New tree systems

Meet our new wicking tree propagation unit. Thanks to the help of our amazing Woofers Renata and Tiago we now have;

-over 20 different varieties of semi-hardwood cuttings in our unit (so will see what works).

-a dedicated area in the community tunnel house for tree propagation from seed.

-loads of air prune pots.

-a shady area for potting on our seedlings (we already have; Inga bean, Custard apple, Tree Fushia, Currents, Honey locust and are awaiting more pots for; Tagasaste, Tamarello, Peaches, Plums, Raspberries, Pawaw,..and loads of natives.)

 

Sunflower pruning

This year I have been pruning my sunflowers and wow!!

After pruning they grow fast. It is simple I run my hand down the stem and the leaves snap off. This is great as I often plant sunflowers in amongst corn and curcubitae so this allows a lot more light into the understory. 

Next year I will do this more regularly as I noticed some of the pumpkin leaves got burnt as they went from shade to bright sunlight too quickly

Shady stream.

From a farm drain to one of the best places to be on a summers day. It's quiet today. So the native fish will be out enjoying the shady stream. 

We have just completed some rockwork to enable fish passage upstream and to stop it from eating out. Short runs and resting pools.

The stream and bamboo are a great team. Bamboo providing shade and bank stabilisation and the stream holding back these running bamboos. 
 

Good morning!

Bed with a view. Took our hammocks for a short walk last night and look where we woke up!! Was so good to see the sun go down and then rise again in the morning.

Over night the tide had washed away all traces of human footprints so mine where the only ones on the beach.

 

Out with the old - in with the new.

Just as my favorite plums are finishing my favorite early peaches are starting.  We have fruit all year round and it always seems like the next flavors are enticing you.

It is very worth while spending time planning your fruiting/flowering calendars when designing your orchard.

 

Hammocks for christmas

Woke to Kokako singing and Robins chattering next to my head. Our hammock camp for the night was perched on a ridge in Te Manawa o te Ika a Maui (Te Urewera) with views out to Maungapohatu.

Bus flat kitchen

What a project. This space has been a work in progress for a while as we felt into the space (the landscape and how we wanted to be in it). 

The final mockup felt so good but once we got the poles up and the rafters on wow!! Over Christmas we will be camping here for two weeks with extended family so will get a chance to bed in the kitchen layout using loose parts. 

We had fun playing with new materials during the construction. The poles are New Zealand made clay field tiles filled with pumice-crete and the rafters a eucalypt milled on site. So much potential for future buildings.

 

Rat palace -The wagon

 

 

 

What a project. Just after lockdown we where given a beautiful but aptly named wagon called Rat Palace.

Thinking we would bring it home re-line and clad it we soon found out that we had to completely remake it. We managed to selvedge most of the floor the axel and a couple of windows. It was a beautifully shaped and sized wagon so ............. with many helping hands we replaced, recreated, designed and now have beautiful accommodation -just in time for the Christmas rush.

A lot of the timber was here already and was split out of bigger pieces for the framing, rafters, joinery and jams. So a beautiful wagon and a great opportunity to get creative with natural timbers. 


 

Diversity

 Regenerating soils means farming your underground livestock.

It then comes back at you tenfold -better drought resistance, healthy stock, good water absorption and retention and as amazing bird and insect life above ground. Such a beautiful place to be!!

We have a diverse range of tree/shrub species to feed the different types of fungi, birds and insects and our 'big' livestock in times of drought or when they can reach. These also give us materials for building, and making baskets, charcoal, fire starters, mushrooms, mulch, fruit and nuts........and shelter when we need it.

Our pastures are diverse too this one has; Chickory, 4 types of clover, birdsfoot trefoil, yarrow, 2 plantains, dandelion, foxtail, perennial rye, yorkshire fog, paspalum, dock, buttercup, comfrey, jerusalem artichoke, ............ 

Pulsing animals through this system supercharges it.

Mushrooms

Was so lucky to have Billy and Lenny run a mushroom workshop here.

We learnt about growing Oyster, Shitake and Wine caps and so much about the role of mushrooms in our lives.

Everyone went home with some Oyster bags, Shitake logs and enough Wine cap spawn to make their own bed.

Such great learning, so many cool people.

 

Spring growth and change

 

 And the corn is up. A little yellower than I expected but look at the legumes. We have peas, lentils, crimson clover and lupins emerging too. I am enjoying this experiment. The pumpkins next door are loving this rain -and their companions too.

Check out the previous part of my field garden experiment here which will explain why we have such beautiful mulch. And here and here to hear about the cover crop. 

Companion planting

 

To me companion panting includes a whole succession of diverse plants working together to achieve abundance. 

It spirals out from this garden bed to our whole farm and plants grown for other gardeners (birds, insects, worms, fungi...) what we want to eat,  and then scaled down through the farm to the whole garden rotation, annual and perennial crops, seasons, microclimates, seeds to save, earth covered for as long as possible.....A crazy dance.

Photo number 1 is of a mixed greens bed planted into the mulch of winter cover crop (Lettuce, radish, red onions, rocket, cornflower, sorrel, sweet pea, ) Last summer this was a kumara bed that was replaced with a diverse cover crop. The path is mulched with bark from the bottom of our woodshed as this path will be walked often when collecting salad.

Photo number 2 shows the rocket flowering and magenta spreen coming up. We have just planted some Hyasinth been vine down the middle to add beautiful flowers to our summer salad and shade to the salad greens. Because I will be saving the lettuce seed I will be leaving the lettuce in for a while. Next summer this bed will be a grain crop.

Another swap

 

And the corn goes in!!

    

Planning for it has been an annual dance for years. This is our Kaanga Maa patch -our staple corn which we have had for over 10 years now. Porridge, tortilla, pozole....

Our cover crop has been scythed (roots left in the ground), any buttercup removed, mulched, a legume rich cover crop sown, and our soaked corn planted.

Was super impressed with the cover crop. It has been flowering since April and the amount of biomass was amazing. It was mostly eye level and so diverse. Look at the size of our lupin trunks - and the root nodules where impressive too. Oh and I forgot the amount of worms and the fantail that worked with us all morning.

Thanks to our amazing WOOFERS we got this job done in a morning!!

 

      

Planting tomatoes

Can you see me!! I am standing up. This is before I moved all of the bumblebees and edible broad beans and picked a salad (spinach, kale, edible flowers, lettuce, sorrel, carrots..) I used a mower to mulch everything and after a little weeding planted my tomatoes into deep mulch.

My cover crops are getting wilder and it is getting harder to mulch them as they are so full of life and food!!

 

Mushroom Farmers!!!

I thought I had killed off my mushroom bed by letting it dry out too much. Thanks to a visit from an amazing mushroom friend and a top up with mulch and this week we have king stropharia on the menu.

Down by the riverside

So good to wake up here. Warmest Lions hut trip ever for this time of the year. Slept under a fly down by the river.

 

Potato time

These guys have been chitting on our table in the sun.

The vermi-compost was especially made last autumn with charcoal, loads of comfrey and ramial woodchip. The beds had their 10 way cover crop made into compost yesterday and today before planting each potato with a hand full of compost I will lightly broad fork beds and dust with ash.

Go potatoes!!

 

Preparation

Getting ready for spring. Plot one a mixed cover crop, plot two a moving compost heap and plot three a tarp to kill off grass. We will see how they all go.

 

Bus flat succession

The bus flat has been an amazing project.
See here to see the final mock ups of where the screening would be going.
Then here to see the first plantings of trees with annual screening plants.

Today it looks like this 4 years later.

Pizza

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Ha!!! So good to fire up the oven for a pizza feast. Bring on the longer evenings
 

From little things big things grow

Our seed trays are filling up. We had to make some more today so that we had  room for the next round.  We are going to have so much kai in the next few weeks. Big shout out to all of our workers today -was it work?
 

Kumara wicking bed

This year I am trying something a little different for my kumara tipu. I have an old bath in my hot house which I have turned into a wicking bed. 

By putting a short piece of pipe snugly into the plug hole the bath will now hold water up the the top of the pipe. 

I then covered the pipe with a small plant pot to stop the pummice from blocking the pipe.

I have filled the bath up with pummice to warm up. In a few weeks when the weather warms a little more I will put my seed kumara about 15 centimeters under the pumice.

Warm, regular moisture, pumice for setting roots -we will see how it goes.

 

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.