Medieval inspirations and fruit trees
A new format! Exciting
Hello everyone! I’m moving into a new format, because a lot of these posts were becoming 3/4s of the ‘how to garden’ paid posts, and this is supposed to be more of a digest of what’s going on. Hope you like, always open to feedback.
What I’m obsessing over this week
The Edible Garden Catalogue, because everyone is starting to think about their fruit trees. I miss paper catalogues. Find the download here (just scroll down a bit and it’s the button marked “Catalogue 2024”). When reading this catalogue, you can almost taste the fruit, and believe that you should grow an Almond tree. It is the stuff of Plans.
There is a full write up on how to select edible trees for your garden in our paid section, Very Good Gardening.
What staff learnt about this week
Our weekly focus was What To Wear, because we have two new gardeners settling in this week- Catherine and Mish.
Highlights: Ski gear always seems to win. It is waterproof, warm, and usually has zip vents so you don’t overheat. It is also available in op shops, so you can get a full kit of weatherproof gear for about $40. My Kathmandu ski pants have lasted me 9 years. The winner on the day was waterproofing spray, which everything is marinated in every few months regardless of how weatherproof it claimed to be in-store.
Lowlights: I don’t understand why we always have to weigh up the ability to move with weatherproofing. Claire pointed out she has, after 12 years, stopped wearing her heavy always-waterproof ex council rain gear because it’s just too heavy, she is going for very lightweight jackets again; I am in my second year of hating lightweight jackets and am happy with the heavier, yet always dry, gear at the moment.
Where we are shopping: You can always buy work boots for $70ish at the Bata Store in Owhiro Bay, and the boots are fantastic; Kathmandu comes in a close second if we are feeling spendy but almost all of our recommended gear is from op shops, because between thorns, tears, dirt and rain we will destroy everything. In terms of staying dry and wind proof, the only thing better than one very good new jacket is three pretty good op shop jackets on rotation.
Interesting events coming up
Saturday 27 & Sunday 28 April
Bolton St Cemetery has a First World War Memorial Walk, both entrances have maps which will guide you to graves of people who served in WWI and contains some of their stories. This is something I think I might actually be able to drag non-gardening male family members to…(self guided, so any time between 8am-5pm either day) more info here
Sunday 28 April
Linden and Tawa Community Gardens both have an open day, complete with BBQ. 1pm - 3pm, more details here
Discover How the Plants of Ōtari Defend Themselves, at Ōtari Wilton’s Bush. This is a cool one to learn more about our natives. 2-3:30pm, more details here
An interview with a gardening legend
I’ve started interviewing one Famous To Me person a week, someone who either informs my gardening practice directly, or parasocially! If you know someone who you would like to see interviewed, get in touch by popping a comment in this post, or email wellington.gardener@gmail.com.
This week: Charly. I adore Charly, whose interests involve cats, accounting, and feeding people. I became far too obsessed with alliums for Charly, and I managed to source some less-than-delicious old vegetables for her also. A few summers ago, I delivered her some skirret, a perennial carrot-type thing, which is only as skinny as it is hard to clean, and as tasteless as it is harvestable…
What are you known for?
Cooking medieval feasts. I run the kitchen at Medieval re-enactment camps, and cook feasts at other times, cooking for between 10 and 100 people at a time. This year I am going to the Oxford Food Symposium to learn new things.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m moving towards different cultures of historical food. Last summer I did Iraqi 11th Century feasts, I’ve just bought some books on 14th C Egyptian and Andaluthian cuisine. (Zoe’s note: Andalusia is where Spain meets Morocco. I did a lot of googling.)
They used a lot of fruits in their meat dishes- dates, eggplant. The oranges they used are sour, like Sevilles, so although we have a lot of modern, similar food, it tasted very different back then. Some recipes call for 11 onions, because in Medieval times they were more bland. It takes me a lot of time to find the right ingredients or alter the recipes so they still taste right.
What gardening thing is occupying your mind lately?
Dwarf fruit trees- a mini orchard. The front garden is east facing, it only gets morning sun. The rear garden only gets the afternoon sun, so I’ve been trying to work out what I can plant in my tiny garden.
I heard that Apples are best getting morning sun, as it dries out the dew and stops mildew problems.
Zoe’s note- Let’s look at this! Apples-
Don’t get an apple on dwarf rootstock, they hate it. Rootstock that produces medium sized trees are great, they still don’t get too big.
Kentish Fillbasket is an old variety which can be used for cooking and storing, both extremely important to medieval times.
Dayton, Hetlina, and Mother are all fantastic options- they are beautiful, delicious apples which will present well as apples were a bit of a ‘boast’ in medieval times- treats which everyone looked forward to.
Court Pendu Plat is a medieval apple, but I haven’t seen it for sale for a long time.
YES, plant it on the East side for the morning sun, along with citrus.
Charly is in Masterton, which is a spot kinder to citrus than Wellington, so on the East side of the house she could get a great Lemon (a classic lemon is Lemonade; a delicious newer lemon is Meyer), Mandarin (Bay Sweetie is a good one), or either Bearrs or Tahitian Lime. And of course, a Seville orange, all are available on dwarf rootstock.
Currants love the morning sun, so currants and gooseberries would love a spot in an East-facing garden.
On the Western side, she has a little more wriggle room as this side will get hotter during the day and therefore be better for more exotic fruit (although it will need more watering).
Feijoa Apollo will always be a favourite, with huge, juicy fruit, and a tree which doesn’t mind being small or large.
What about a Medlar or a Mulberry? Both are ‘old school’ trees which produce weird, delicious fruit and look amazing while so doing.
Sanguine Peaches (aka ‘blood’ or ‘blackboy,’ although I wonder how PC ‘blackboy’ is now!) are very tolerant of mistreatment. I am still very anti-stonefruit in the lower North Island unless it grows from seed- I find them too fiddly, too needy, too prone to die. But Sanguine peaches are delicious, hardy, and laugh in the face of death/disease.
What are you waiting for?
A magic weed fairy. For the convolvulous to die down. To come back from holiday and get someone to do section clearing- our garden is too weedy and we are never going to get to it.
(Charly tries to think up a better answer. I emphasise to her that most of us are yearning for the same thing and refuse to let her change it. Please advise if you know of a section clearing gardener in Masterton, I couldn’t find her a recommendation!)
Thanks everyone! Have a good week- the weather is a mite unpredictable at the moment, but that’s no excuse- go pilfer all of the ski gear from an op shop.