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Saturday 18th April, 2020
Hi
And with the rain came Feijoa
A wet day, yay, so a good opportunity to crack out this weeks email.
It has been such a dry summer, with no effective rain since November that I recall, finally towards the end of March and the very beginning of April (coinciding with lockdown) we have had rain. My point being that I could hardly see if there was any fruit on the feijos but then suddenly like clockwork, rain, Autumn and in this last week the Feijoas have been ripening and dropping in abundance. Nature never ceases to amaze me, I would not have thought we have had enough rain to bring them on so quickly. I'm not sure they are as big as they normally are but it just goes to show that the cycle of life still goes on regardless... maybe they have been waiting for the rain.
Knowing some of the techno stuff can be a bit interesting and its worth knowing that Feijoas are native to Southern Brazil, Northern Argentina, Columbia and a few other South American countries. I hope I got this right as I'm sure that I will be corrected by the South Americans that work here in the nursery. It's a bit like the equivalent to our Aussie/NZ rivalry here at times which keeps us all on our toes and I'm sure that there are some here that just cringe every time I say the name Feijoa... like a kiwi as the saying goes LOL but we are in NZ where J is a J... not an H.
Apparently Feijoas were named by a German botantist after a Portugese naturalist called Joao da Silva Feijo while the species name sellowiana is after a German guy Friedrich Sellows who first collected specimens of Feijoas in Southern Brazil. Whilst traditionally the scientific genus name was Feijoa the proper name is now Acca sellowiana though we seem pretty stuck with Feijoa and my guess is no one would find it in our online catalogue if we called it Acca!
Pineapple Guava is probably the accepted common name here though there are others, probably from other countries, like Brazilian guava, fig guava and guavasteen, why I don't know as they don't taste of pineapple or guava to me... or maybe they do! This small growing tree, that is a member of the Myrtaceae family, is well suited to a warm temperate climate like NZ has though interestingly enough they require some 50 hours of winter chilling... apparently able to grow in the tropics as well but summer temps over 32 degrees may have an adverse effect on fruit set and below -9 degrees will kill the flower buds... and of course, being a NZer, I work in centigrade. NZ seems perfect on the whole.
We have good stock of all the main varieties of Feijoa plants for this time of year and we now have them pride of place in the garden centre, all in alphabetical order, ready for Autumn shopping and planting for all those that want a couple of small trees in their backyard. They are all here ready and waiting for the day to roll around that we can shop freely once again and with any luck (and good management) we will be able to do so soon, but remember you still have online purchasing at your fingertips so do allocate your desires with a backorder and we will send them to you as soon as we are able to.
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Feijoas on the whole are pretty easy to grow, basically plant them and forget them and they will reward you with fruit... well that is what happens here other than lifting the lower branches so that I dont have to crawl around to pick them up. The fruit doesn't change colour when they are ripe but the ones that fell today are ready to eat, or do something with, so I collect them every day knowing they are ripe when they fall.
What's Cooking?
There are about 20 trees here that are all starting to drop a lot, so there is a lot of fruit happening. Don't think for one minute that I'm always cooking (even though I do talk about it a lot) because thats not the case but I do like to give things a go. I thought the other night, instead of buying tomato sauce, I would make a whole heap of relish cutneys and pickles to use instead.
Lets face it though, look through the NZ Feijoa recipes online and there's not a lot you cant do with feijoas. Loaf, cake, pickle, jam, frozen, fresh, it just tastes great anyway you have them.
A broken crystal ball?
This is going to be no normal year and as I suggested last week, the rest of the Camellias, all of the Rhodos, Pieris, Azaleas and citrus and more should be in at some point as they were all due to arrive around March/April. However with no actual retail shopping being allowed in alert level 3, I am advocating that you pre order your requirements online so that stock is at least allocated to you... no deposit required. Roses, fruit and ornamental trees are possibily on schedule but I urge you to go online and back order... again no deposit but it just secures product for you.
It's a big thank you to all those that have been shopping online and patiently waiting for their purchases. Know that all your plants have been put aside waiting for us to get to level three so we can dispatch them. I have been in touch with Fastways and they are all set to collect and send all of your plants if and when we get the green light.
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I keep listening to the 1 pm updates and on Thursday, we were given an indication of what we could expect in level 3. Hopefully, if I have it correct and that crystal ball isn't broken, we will be able to restart our online mail order service in full. There will still be no retail ie face to face service in the shop or browsing but I'm thinking that we may be able to be NZ's first drive through garden centre shopping experience like say MacDonalds and KFC. You order and pay online for collection, give a collection date and whether morning or afternoon collection time... we have your order ready so you can drive in and collect it. It would need to be contactless so we could bring your order to your car then leave it for you to pack. Potentially you could ring and pay on the phone, again with a collection time so that we have time to get the order ready, but the point is that there are a number of viable ways we should be able to make this happen.
This is all dependant on NZ going to alert level three next week and that what I am proposing will be allowed, but just know that we will do what it takes to make shopping available, in the best fashion possible, as quickly as we can.
Hope you are all coping with living such a constrained lifestyle at this point, I know that many don't have the luxury of space in this time but hopefully you have found activities to do that help keep your sanity. What ever it is keep doing it, stay safe and for the time being stay at home.
Cheers Lloyd Tony and the Wairere team..
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2020 Newsletters...
Fabulous Febuary (21st February, 2020)
Watering Woes (28th February, 2020)
Orchard or Orchard (6th March, 2020)
Autumn sale time (13th March, 2020)
New Season's Camellias (20th March, 2020)
Vege Plants (27th March, 2020)
Something to try (4th April, 2020)
Lockdown dinner for my bubble (12th April, 2020)
..... Feijoas in abundance 1
Alert level 3 (25th April, 2020)
Drive through (9th May, 2020)
New Rules (15th May, 2020)
Impending roses (29th May, 2020)
Impending roses (29th May, 2020)
winter programme (6th June, 2020)
almost done (20th June, 2020)
Pruning Tech (3rd July, 2020)
In the Clouds (10th July, 2020)
Crystal ball and mags (24th July, 2020)
Chicken curry (14th August, 2020)
Big is Best (21st August, 2020)
Mouse tail plants coming (28th August, 2020)
Fluff n pretties (4th September, 2020)
Hybrid Clematis take 2 (18th September, 2020)
Those dry Places (25th September, 2020)
Water gardens (2nd October, 2020)
Balloon over Wairere (10th October, 2020)
Chilly Thursday 15/10 (16th October, 2020)
Spring has sprung (23rd October, 2020)
Kumara time (31st October, 2020)
Awesome Rain (12th November, 2020)
A pink selection of roses (16th November, 2020)
Hibiscus (22nd November, 2020)
Unexpected fruit (28th November, 2020)
Its time (5th December, 2020)
Hostas Again (12th December, 2020)
Its a wrap (19th December, 2020)
Wairere Nursery
826 Gordonton Road, R D 1, Hamilton 3281 Ph: (07) 824 3430 Email: