There are so many of these beautiful treasures hanging everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I have swan plants scattered throughout the garden and loads more zinnea's (butterflies love these the best) and other flowers than ever.
Weeding is now worrying after I pulled out some plants with a chrysalis on -yes my weeds are big.
Its time consuming to check each plant before mulching.
What an amazing problem to have!
The lettuces and parsley are loving the dahlia overstory -not that they get much choice. They seem to be flourishing and I reckon its partly because of the summer shade.
By planting them it also meant the soil was covered quicker too.
Can you spot the sunflowers behind?
It is blowing me away how many flowers I am adding to our gardens without compromising food production.
The poppies keep just out of reach as the draft from the bumblebees wings pushes it away.
There where a few successful landings by the most persistent bumbles.
The poppies petals only last a day due to this persistent pestering.
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.
Solstice ramble salad for lunch.
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.
It's guava time and the Tamarello, mandarins and last of the apples are still around.
So beautiful. So lucky to have seen this. Just after the eclipse a heavy fog settled down.
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.
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!!
We ended up staying in the tipi overnight. Breakfast was leftovers and foraged fruit.
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.
We dreamt up a harvest party while shucking corn and collected corn silk for rongoa too.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
