Mixed bed full!!

This bed has, pansies, strawberries, rosemary, dahlia starting to grow, chives, chamomile, lambs ear, a whole lot of weeds, jerusalem artichokes in the back and every now and then a wine cap mushroom pops up too.

 

Sharp tools

Just finished doing a little sharpening on my favorite tools.

You never know how blunt they are until you sharpen them.

It makes things so much easier/quicker.

Lots of planning underway so my pencil sharpening has been a lot more regular.

Baby blues

New road = new fences and new opportunities.

These Eucalyptus are going to be a canopy in a hedgerow to provide; shade and shelter alongside paddock, more foliage diversity for my foliage business, make beautiful scented bath teas, provide pollinator food, capture nutrients to be given back to paddock, stabilize bank, add diversity and provide a sight screen from the road.

Underneath will go comfrey, hebe, caprosma, rose geranium

Also in hedgerow will be bottlebrush, manuka, macadamia, native broom, tagasaste.....

 

Recipe box sort out.

 I love my recipe box.

I get a lot of grief about it though.

Mixed up with; peach wine, gouda cheese, choritso sausage, brawn, sourdough starter, chilli sauce and tomato soup recipe's are some more very important ones.

Like; fish hydrolysate, fermented pant juice and dilution rates for plant extracts. I reckon they are all important things to cook.

Mud

There is nothing like the feel of mud. 

This mud has been hiding underground alongside a spring. Bright blue when you first uncover it but it changes color as it gets exposed to air.

I love how these guys have used it!!

Supplejack nest

Verdict. Too small. We are off to make another so we can sit in it.

 

Happy solstice

 A beautiful frosty start here followed by glorious sunshine and gathering.

Solstice ramble salad for lunch.

New happenings

 While the digger was diggering the children where playing. 

MUD!!!

So many colors and textures usually hidden.

What a day. We have been waiting for the digger to come for a while so to be finally working with it was amazing. A full on day exploring potential and change. Being open to possibilities as they emerged. 

Now on to those trees.

Guavas

 We are never far from a snack around here -especially when you have children/harvesters visiting!!

 It's guava time and the Tamarello, mandarins and last of the apples are still around.

Fire

 

Full moon eclipse.

  

A super blood moon eclipse warrants a night in the tipi. 

So beautiful. So lucky to have seen this. Just after the eclipse a heavy fog settled down. 

Scaffolding

 Need scaffolding.

Just go and harvest some!!!

This is one of my favorite plants to visit. 

Its nestled in a small food forest with; Cherimoya, Banana, Sugarcane, Kefir lime, Fejoa, Pine nut, Avocado, Passionfruit, Loquat,....and of course since we are harvesting sunlight some solar panels.

Eco printing

 

After my adventures in using kokowai I had a go with eco printing. 

My favorites where liquid amber leaves and eucalypt bark. Now we have fancy covers for our tipi mattresses.

And am looking around with new eyes at potential new dye sources.

Kokowai

 Kokowai.

This is the colour of this land. Ngati pukeko. 

This is one of my first attempts of dying cloth with clay from this whenua. 

Mordanted with raw milk then soaked in clay.

Usually I avoid white clothes. Now I am on the lookout!!

Happy harvest

 Ours was spent with the best of friends. Sharing kai, clay creations, great conversations and of course music late into the night.

We ended up staying in the tipi overnight. Breakfast was leftovers and foraged fruit.

Fire bath

 What better way to dye your fabric than a firebath under the stars. This eco dying did not come out to clear so will have to stoke up the bath again soon.

Brick yard

 How can you walk past the brick yard without spinning a wheel and getting your hands in the clay? You do not need to make. Just the rhythmic spinning of the wheel and clay moving under your fingers. And well if you cannot reach the treadle just sitting with the clay.

Mushrooms are go!!

 Our Strophoria have left the mushroom patch for our garden paths. And wow there are so many.

A trailer load of harvest

 Corn harvested and ready for hanging. Thanks to all of my helpers!!

We dreamt up a harvest party while shucking corn and collected corn silk for rongoa too.

Brownies in the garden

This afternoon I had a wonderful group of brownies in the garden. We wandered tasted and wondered. It is amazing what is edible and how much fun you can have mixing it up.

It is amazing how much of a jungle the garden is at this time of the year.
 

And thank you to Pam Pearse for taking the photo. It is not often there is one of me!!

Wood

 

There is nothing like a woodshed full of wood.

You get warm filling it, feel warm when you see it and well for us it cooks, warms the house and hot water.

You also get wonderful bags of sawdust for the composting toilets.

End of summer jungle

 

Tomato seeds

 The best of the best.

This is the time for tomato seed saving. I choose from the healthiest, tastiest, highest producing plants. Let the fruit ripen fully on the plant and then squeeze some seeds into a small jar to ferment.

This sits on our kitchen windowsill until the seeds fall down and we get a beautiful white lactobacillus bloom on top. Then I rinse and hang above the wood range to dry before storing.

This year we a trialing a range of yellow and orange tomatoes from Mark Christensen's Heritage food crops trust collection and will save our favorites to go with our long standing bunch.

Changes

 

This photo was taken 10 years ago when we started the first stage of our road. 

Since then this area has fed us, many friends and an ever increasing diversity of wild and farmed animals with an ever evolving succession of kai.

From the seeds grown and saved here we now have a community garden, seedling house and propagation area to distribute plant material into our community. 

Thanks to our friend Byron we have a birds eye view of this craziness.

Summer garden

 The Kumara is the only wide angle shot I can take at the moment. Most of the garden is so high you cannot see very far.

That is until you have a friend with a drone visit.

Thanks Byron . What a cool perspective. And you can see the whole garden. 

The job of the day was harvesting potatoes (bare ground). A day later and winter cover crop is sown, soil mulched and it should be green in a few weeks.

Bee watching!!

Watching bees.

First you have to sneek up to flower. 

Make sure your shadow is away.

Slowly hold flower and if you are gentle you can bend it towards you and get really close!