flowers to the smaller female flowers, which fertilise and grow nuts in spring. I'll have to go back to my tree and check for these female flowers to know if I could be getting nuts come November. Exciting thinking that this spring a few more of my trees may kick into production!!
Sometimes , when I'm running around being busy, I miss noticing whats going on, but this weekend with the beautiful sunshine, I did slow down a bit and the cherry tree took my attention. The foliage is a beautiful shade of orangey red and makes a striking contrast against the mostly green background. Another thing I noticed, thanks to my chicken clean up crew, was another pumpkin emerging from the front garden. Last week I let the chooks into a new area where pumpkins had been running wild all summer and they unearthed one and to my surprise they unearthed a second hidden one. Both of them fairly small but soup size so all good!!
Saturday I decide it was time to clean out my greenhouse. I had noticed signs of rodents including a couple of big burrows and scurrying whenever I opened the door. Time to get something done about them. It's always amazing, once you've decided to tackle a project, how long it doesn't take you. I had been putting off getting this job done but once started it only took me the morning. Felt great to be on top of the chaos. Now just have to remember to put some traps in there.
During spring I had planted some turmeric in to small cups to see how they went. I wish now that I had put them all in larger pots as they took off quite well. When the plants die off it's time for harvest. While I wasn't expecting anything I could take to the kitchen, I did find that at least one of the plants had a root that I reckon would have given me usable turmeric if only I'd potted it up a bit. Excited for next season! I've made a note in the diary to start off some more plants inside in July and see what I can grow next year.
Sunday I decided to really get going tidying up the front veggie patch. Important to get all the dropped tomatoes picked up and feed to the chickens before too many more seeds are added to random spots. I had quite a few volunteer plants this year so don't want that number to explode next year! Yes I could always pull them out as I see them, but it's just something else to do and I'm not always that diligent!!
Thats it from me - enjoy your week xx
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