You have been busy. Meanwhile the garden has been growing/ dying/breeding enough fruit fly to colonise a new continent (pick whichever is closest to the truth).
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There are few garden problems that can't be solved with an afternoon's work, either by you or one of the visiting horde who says, "Can I do anything to help?" NB: Always be prepared with a suitable "Yes" reply. You've cooked, or at least ordered the takeaways. Holiday visitors will enjoy repaying your hospitality. (For some reason chores at someone else's place don't seem like work, which is why our cleaning person of a decade ago had her own cleaning person who had her own cleaning person…).
Limp lawns: Water and wait. Even lawns that crunch like cornflakes usually revive.
Shaggy lawns: Mow on HIGH. Don't try to shave the grass close to the ground, thinking it will slow it down. You'll just get bald patches and weeds. A high mowing will keep it neat and slow it down more than scalping.
Fallen fruit: Do not go near the compost bin! Unless your compost is the "hot enough to poach an egg" kind, it will make fruit fly happier than a holiday on the Gold Coast. Place in a plastic bag, seal and leave in the sun till the stuff inside feels squishy and has no discernable shape. NOW you can compost it – if you haven't already taken it for landfill. The most environmentally friendly way to dispose of fruit fly is to assist their passing gently through the digestive systems of chooks, wallabies or any other fruit-eating species you have handy – but that means you can't give them too much at one time and they clean it all up (no maggots left behind). It also means it needs to be fed to them in a container or some of the fruit-fly maggots will probably manage to escape and burrow into the earth to pupate and start the next cycle. You can also throw the whole fruit in the freezer; slice off the squishy bits while still frozen then make jam or chutney. Don't panic if you miss a couple. Fruit fly can't survive a thorough chutneying.
Dead plants because you forgot to arrange pot sitting while you were at the coast: Soak pots in a bucket of water overnight, then hope.
Wilting pot plants: Soak in a bucket of water overnight. Soil which has been hot or dry for too long may repel water, so when you give them a drink it runs down the sides instead of soaking in. A good long bath reverses this. Or repot, but not till it's cooler, both for you and the pot plant.
Strangling or roof-lifting wisteria: Cut back. Hard. Be ruthless. Wisteria has no respect for wimps.
Yellow lemon trees: Winter yellows may mean the poor thing is cold. Summer yellows mean root rot or lack of tucker or water. Feed well. If the tree dies suddenly, it was root rot and the sudden feeding has finished them off, but better a fast death than lingering.
Downy mildew beginning on melons, pumpkins or zucchini: Spray with one cup of milk to five cups of water, above and below the leaves. And hope. Alternating dry and wet conditions hastens powdery mildew and in thunderstorm summers there's not much you can do, bar holding an umbrella over each plant, though regular watering and a foliar seaweed spray each week, plus regular mulching, will help prevent it. Downy mildew is even worse when we have a lack of rain (so the soil is dry) but heavy dews and high humidity. No organic or non organic spray is much use then. Mulch though will help to keep the soil moist.
Falling green apples: Suspect bower birds, parrots, currawongs or wind, but also slice a few fruit open in case it's fruit fly or codling moth. Once a fruit's seed is disturbed by either pest fruit falls prematurely. Treat as above. If the birds are the culprit, think of the lost apples as "rent". The birds were here first.
Weeds: Put on boots and trample firmly, then layer on thick sandwiches of mulch. No need for newspaper – it will just make an impermeable barrier between water, soil microbes and other life and mulch. As long as you trample – or mow – and the mulch is at last 60 centimetres deep, it should be right.
Weeds from the last lot of mulch: Each time we buy in lucerne hay we buy a new suite of weeds too. Last time it was Scotch thistle. Now I mostly use chipped prunings from the garden or sugar cane mulch, neither of which are very nitrogen rich, but that can be scattered on in the form of chook manure.
Heat: Water the garden in the evening, as well as yourself, and the kids too. Smell the hot soil and the reviving grass and bless the summer.
This week I am:
* Getting a kind man with a slasher to do the mowing, not us;
* Filling vases with bright pink hydrangeas, a trifle tacky but gorgeous too;
* Playing grab the ball with toddlers and dogs;
* Rediscovering real tomatoes, eight varieties and almost no difference in taste, though the romas are best to be baked, and the cherries slightly bitter cooked en masse;
* Eating cucumbers, peaches, nectarines, apricot jam (it doesn't keep unless you add too much pectin, in which case it is paste, not jam), tiny runner beans before they have a chance to toughen; and
* Still in the "zucchinis are wonderful" phase of summer.
A festive veg platter
This looks stunning. Even better, it can be made in advance, with each veg kept in its own sealed container in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
Choose as many of the veg below as you like; arrange on a platter, contrasting colours and shapes and textures. You can reheat them all in the oven if want them hot, or serve cold or tepid. Tepid is best, so you can appreciate each flavour, as long as they haven't been tepid for long enough to risk food poisoning.
Balsamic beetroot
Choose 10small beetroot, or quarter four large ones. Peel and bake on a greased oven tray at 200C till soft with at least one clove of garlic per beetroot. Dress while still hot with two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of French mustard. Serve hot, cold or tepid.
Sliced fennel and potato
Bake four large potatoes. Peel while still warm but not hot enough to burn your fingers, unless you are a masochist or an extremely macho chef. Slice – each slice needs some structural integrity, so some spuds can be sliced thinly, more floury ones in thicker chunks.
Slice a bulb of fennel into slices the size of your little finger. Steam or microwave till soft.
Mix fennel and potato gently then pour on a dressing of one teaspoon of French mustard, four tablespoons of olive oil, one tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Scatter on one tablespoon of chopped chives. Let marinate for at least two hours so the potatoes absorb the scent of fennel.
Baked carrots with caraway
Peel six carrots. Cut into walnut size chunks. Rub with olive oil. Bake at 200 ºC till just beginning to crisp and brown. Toss with one teaspoon of caraway seeds while hot. Serve hot, cold or tepid.
Pumpkin with cumin
Choose a firm fleshed pumpkin such asQueensland Blue. Orange-skinned Jap will turn squishy and butternut will be too fibrous. Peel and cut into walnut-sized squares. Dust with cumin, or two teaspoons of cumin and one teaspoon ofground coriander Bake at 250C until the edges are beginning to blacken. Serve hot, cold or tepid. Let cool before you transfer into a container
Chilli cauliflower salad
Wash a whole head of cauliflower well, place in a plastic bowl and microwave on high till soft, about 10minutes. Drain. Chop into florets and while still hot toss in two tablespoons of chilli jam or sauce, and four tablespoons of finely chopped chives. Serve hot, cold or tepid.
Lemon beans.
large red onions, peeled and chopped, four cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of olive oil. When the beans are almost at your preferred tenderness, add the juice of a large lemon, sizzle for 20seconds, then serve hot, cold or tepid.
