Archives for May 2010

For Mothers Day, I took Kim, Adam and Ben to visit our daughter Amy in Ballarat.  On the way through, we stopped off at Bacchus Marsh and picked up some local apples, persimmons, potatoes and onions from Jeff Jones produce.

Here are a few shots of her small veggie patch and pet dwarf rabbit that fertilises it for her.  She is growing bush beans, peas, carrots and potatoes.  She has a bit of weeding to do, me thinks, but at least she is giving it a go.

After lunch we went out into the back yard, where Amy showed me a Guava tree that was overhanging into her yard from the neighbours house.  It was one massive tree fully laden with fruit.

The fruit is a bit difficult to make out as it is the same colour as the leaves of the tree.  Suffice to say, there are lot of them, and they were all over the ground as well.

Kim and I had never eaten Guava before, so we tried one of the larger ones that had fallen off the tree.  It was delicious, so we collected about 4 kilograms of fruit that was laying around Amy’s yard.  Besides eating them raw, which is a treat in itself, I am looking for some jam recipes that I can use quite a few more in.  Ballarat is well within our local zone, so no problems there.

I also took some cuttings from the tree and wrapped the branches in a wet cloth so that they would survive the trip home.  When we got home, I trimmed up 8 decent sized cuttings and dipped them in root hormone powder and put them in tube stock pots with some good potting mix.  I am hoping they will take and if so, I will give some away as gifts and plant a few in extra large pots to add to our orchard.  I don’t know how many years they will take to bare fruit, but it is all in the fun of trying to grow it.

Once again, local fruit is such a great find, and when it is free, you really have to abuse the privilege of knowing someone who has access to a neglected backyard fruit tree.  Thanks Amy for letting us collect as much as we wanted.  I promise to bring you a jar of Guava jam next time we visit!