Crop Swap

 And the swap begins. It is so good to be out of lockdown

Project days begin

These days are informal working bees where we share. 

People come and help me on my projects and go home with seeds, seedlings, plants, hopefully some ideas and a full belly from our shared lunch.

To kick start we made this potting bench and seed trays out of some old pellets. Then we planted seeds.... Who knows what will grow from here.
 

Sustainable lens

Today I found an  old interview I did with Samual Mann for  Sustainable Lens. Was great to be able to listen to me about a year ago. Some things have changed but a lot is still the same.

Interviews are not really my strong point but this was a fun chance to share some ideas. Thank you Samuel.

Prunings to mulch

It is so good to be able to give back. After pruning all of the wood is mulched. I usually let it sit for a while and feed the (mostly ramial wood chips) with a bit of fish hydrolysate and any compost tea I am using before spreading it around.
 

Coast and Country

 Wow they make it sound so good!!

Thanks to the team at Coast and Country for this article.

Webs

These cold frosty mornings highlight the amazing mahi of our spiders. Everywhere you walk there are dew droplets on webs. In bare branches, long grass and sometimes trailing from who knows where.

Spiders are an important cycler of nutrients and controller of insect populations. Keeping things in check in all important balance.

I like that spiders are web builders. Webs that span between. A reminder that everything is connected.

Fish Hydrolysate

This is my first ever drum of fish hydrolysate. It is now over a year old. It smells sweet. Was so surprised how little it smelt during the fermentation process. I have been adding it to all of my compost teas and slurries.

Kereru

 

This time of the year is punctuated by the whooshing of these majestic birds.
Kereru all come down to feast on the tasty new Tagasaste buds. It is not uncommon to have flocks of 10 or more swooping down over you.

Same place -well sort of.

6/2020

5/2011

5/2012

Fig corner

Growth. The first photo is 2006.
I remember following the digger around with a sack of seeds and then tree planting.
Now this corner has loads of natives, tagasaste, figs, olives, pomegranates, a pa harakeke, basket willows and some small acacia. You cannot even see the caravan that is parked on the little pull in -and that is without the fig leaves.

Diversity

My new (only had for three years) pumpkins. I love this butternut as it is so quick to peel and cut because the whole long end has no seeds. They also store well and look really funky.

Over the last few years I have been trialing some new varieties of pumpkins (more variety in the seed bank). To keep seed true to type this has meant developing more isolation gardens (more work).

I love the new varieties so am looking to find some people to help with all of the mahi so our seed bank has a little more diversity.

Crop Swap Flowers

During lockdown I have been even more aware of all of the plants and learnings I have gathered from Crop Swap. Even though I am missing the amazing people I am reveling in the connections I have in our  community and know as we unlock we will be able to meet again.

Here is a link to the first Crop swap day.

Tansy

Tansy is a constant presence in my garden. If allowed it will grow up to 2 meters all and run riot with beautiful yellow flowers.
I use it for an ever ready source of chop and drop mulch, food for insects, flowers for my table and as it is a perennial it provided growing roots in the soil all year.

Next years potatoes

Last years potatoes where a big experiment. We planted them into sheet mulched straw.

After harvest the potato patch was converted into a diverse cover crop. The seed were coated in a vermicast slurry and broadcast.
Buckwheat, corn, sorgum, sunflowers, oats, wheat, linseed, kale, spinach, fennel, clovers, phacellia, blue lupin, broadbeans.....
Come spring this will be mulched and corn planted into another diverse mix.

This year the potato experiment continues...
We have made a big compost windrow next to the cover crop and as we turn/move the compost we will sow a winter cover crop. At potato harvest time this will be mowed and potatoes planted in to cover crop an finished compost.

Cricket song

These guys sing as they munch on the roots and shoots of your plants.
This is an introduced cricket. It is much bigger than its native cousin.
They love hot dry summers when the ground cracks and plants get stressed.
Stressed plants send out signals to call in the clean up crew.
Crickets can damage already stressed crops badly.

Cooler evenings close the cricket chorus for the year. It is

Changing seasons

Harvest is just about finished and the cover crops are emerging through the mulch.

It is always so satisfying to see the soil covered in diverse crops and to know the soil food web is being fed over winter by the growing plants and mulch from previous plants.

This year I have various clovers, buckwheat, radish, lupins, broad beans, kale, spinnach, oats, rye, peas, linseed, some herbs that were always there and of course weeds that will fill in any leftover space.

Cold wasps

As soon as the weather starts to turn hornets are everywhere. 

Hunting our warm fences or sunny places.

Most of the queens have fattened up on autumn flowers and are hibernating in a nice warm place.

All that is left in the nest are workers with no work to do and the odd male. 

As the weather cools further they will die off. 

There work done for the season.

Memories

 

Seaweek

WOW!!! Seaweek 2020.

This event has now been running for years. I was lucky to be invited back and to see how it has emerged.

I designed some activities that would hopefully create spaces for people to stop and interact with the beautiful harbor environment.

I believe to observe  fully (while immersed in natural ecosystems) with all of your senses is the start of so much. To freely question and then to interact (process or play/exploration) is to form connections, understandings, literacy,  ......

My hope is that these exploration possibilities sparked many wonderings.

Children’s explorations are so rich to join so we had a wonderful morning.

Herb flowers

Herb flowers are always popular with pollinators. I wonder what sort of powerful rongoa they share.
This blue butterfly is drinking Thyme nectar.

Summer chorus

Cicadas sing all day  long here in summer.
They are sap suckers and also tree pruners who damage small branches when they lay there eggs -this damage makes the branches susceptible to snapping in the wind.

They suck sap from plant roots in there nymph stages and then move above ground when they emerge in late spring.

This one is enjoying some corn.

Sharing

Some things are just too good not to share.
This bumble bee and Copper butterfly.
Often sedum plants have a wide variety of pollinators all at once..
They are an easy care perennial plant that is easy to divide and spread around your garden

Hay

Many hands make light work.

Haymaking is so  much fun when you have extra hands to help out.

This year we had more hands than pitchforks so had fun.

The haystack at the end is always so satisfying.

House moves in

And the house moves in!!!

This amazing house has been built with many hands over a few years.
Beautiful house built by and for beautiful people.
It was scary moving it to this resting place -and it fits beautifully.

So privileged to have such amazing people doing such amazing mahi here.

And to cook it!!!

We have had so much fun building this oven. We had some great helpers and now can have some great bake offs.

While we build we discussed fire and clay. How we can honor it. How we came to be able to use it and the stories that have been passed down to us about them. The little nook in the fromnt of the oven is to place a ??? to remind us of this.

Thistle flower

Not everyone loves thistles.

They are an indicator of compacted low calcium soils. Funny that they have deep taproots so can help rectify this.

I have noticed that they move through the landscape. It would be interesting to see if there were many changes in the soil after they have been.

This small patch is full of bees, beetles, small butterflies and a katydid.

Daily move

I love watching these guys every day. What herbs or grasses they eat first, how they dance into the next paddock all this knowing daily moves mean regeneration of soil systems.

Detectives

We have been exploring our land in places we have not been before. Finding clues. Still to find out who has been living here.

Lettuce flowers

Lettuce flowers with a Blue butterfly pollinator.

The whole ecosystem benefits from plants going to seed (if it is not an noxious weed).
Flowers for pollinators, seed for next year, soil shaded and fed by living plants for longer, higher proportions of carbon for compost and as the leaves can die back an opportunity to plant your next crop as an understory.

Bonfire charcoal

After the bonfire is charcoal!!

This charcoal is mostly bamboo so should be nice and dense. I will inoculate it and turn it into bio-char before I spread it around.