Plenty

Cucumber plenty
Look what I found in the undergrowth! Talk about treasure in unexpected places. This "dead" cucumber plant had been looking so awful, with its decaying leaves and limp stems. I decided to put it out of its misery on Saturday, and to clear out its caterpillar-ridden tomato neighbours while I was at it.

But when I started pulling, one of the vines was way too heavy for a dead plant. It was kind of like hauling a loaded long line into a boat. Awesome. Five fat crunchy juicy cukes -- 1.5 kilos. I love surprises like this.

This plant (all from one tiny seed I can't help adding) has been giving us cucumbers since January. I planted it in a bag of old potting mix, put it in a hot, sheltered corner, kept it watered and gave it a couple of seaweed spa treatments while it was flowering. Given its root restriction, I wasn't expecting too much from it. Hmmm.

Simple cucumber salad. Salt, pepper, a splash of white wine vinegar. I don't bother removing the seeds. They're so soft, silky and plentiful it just seems like a waste. I will be saving a few for next year's crop though.

Crab apple plenty
Did anyone else describe someone (usually a girl) who was sharp and nasty as a crab apple? We did. "Don't be such a crab apple!" I think the insult went. Anyway, like all sharp, nasty things, crab apples have their soft side. You can see a hint of it in their gentle blush.

But it's only when you take the time to get to know them and find out what makes them tick, that you get the full joy out of these little tarts.

Sure, it takes more than a casual chat over a cup of tea to find the crab apples' inner beauty and true potential  -- which is jelly. You've got to chop and mix and simmer, strain and sweeten and skim off the scum. Only then do you get something worth bottling.

Guava plenty

They float like cranberries, but they are super sweet and way more plentiful than the cranberries. The Chilean guavas have been wafting their delightful toffee-flavoured perfume over the front path for weeks now. I mixed them in with the crab apples, hoping to end up with a toffee-apple jelly. But no. I'll see what I can do with next year's crop. I think it's an idea worth pursuing.

Lettuce and onion plenty

I can never get over the over-the-topness of seed production in some plants. One tiny black spec of an onion seed, one slither of a lettuce seed... and look at how many new seeds they produce. These seeds will drop and blow all over the garden, and soon I'll find buttercrunch lettuces and Welsh onions in the path, in the spouting, in cracks in bricks... and some in the vege beds even. Free salad all winter.


Strawberry plenty + a giveaway

A couple of years ago, Kaye from Grow From Here gave me a cute little strawberry plant. She said it was descended from the first strawberry ever to grow in Wellington, arrived in a boat from somewhere far away. Cool, I thought, and stuck it in a quiet corner, not giving it much more thought. Now I'm stunned Wellington isn't the strawberry capital of New Zealand -- these little blighters breed like rattlesnakes.

I've trained them around the edges of the vege patch and path, where they provide convenient dog snacks and make a wonderful natural weed mat.

But I've got way too much of a good thing going on now, with strawberries growing all over the the garden, crowding the vege patches and paths, and tumbling down the walls. I figure it's time for my first blog give-away. Free strawberry plants to a good home. You pick up in Wellington. Comment below to get some.

They're all packed up and ready to move to good homes.

I love this time of the year. It's like the plants have all woken up from their summer holidays and thought "Holy shit! It's autumn already." And they all get busy making sure there's another generation to survive them. The intelligence evident in even a little garden plot on a Wellington hillside blows me away. And all this writing about plenty reminds me it's probably an OK time to go look at the winter seed catalog.


Don't forget to let me know if you want strawberries. There are enough for everyone.