Fruit and nut trees growing at community gardens

Recently we visited the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens to collect information about what is growing where. The garden has a wonderful apple arbour. This photo of the apple arbour was taken by Anne Elliot a couple of years ago and the trees are much better established now. Sixty-seven different apple trees, including heritage varieties, have been planted along with six crab apple trees.

There are three cherry trees, five quinces, a Japanese plum — and probably more pomes — as well as a row of raspberries on vines runs south to north.

Eight chestnut trees are planted at the entrance (to the south) of the gardens along with white and black walnuts. Six hazelnut trees have been established in a grove (line) to the north of the gardens.

Its definitely worth a visit. Visitors are welcome. A good time to learn more about the gardens is to turn up at the weekly working be on Friday mornings. (See their website for more details.)

From cherries to figs

I've taken a while to put up this post. Besides other distractions, we took out a couple of days to take down a very old cherry tree (see image) to make way for two fig trees, which we plan to get from figs grown by a network member in Winmallee later in the year. We waited till it was time for the council chipper to come round (next week in South Katoomba) and have chopped the whole tree into tidy sections. The wood is beautiful (as is well known by furniture makers). It was a bit saddening. Cherry and plum trees are also known for their dainty yet strong ornamental appearance. The cockatoos loved the tree and we were happy for them to monopolise the over hard fruit it produced in its senescence. But now we will prepare the ground for the figs. The terraced area is ideal as it is bounded by sleepers. These conditions are good for containing the figs's roots.

The latest (April–May) issue of the glossy magazine Blue Mountainslife has half a page on our network in the Mountain Gardening section (see 'Blue Mountains goes nuts on p. 22).

Merry month of May

Two activities for Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Networkers will take place on the first weekend in May in the upper mountains.

On Sunday 2 May there is a free design scoping workshop after a short blackberry pulling out task, 9.30 am to 2 pm (light morning tea provided but bring some lunch to share). The design scoping workshop centres on providing our host with ideas for further developing her fruit and nut trees, among other productive vegetable and herb beds and Indigenous plants in her Blackheath garden. The workshop will allow experienced permaculturists to share their knowledge and provide a learning experience for those wishing to know more about permaculture principles and techniques. Contact Anitra for more details

Also, Wayne Levi and Susan Girard are holding a workshop at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens in North Katoomba on preventing pests and diseases in fruit over winter on 1 May 2010 (10.00am to noon) They will discuss safe organic treatments etc. For more details contact 4782 5810 — $15 donation (hand lens included).

Chestnut Outing

As planned last Saturday 27 March we visited the Kookootonga Chestnut and Walnut Farm at Mount Irvine. There were about 25 of us, including organisers and children and even one purple fairy! We picked lots of chestnuts and then Anne set up her roasting equipment so half of us stayed and enjoyed roasted chestnuts.

Katoomba Garden Club

A couple of days ago, on the night of Wednesday 24 March, Lizzie Connor and I spoke to a meeting of the Katoomba Garden Club about the Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network. It was great to hear who is growing what and their experiences.

We handed out our new flyer and the following form (the copy below has had the multiple lines removed from after each question 2–5). I thought I'd include it here because local residents can always email me responses through the servantrevolution@gmail.com address. Also for anyone setting up a similar group in their area, this is one direction to go in...

Please fill out this form if you have useful information to add to our database or if you would like to be placed on our e-list for notification of activities etc.

Your name: __________________________________________________________
Your township (include north or south etc.): ________________________________
Email address: ________________________________________________________
Phone number: _______________________________________________________

Please circle points relevant to you and fill out responses below.

1. Please add me to the Fruit and Nut Tree Network e-list.

2. What kinds of fruit and/or nut trees/plants are you growing successfully? Add any points you think relevant about their age or ways you care for them.
__________________________________________________________

3. What kinds of fruit and/or nut trees/plants have you tried to grow but think were unsuccessful because of our local climate or soils? Add any points you think relevant about why you think they might have died or do not fruit well.
__________________________________________________________

4. If you know of fruit and/or nut trees growing on public land, please tell us what they are and their location.
__________________________________________________________

5. If you are willing to share your skills and knowledge about fruit and/or nut growing locally, please identify those skills and knowledge so we can contact you over leading an interactive talk or workshop.
__________________________________________________________

On Orange

Click on the Orange Food Week website, where you can download a program. The festival takes place 9–18 April. The program includes information about the 100-Mile Diet and being a Locavore.

Orange is well beyond the bioregion of the Blue Mountains but their fruit and nut growing is impressive and some of their activities are worth the visit. Besides umpteen wine-oriented events, and a cider-tasting, there is a 'hands-on cider making class', heritage apple walks and tours through a Forest Reef's hazelnut farm. This gives us some ideas for Fruit and Nut Tree Network field visits in the future.

The Orange Food Week website also provides some of Adelaide Harris's great recipes using apples, walnuts and beetroot — all of which grow well in the Blue Mountains. She includes simple apple tart, pickled apple and cabbage, and spiced walnuts recipes.

The photo was taken at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens, which includes this hazelnut grove.

SLow Fruit National Register

Late last year a campaign started to create a visual Slow Fruit National Register to preserve information and stock about our declining diversity of varieties of fruit and nut trees. Using this information, Slow Food has a plan to work out which varieties might be reintroduced for garden (and orchard) production. The register was launched by the Australian Ark, Food Cultures, Traditions and Biodiversity Commission.
Take a look at their website to collect a form an details about how to contribute information and images of old varieties from the Blue Mountains (slow.fruit@slowfoodaustralia.com.au or mail Slow fruit, Post Office Box 721, Kalamunda, Western Australia).

Note the item about our network on the SBS Hunter and Gatherer website.

Drying chestnuts

Drying chestnuts is useful because they do not store well otherwise. A high moisture content means that they will start drying out, unless in ideal conditions. Even in ideal conditions they only keep for weeks, not months. Dried and stored in a sealed container chestnuts will keep for up to a year.

You will need to soak dried chestnuts in boiling water for 12 hours to cook (boil) them as you would fresh ones for around 20 minutes to chop or mash for for eating. You can grind roasted chestnuts into flour using, say, a nut mill. Apparently they make delicious pancakes. I'll let you know when I try later this month after we visit the chestnut farm (as detailed in blog below).

Chestnuts Australia Inc. advise that: 'Using a conventional oven, chestnut halves should be dried on a wire rack at about 125°C for up to 10 hours. (Fan forced ovens take less time, so test for dryness after 8 hours.)' If you have a drier, you will need to halve freshly picked chestnuts with a cleaver and place on drier trays cut side down. After being at a medium heat for 8 to 10 hours, the shell comes off easily and the pellicle can also be taken off relatively easily too.

Let's know how you go.

C is for chestnuts

Besides the note about our flexible Calendar and Cumquat tree in the blog below, C is for chestnuts and this month, Saturday 27 March 2010, Anne Elliott is leading a visit to Kookootonga Chestnut and Walnut Farm at 247 Mt Irvine Road, Mt Irvine, where we will meet at 11 am. Pickers need to bring rubber/gardening gloves because the chestnuts are picked off the ground and very prickly. The cost is $8 per kilogram. We will car share. Bring some lunch and drinks. Anne will bring roasting equipment and talk about all the uses of chestnuts in the kitchen. Contact Anitra if you want to join us.

'Fruit and Nut Tree Liberation Front' blackberry blitz

We had a blackberry blitz in Blackheath yesterday to free some apple, plum, pear and orange trees of bramble. Our host called our team the FNTLF: the fruit and nut tree liberation front! Our 'carrot' was to harvest blackberries before we started. The photos show Lizzie working and an apple from one of the trees.

C is for calendar

No sooner had we announced a calendar — meeting on the first Saturday morning of every month February to November — than we have found it unworkable. Nature works seasonally and plant (fruit and nut) growth responds to so many factors that our human calendar with its strict and simplistic linear divisions means we could not do activities at the most appropriate time. This month we had a talk and have a working bee for blackberry gathering and eradicating tomorrow. In March we have several activities lined up whereas later in the year we are likely to hibernate with the winter. Watch the top right hand corner of our website for future activities still hatching as I write.

At the moment you will be harvesting apples (as we saw at the community gardens ten days ago), some blackberries have survived the deluges, rhubarb (unless its going to seed, in which case Lizzie reminds you to cut off the stalk asap), and my cumquat tree is so burdened I feel sorry for it (see photo). Many peaches are ready to be picked now too. Beautiful fresh and raw they are wonderful for crumbles, chutneys and rocket salads (with almonds and fennel or spring onion).

Saturday's talk

In the last thee days Katoomba has received 266mm of rain, almost half of it in the 24 hours since 9 am this morning! Fortunately for all the people (there was around 40 of us) who turned out yesterday to the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens — to the talks by Sue Girard, Wayne Levi and Stafford Lowe — it was only raining lightly much of the time. The rain did stop us inspecting the gardens' fruit and nuts trees for pests and diseases and the topic was not exhausted, so we will hold part two of this session at 10.30 am to noon on Saturday 6 March. Even if you did not attend the first session yesterday I am sure that you will get a lot out of the next one.

The session yesterday stressed preparing soils and other conditions for plant growth so as to prevent and avoid pests and diseases and to implement integrated pest management. As well as participants wanting pests and diseases identified, Sue and Wayne brought examples and handed round devices used to get rid of pests (such as sticky paper) and to scare pests (such as birds) away.

Wayne suggested a particularly good book on the topic: What Garden Pest or Disease is That? Organic and Chemical Solutions For Every Garden Problem by Judy McMaugh, New Holland Publishers, Sydney. The book advises on avoidance, organic controls and is structured around an A to Z in the three key areas of 1) plant care, 2) pests, 3) diseases. It has lots of illustrations for identification.

B is for

Before we begin Berries, have you Been to Braidwood (half way Between Bateman's Bay and Canberra)? Of course, it's a long way from our Bioregion But the Old Cheese Factory there offers a great service: you can take apples to be made into juice or cider instead of wasting them! If you produce share 50:50 and assist in the operation it doesn't cost you to have them juiced! Tom Whitton (Megalong Books, Leura) alerted us to this.

Does anyone know of an apple pressing service in our bioregion or a neighbouring one? If so please leave a comment with details.

Now B is for Berries and we have lots of different kinds growing in the Blue Mountains: take a look at the harvest calendar below and please remember that we are trying to update our lists of what is growing where (columns on the left).

Blackberry (Rubus fructuosus) a noxious weed but this time of year, if you can pick some unsprayed blackberries, they make wonderful jams, pie fillings and jellies, especially when mixed with apples. (Including red ones improves the pectin content too.) When you've removed the fruit — you can freeze any surplus — get stuck into removing the canes. However, there are some more contained varieties that you can purchase from suppliers such as Diggers. The blackberry is ancient, a native of three continents and widespread throughout the world today. Ancient Romans used blackberry leaf tea as a medicine. All berries are, in fact, aggregates of drupelets botanically speaking.

Blueberries, like raspberries etc., like sun (filtered, where it gets too hot) and acidic soils (pH of 4.5–5.2) , so they befit from local pine tree mulch. You need to obtain the right species for your location as chilling requirements vary from around 400–1100 hours. Once established they don't seem to require much attention but be sure to net them.

Remember to come to the talk at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens in North Katoomba at 10.30 am on Saturday 6 February, when we will advise people on other activities coming up in the next few months. The apples in the photo for this week come from the community gardens. The photo was taken about ten days ago.

A is for avocado too

No, the photo isn't of avocados but rather fruit laden branches at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens, where we will hold a talk on pests and diseases of fruit and nut trees grown locally on Saturday 6 February starting at 10.30 am. The gardens has many apple trees too with ready-to-harvest or already dropped apples.

Now for avocados: I like the idea of growing them from seed. This means propping a stone from an avocado (that was lovely, you know because you just ate it) conical part upwards in a jar with a wide mouth that you have filled with water or placing it in moist sawdust. I love the look of the root and shoot growing. Once that happens you can simply pot it up in organic potting mix. Germination is amazingly simple.
However, problems with avocados grown from such seedlings are legion even though it is possible to do it successfully. You have to make sure that you 'nip' out the central shoot once it has a few leaves and turn the plant to benefit from sunlight in an even way so it grows into a rounded plant. You will have to wait several years, perhaps tenor so, for it to fruit. (Grafted trees will fruit in just a few years.) It might not fruit or it might not fruit well. A grafted tree will be a more practical size (say 8–10 metres); avocado plants grown from stones tend to take up more space. A good compromise is to graft the seedling plant to a good variety.

Fruit and art

Just reading #19 of HEAT (the University of Western Sydney Writing and Society Research Group's literary journal, which you can borrow from the Blue Mountains City Library) and found some wonderful colour reproductions of Robyn Stacey's photographic art works.
On page 117 appears the 'Untitled (Walnuts)' broken and whole nuts with the flesh gnarled like old roots glistening under the photographer's light.
The next two pages feature Mr Macleay's Fruit and Flora: flowers, a bunch of young carrots, cumquat, avocado, passion fruit and stick insect (just like one clinging upside down outside my window as I type).
Further on is another tablescape of flowers, vegetables and fruit — bananas, lemons and olives — and 'The First Cut, after Robert Spear Dunning', featuring an ornate knife sitting deep in the flesh of a watermelon, in the hole where a small triangle of flesh has been cut and sits nearby ready for eating, red and green...

Apricots and almonds

While I was away I bought a copy of Discovering Fruit and Nuts: A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultivation, Uses and Health Benefits of Over 300 Food Producing Plants, a large 480 page book by Susanna Lyle. It was published a couple of years ago (2006) by Landlinks Press, which is a CSIRO Publishing imprint, though its coverage is not limited to Australia/New Zealand.
This book is a useful reference for home gardeners. It has illustrations and general as well as particular details about grafting, layering, pruning and training. In terms of our fruit and nut for this fortnight — the apricot and the almond — the book describes their ancient origins and ornamental use due to their colourful spring blossoms. The apricot is a native of China and it is speculated to be the forbidden fruit that Eve ate in the Garden of Eden. Although the almond is a native of the eastern Mediterranean, it too was cultivated in China three millennia ago.
In the BM neither grow prolifically due to humidity because they are both susceptible to fungal diseases.
See the ABC clip of how to prune apricots — http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2009/06/23/2606206.htm. The Almond Board of Australia has provided our images for this week.

B is for Break

B is for Break and ours is right now. But we will be Back in a week. So I will resume the Blog then...

2010 New Year: A is for apple

This year, 2010, I aim to highlight one of the fruits and nuts grown in the Blue Mountains each week. A is for apple, which is the most widely found and bountiful fruit in our bioregion. Apple trees can be found neglected but often thriving in public places and old private lands.
Look out for heritage apples. I used to live in Central Victoria close to Badgers Keep, where pomologists Clive and Margaret Winmill have collected hundreds of old cultivars, which you can read about on the ABC Gardening Australia website, here.
There is an apple arbour at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens, where our first activity for the year takes place 10.30 am on Saturday 6 February. It is a talk about pests and diseases of Blue Mountains fruit and nut trees.
As with other fruits and nuts, the Horticulture section of the NSW Department of Primary Industries has good, downloadable advice on apples (and other relevant pomes, such as pears).
Recently we had guest to dinner who was avoiding many foods, including dairy and soy products, grains with gluten, and sugar. I adapted the following recipe for apple cake, by substituting the castor sugar with carob and the milk with water (though I thought of trying rice milk). I think it would work equally well with pears though I haven't tried the recipe with them.

Oil a 25 cm springform pan, say with olive (or corn) oil. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.
Peel and thinly slice 500 gm Blue Mountains apples.
Separate 130–140 gm eggs (two large or three small ones) into yolks in one bowl and the whites in another.
Beat the yolks with a whisk and fold in 1/3 cup of rice/buckwheat flour, half a teaspoon of baking powder with 1/4 cup of soy milk. Stir the sliced apples in and mix so they are covered in it.
Add a 1 tablespoon of castor sugar and a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat till soft peaks form. (Have the whites at room temperature and make sure the beaters and bowl are clean so nothing contaminates them.)
Fold the meringue into the other mixture, place into the oiled pan and back for around three-quarters of an hour.
When I am baking a cake like this I always try and fill the oven otherwise I feel it is a waste of energy.
Enjoy!

From Medlow Bath to Winmalee

Yesterday we went on a 'look see' of reported fruit trees on public land from Medlow Bath to Winmalee. We found the beautiful big chestnut trees that grace the opening of the Medlow Bath park next to the RFS, which has other commemorative trees, such as cherries.
Many of our stations have fruit trees on public land adjacent to them. Among others, we inspected the trees south of the Leura station, which include apples, peaches, pears, elderberries and blackberries. We noticed the sandwich board outside the Leura Gourmet Deli: BACK AT LAST Local (Mount Wilson) BLUE BERRIES Picked at dusk for sale here next morning. Of course, the Katoomba food co-op regularly has locally produced fruits and nuts as well as vegetables and it is great to see them advertised on the street as well as available.
I have mentioned the local theory that apples seem to have been affected by the dust storms earlier this year. Our tour confirmed that apples in the open seem to be less productive than sheltered ones, e.g. differences in the two apple trees on the steep stepped public land that joins the upper and lower parts of Kundibar Street in Katoomba.
Wayne (Lithgow), who will be talking with other experts at our next talk on the first Saturday of February 2010, says that there are 'several possible reasons your trees and others trees did not set fruit this year: the red dust covered the flowers and interrupted pollination, not cold enough for fruit to set, apples have alternating years of heavy or light crops, no bee activity in and around the area... etc, etc.'

Weekend 12–13 December

On Saturday I went to a berry party. Our host, Lizzie, grows wonderful raspberries, boysenberries and red currants. So we rambled through the netted stalks of berries, eating some and collecting more. Then we had afternoon tea with more berries and fruit scones and dreamt of an age starting in 2010 with garden surpluses and street parties and swap markets galore!

To a vegetarian, television chef Heston Blumenthal's medieval feast with 'meat fruit' was a blast. What you see is a crystal bowl of glistening fresh fruit. Once you eat it you find they are meat balls disguised as fruits! Shock. Horror. And Heston shows you how to make them. Great for the omnivorous, but... Well, now you know why there are insects all over the old Van der Ast masterpiece above.

On 'fruit' and 'trees'

Gardening and cook books often start by using a botanical definition of fruits as containers or walls, formed from an ovaries, for seeds which developed from ovules. Horticulture limits such fruits to edible ones, productive for humans; backyard gardeners and orchardists have narrowed the scope of 'fruit' to a subset which is a culinary, cultural, territory. So, famous fruits, such as tomatoes, do not feature in our list for the same reason that they do not appear in Glowinski's Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia (Lothian, 2006), where only the 'tomato relatives', such as tamarillo and Cape Gooseberries, appear in the Solanaceae chapter. When he comes to discussing what a nut is, Glowinski throws up his arms: 'A nut is whatever is usually considered a nut'!
If we plead common confusions round the meaning of fruit, it is not so easy for our network to explain how our list includes not only 'top fruit' grown on trees but also the lovely soft berries that grow on trailing plants and bushes, as well as fruit growing on vines and espaliers. The problem is we inherited the nominal 'tree' in our name and it has stuck, even though we clearly mean plant. Sorry!

Blue Mountains fruits and nuts

We are collecting lists of the different kinds of fruit and nut trees/plants successfully growing in different towns within the Blue Mountains (Lapstone to Lithgow). On the right hand side of this blog we list locations for all those registered so far. We know that there are a lot more areas that these plants are growing in and more kinds of fruits and nuts.
If you know of plants on your land or public property, please help us by filling out a form or emailing the contacts listed on the Blue Mountains City Council sustainability site: http://www.sustainablebluemountains.net.au
Alternatively, you can contact us directly by clicking in the appropriate area of the Blue Mountains Community Harvest site: http://www.communityharvestbm.net/

Apples and more

I saw Brian Coates (Cooerwull Plantsmen, Lithgow) during the week. He thinks that the dust storms we had earlier in the year will limit their apple harvest early next year. Indeed, neither our pear nor apples have developed any flowers at all. (See photo of the snow apple before we established it in the garden over a year ago.) I wondered if the hail storm that we had a few months ago had affected them too. What's your experience?
We were out earlier today weeding round the fruit trees and mulching, using up the chips we recently got from the council biannual service. So nice for my toes to feel the soil and lawn after so much sitting at the computer!

A new apricot tree in Blackheath

Last week Lis Bastian from Blackheath wrote: 'congrats on starting this blog Anitra. Great way to start collecting info from everyone. We permablitzed the yard next to the IGA in Blackheath yesterday ... it had become a blackberry infested rubbish dump and 12 of us cleared it and put in a garden in 3 hours ... including an apricot tree! So there's one for you (unfortunately it's only tiny but it will grow and produce fruit one day!)' Well I say, 'Go Blackheath!'

Talk at Springwood (Fairy Dell) Saturday, 31 October

In the morning twelve of us met outside the Springwood Neighbourhood Centre and walked to Fairy Dell where Frank talked about his experiences growing dozens of fruit (and a few nut) trees in Faulconbridge, i.e the Lower Mountains. Frank mainly discussed those we were most interested in, which included: almond, apple, cherimolla, citrus, babaco, blueberry and other berries, white sapote, cherry and other stone fruit, feijoa, fig and medlar. Topics such as pest control, grafting, manuring, soil and temperature were covered.
In the afternoon, we found lots and lots of ladybirds on a peach tree branch infested with aphids in Katoomba School gardens. It was a hot, blue summery day.