Fresh Seed

The extraordinary summer continues. Although we’re into autumn now the dry weather is with us again, as is the wind. But that’s ok, as one of the main reasons we shifted to Wanganui 8 years ago was for more wind. The almost constant breeze keeps the climate temperate and makes cooling greenhouses easier. Even so, another summer like the one just past and we’ll have to think seriously about fogging in the greenhouses.

We have at least some new season’s seed ready for almost all our seed lines now so this week, or early next, we’ll be sending out our annual email to past clients. If you want fresh seed – now is the time to order it! Of course, we have to have a new image gallery to support this and to add interest and I’ve included some of the images in this blog. If you want to see the rest you will need to visit our photo galleries https://www.delphinium.co.nz/Galleries.htm - in about a week.

Work for the rest of the day today consists of installing the weed matting in the last half of the new growing house. We put black matting down first and that forms a barrier between the hard and slightly rough compressed shell rock floor and the white weed matting that goes on top. Once this is complete I can concentrate on installing the corrugated iron sheets that will bear the plants and drain the excess water into a gutter. This can be seen in the images of the first half of the house in this blog.

The grapes are ripe, tomatoes in full flight, “Black Boy” peaches are just perfect and the two courgette plants are continuing to provide more than we need. The silver cover in the image on the left is to protect the grapes from the birds

Cheers

Terry

New Greenhouse nearing completion

The trouble shooter from Harfords Greenhouses has come to view his team’s handiwork and try to settle some of the problems we have. Many of these problems resulted from an amazing lack of communication from the construction team. That much has been acknowledged.

What’s gone wrong? Remember, this is a 900 square metre (around 10,000 sq ft) greenhouse.

The whole house was built sloping the wrong way, so that the gutters took water to the wrong end of the house – away from the down pipes. They fixed this when it was pointed out, but only to “level”. That’s ok but....

The central gutter, when full, leaks water inside the house.

One ratchet arm that’s involved in opening the vents is badly aligned and bangs into a truss.

The internal insect screens weren’t finished, so insects (including bees) can pass freely between sections of the house. This should not happen. We don’t want stray pollen.

The doors don’t have stoppers to prevent them blowing in, in a strong wind.

The insect screens attached to the roof vents were cut down (without consultation) when they were installed, preventing the vents from opening to their full extent, which they need to do in still, hot weather.

That’s about the lot. We’ve discussed the problems and he has agreed to fix them at their cost. It has, however, cost us most of the seed crop we hoped to harvest from the new house this summer.

It’s Sunday. The sun’s shining, the birds are singing and lunch will soon be ready.

Useful Links

Almost every day we receive requests from people or companies asking us to link to them from our web site. We almost invariable decline the request as the sites in question are usually out and out commercial, offering little, or no useful information. However, we occasionally will exchange links.

We recently received a request from David Grist, who is responsible for the online content of the Gardener’s Supply Company. David wrote to make us aware of an article he’d written about delphiniums on their blog site “Gardener’s Journal”. Well, I’ve had a look around the Garden Supply site, and the blog, and think they do a great job of offering both commercial service and free information. .The employee owner structure of the business seems to result in a friendly approach. Their mission statement also adds to this..

"Gardener's Supply is in business to spread the joys and rewards of gardening, because gardening nourishes the body, elevates the spirit, builds community and makes the world a better place.”

We think the Gardener’s Supply Company and the Gardener’s Journal are well worth linking to and that you will enjoy what they have to offer.

Here is the link to the journal/blog

http://blog.gardeners.com/

And to the Gardener’s Supply Co David Grist

http://www.gardeners.com/>

Cheers

Terry

Autumn Down Under

We’ve had a very warm, sunny, dry summer here in Wanganui and the delphiniums are now enjoying some welcome cooler days. Actually, it’s the cooler nights that really do the job and temperatures are now getting down to 15degC or so. Couple that with a few cloudy, cool days and some rain and the delphiniums love it. Yellowing leaves green up, new growth races away and the plants shout out a thank you audible for miles (if you’re in tune to the plant frequencies).

If anyone reading this has trouble with their delphiniums in the hotter months, take heart. If your summers are hot then enjoy the early summer flush and, as soon as this is finished, try cutting them down, mulch them and keeping them quite dry. You shouldn’t overdo this but keeping them checked for a few weeks while they have little top growth seems to help them through the hottest weather. Just watch out for powdery mildew though.

The summer here is now almost over and we’re hopeful of a good autumn flush of flowers for late pollination. We need it. Local farmers are almost happy too and that’s about as good as it gets for a farmer it seems. Most have harvested all their grain and the new grass growth is going to flush the dried off dairy cows for early calving.

We’ve just about cleaned all the first seed crop and will be sending out notification of fresh seed to our customers next week. We have a new line of seeds that produce mottled purple/pink florets with picotee edges we think will be a hit. We’ll see.

Judging by the infrequency of these blogs, despite my resolutions to do better, it’s something that clearly needs a higher priority. Does anyone have any higher priority to spare?

Cheers

Terry

In Limbo

Today has been hot. By world standards maybe not so hot but by Wanganui standards, very hot, especially when the humidity must have been in the 90%s range. For one of the most temperate climates in the world, 30DegC is out of the ordinary. It is bloody hot!

But now it is evening. The 5:30am start, to get work done before we wilted, has paid off. We did of course continue working all day and achieved a lot. They thermometer is falling, not because it was knocked off the wall by the near gale blowing through the open windows, but because the temperature is actually dropping. Life is good again.

At times like this it is difficult to keep plants watered well enough. Something has to go and that something is usually the garden, and it is this time too. I’ve kept the vege garden wet and even watered the horizontal elm, which has suffered from attacks by leaf minor in the past and needs mollycoddling ,but the flower gardens are looking a little dehydrated. The hot, windy weather is the result of a tropical cyclone heading south from Fiji. It was expected to bring much needed rain but instead just gave a little drizzle and dried the landscape further. With no, or little rain in sight for at least a week and strong, warm winds forecast it looks like we’ll be watering like crazy to keep the delph alive. Farmers will start to feel the pinch soon too.

You may recall that we’re in the throes of having a new plastic growing house constructed. One of the lesser endearing quirks of the New Zealand way of life is that just about the whole country closes down over the Christmas/New year period. For some it extends to an enormously long holiday – and bugger the client. I am of course referring to the builders who left on Dec 18^th and are still yet to return. This is truly 3^rd world status mentality and possibly one of the reasons why we have extremely unaffordable housing too. With delphiniums waiting to occupy the plastic house and contribute to the seed harvest I’m a tad frustrated...make that two tads...ok THREE!

On a more positive note things generally are growing well, Janice and I are extremely happy and although we work fairly hard we also have lots of time off, when we want it – mostly – like last weekend. Every year a group of nutcases go canoeing down the Whanganui River. This is a river of the movies, featured in “The River Queen” and “Lord of the Rings” (not that you’d recognise it). The Whanganui River is quite narrow but has good fall and much water – so there are plenty of rapids and gorges.

The canoe trip is from Taumaranui to Pipiriki, (look it up on a map, or, even better, Google Earth) encompasses the very best of the river and takes a week. I’ve only done this once but last weekend assisted with the transport of canoes, the pre trip conviviality, and the “sending off”. There are a few images of this annual pilgrimage (some have logged up over 30 annual trips – yeah, they truly are nutters!) scattered throughout this blog.

Next week I hope to report on progress on the growing house, the installation of a new irrigation system – and the return of the Whanganui River Rats.

Cheers

Terry

New Year's Eve 2007

This blog just has to be about a wonderful summer (so far), what happens when pollination coincides with Christmas and why our country closes down for two weeks at this time of year.

Although summer in New Zealand officially starts at the beginning of December it is rare for us to enjoy, warm, settled weather before the end of the first week in January. People however, always forget and complain bitterly when their Christmas barbecue is hijacked by totally normal, cool, breezy weather. Not so this year, at least not in Wanganui. Since the second week in November we’ve been basking in 20DegC+ weather with only the odd day of rain and cooler temperatures.We’ve had more summer before the end of December than we often enjoy all year. Next week looks like more of the same ....25DegC, sunny and dry. I'll have to water the garden to keep it looking like this...

What rain we have had has been plentiful and warm, cementing a beaming smile onto the faces of local farmers who’ve just learned that their dairy payout rate for the year will be, yet again, a record. This means more money per kilogram of milk solids and more production too.

What a Christmas! Farmers are smiling. Unprecedented!

Christmas has however taken its toll. I’m feeling lazy. We’ve had our children and grandchildren to visit for a week, Caroline and Bruno, (some dear, young friends from Angers, France) on holiday in NZ and calling in to see us and friends generally, making our life a really nice one....But it’s time to start work again. - for Janice and I at least. The tradesmen taking a four week break in the middle of building our new plastic house have other ideas, likewise the council who are dragging the chain with a building consent for our house extension. For the exalted, things are different.

For our pollinating staff, things are different too. Our delphiniums choose to flower at their fullest right on Christmas and the New Year. This is normal for them and a pain for the pollinators. I wonder if it would be worth investigating supplementary lighting to force them (the delphiniums, not the pollinators) to flower a week earlier.

By and large however, unless you are a farmer or employed in retail, health and other essential government services (such as police) the period from December 25^th until January 6^th or 7^th represents holiday time. This is because the kids are off school, no-one wants to work between Christmas and the New Year, the do-it-yourselfers want to use their new hand tools they got for Christmas and the weather is starting to settle. The fact that half the population is on holiday too, all the beaches are packed, the roads are chocker, tempers are frayed,the hole in the ozone layer is peaking the money is spent and the settled weather is likely to be punctuated with tropical downpours does nothing to dampen this unbridled enthusiasm for torment and tan. We NZers are gluttons for punishment.....which is why I took a jet boat ride up the Whanganui River with Caroline and Bruno, to see the “Bridge to Nowhere”. The image on the right is taken from the bridge looking down into the Maungaparoa stream - quite a way below. To the left are Caroline and Bruno.

Today is New Year’s Eve. Janice and I and some friends will be taking a midnight cruise on the paddle steamer “Waimarie”. We’ll have a great time, relax and be happy. Tomorrow, well, just about time to get back to work again. Ok, just one more day off!

Raising the roof

Ok, I’ll start this blog by answering a delphinium question then get on to telling you what’s

happening at our place.

The image to the right is "Juanita" blooming in our garden.

When is the best time to sow delphinium seed in Alberta?

I really love questions like this as there are so many right answers. Just how long is that piece of string? The best I can do is to suggest what I know some people do find successful.

The best time to sow seed in Alberta will depend on the method you use. If you have Gro Lights and can keep your greenhouse free of frost then November or December is a popular time to sow. Sow in a flat and prick out into small (3 inch) pots You would then have good plants to plant out at snow melt. If you can't do this then sowing in flats in February will be the way to go. Some folk sow in late summer, just as the heat is coming off, and have plants large enough to overwinter under a good layer of mulch.
Whichever method you use, remember that seed should be stored in the frig until you need to sow it. Never buy delphinium seed that may have been sitting on a garden centre shelf for a while, especially during, or just after summer (like just when you need to buy it). Delphinium seed loses viability very quickly at room temperature so unless it is stored in the frig at the garden centre, you are unlikely to get good results.

Good results on the right..........................................................

We sell properly stored seed and culture notes come with the seed we sell. This information and much more, is available free from the information pages on our web site : http://www.delphinium.co.nz/DelphiniumInformation.htm

Right, what’s happening here?

The new growing house continues to grow. The frame is up and the builders are waiting for a nice calm morning to put the roof on. I hope this comes soon as we’re paying for their accommodation! They’ve already missed a couple of good “skinning” opportunities by not knowing the local weather and, I presume, trusting the advice of their boss in Christchurch (several hundred kilometres away) rather than consulting with me. Hey, I only live here and follow the weather with a passion! No! I’m not angry and frustrated!

Having a plastic growing house built (as opposed to building it yourself – I’ve done both) can be frustrating on other counts too. Firstly, haven taken care to ensure that the builders know my requirement for the house to be either level (which the site is), or sloping slightly to the south. They have managed to construct is sloping to the north. This means that the rainwater water from the roof runs to the wrong end of the house and now has to be piped an extra 45 metres back to holding tanks. It’s a good job that I have acknowledgement of my requirements in writing - thank goodness for email!

Pollination is in full swing and we are employing eight people now. This will continue until early January when the work will lessen and we can return to two or three staff. I’m not doing much really, just keeping my head low and all the balls in the air – so don’t distract me - Ow, my foot!

Apart from a few days, the last 4 weeks have been gloriously warm and quite sunny too. Day temperatures have been several degrees above average and all plants are growing away like they want an early Christmas. I guess the pohutakawa trees will be flowering soon.

Have a Merry Christmas

Cheers

Terry