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.