Tee - pee

What a morning. I love creating things with children. I worked with a great group of homeschooling families and we planted loads of fun seeds, build a bug house for pollinators and other garden helpers and then created this beautiful tee pee for the plants to climb.


Well I should not really say we as once the children knew how to use some of the tools they did it all themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who knows what sort of structures they built when they got home.

I am now inspired to make mine.

Ladybird, ladybird.

The ladybird population has been exploding!!!

First they came in droves and now they are starting to expand even more. I have not seen any aphids but they are all over my mustard beds. They will lay their eggs in the soil so I will harvest the mustard carefully, use it as a mulch and then carefully plant so I disturb the soil as little as possible.

Community

Another fun morning. We turned a whole lot of natural roadside resources into a beautiful house for beneficial insects.

This Kindy is very inspiring. They have;

-their own seed collection.
-an amazing comunity kai share stall for people to share surplus food and plants.
-an amazing secret (edible) garden.

I cannot wait until next year.

One of my favourite tools is this hole maker.

You bang it, wriggle it, bang it, wriggle it, then bang it again........

Then you can pick up the tallest bamboo and push them into the holes all by yourself. Easy peasy. All ready for tangling with colourful wool.

The soil was hard in Murupara but the children did it. We used turf as our garden edge, added a little compost and airated the soil with a fork.

In a couple of weeks when the seedlings are strong the children will plant purple peas and then gourds, beans, cucumbers.................

Anticipation

I love plums. The plum trees have been laden with beautiful, fragrant blossom -full of bees.

Here's hoping for a summer of sweet jucy plums.

Potato onions

Potato onions, garlic and shallots are all doing their thing through a thick layer of mulch. Onions have shallow root systems so like a thick mulch to slow weeds and water loss. Mulch also supports an amazing diversity of soil life -I cannot help having a look every now and then.

I love these Allums as you plant one bulb and they give back plenty.

Digging

Our pigs are hard at work preparing the ground under our orchards for their understories.

It is a time of change as they have been gardens when the trees were first planted and were then grazed under with our house cow. Now the trees are bigger the orchards will have a herbal ley under the drip lines and pasture in alleys between trees for sheep, chickens, ducks and pigs.

New trees

The last of our years trees are going in. There is always room

for a few more trees. The next few weeks we will be adding understories and switching our time to the summer garden.

Predators

Paper wasps have a painful sting. They also do a good job at cleaning up caterpillars in the garden -Watch out if you are trying to grow Monarch caterpillars.

These Queens are overwintering in an empty bee hive. I will soon be putting out nesting places for these caterpillar hunters so I can move them around my garden. (Yes it can be done -Carefully.)

Bumble bee houses

Bumble bee queens are out now looking for warm dry holes to build their nests in. Mouse holes are ideal.

We are making our own this year from gourds. This week we will be putting them under the long grass on a north western slope amongst the bountiful Tree lucerne.

Pollen

The bees are hard at work bring home pollen already. It is good to know you have a lot of pollen and nectar sources at hand to get the bees started in spring.

Some of the early bee food we have planted to supliment our native plantigns are; Tree lucerne, Willow, Hazel, and a good range of fruit trees starting with Almond.

Lambs

One lamb, then twins, and then another.

I love watching lambs dancing in the paddock.

The sheep are using their new mineral feeder lots to get the extra nutrition needed to feed their growing lambs.

MIlk

Fresh milk. Thank you Lilly and Peter.

Duck food

Slug and snail populations can grow dramatically over winter so it is great to see our ducks hard at work. They are continually roving the paddocks turning slugs and snails into tasty duck eggs.

Calving

Lilly was the last of the cows on the farm to calf.

Welcome Fat boy!!

Pupae

Lots of insects spend the winter as pupae waiting for springs warmth to hatch.

Pollinators

The air is full of buzzing and the sweet smell of nectar.
Tree lucerns help kick start the pollinators ready for their invaluable pollinating services.
This tree is only 3 years old.

Fantails

A perch in the garden, and they spend their days catching insects and fertilising.

I love their cheery dance and the click as they catch a meal.

Blossom

Our Almond trees are showing the first blossoms of spring.

Maybe it is beacuse they are on a warm west facing basin.

SPRING!!

Sorted!!

First step was to explore and find treasure.

Then after a little food Ari started sorting her rock collection. Once this was done she found our rock books and started trying to work out what she had.

Exploring

New places are always fun to explore with cousins.

We plan our holidays together. A trip to the beach was one idea.

Yams

We dig them up as needed after the first frosts. Carefully putting the biggest tubers from the best producing plants in a basket hanging from the ceiling for next years crop.

Fencing

It feels realy good to have time to clear out the old barb wire fences and put up new ones that will hold the sheep. Next job -hedgerows.

Broad beans

Our early broad beans are flowering and the bees are loving them. With this mild weather we may have beans sooner than I thought.

As well as making mulch and capturing nitrogen for our summer lettuce crop, they are acting as a catch crop at the moment -I have spotted the odd aphid and stink bug warming in the winter sun.

I am feeding the stinkbugs to the chickens. The aphid population will hopefully balance out when I encourage more waxeyes and earwigs into the garden.

Preparation

Getting ready for another workshop.

It is always exciting thinking about all of the new people you are going to meet and knowledge that will be shared.

This workshop will look at edible playscapes. We will be focusing on gardening with and for children and encouraging natures many gardeners.

Grass hoppers

As the days cool down so do our insects. They find warm places to get moving in the mornings. This grasshopper is on the top of one of out Tagasaste in the Peach orchard.

Compost

What a heap. Everyone from our Organic horticulture course brought compost materials and by lunch time we had a giant compost heap. Now it is steaming. Hopefully by spring it will be ready for planting.

Willow knot

What a wet workshop.

We;

- went for a hikoi and found out about the different types of willow.

- looked at willow working techniques.

- designed our own projects.

- harvested our willow.

- built our own living hut.

And it rained!!!

Pruning

Time to prune. Unwanted branches should be cut back to the wrinkly 'healing tissue' on the main branch so the tree can heal itself easily.

Shells

Blackbirds do a great job of collecting snails. All they need is something hard to help them crack open the shells.