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.

Webs

These cold frosty mornings highlight the amazing mahi of our spiders. Everywhere you walk there are dew droplets on webs. In bare branches, long grass and sometimes trailing from who knows where.

Spiders are an important cycler of nutrients and controller of insect populations. Keeping things in check in all important balance.

I like that spiders are web builders. Webs that span between. A reminder that everything is connected.

Fish Hydrolysate

This is my first ever drum of fish hydrolysate. It is now over a year old. It smells sweet. Was so surprised how little it smelt during the fermentation process. I have been adding it to all of my compost teas and slurries.

Kereru

 

This time of the year is punctuated by the whooshing of these majestic birds.
Kereru all come down to feast on the tasty new Tagasaste buds. It is not uncommon to have flocks of 10 or more swooping down over you.

Same place -well sort of.

6/2020

5/2011

5/2012

Fig corner

Growth. The first photo is 2006.
I remember following the digger around with a sack of seeds and then tree planting.
Now this corner has loads of natives, tagasaste, figs, olives, pomegranates, a pa harakeke, basket willows and some small acacia. You cannot even see the caravan that is parked on the little pull in -and that is without the fig leaves.

Diversity

My new (only had for three years) pumpkins. I love this butternut as it is so quick to peel and cut because the whole long end has no seeds. They also store well and look really funky.

Over the last few years I have been trialing some new varieties of pumpkins (more variety in the seed bank). To keep seed true to type this has meant developing more isolation gardens (more work).

I love the new varieties so am looking to find some people to help with all of the mahi so our seed bank has a little more diversity.

Crop Swap Flowers

During lockdown I have been even more aware of all of the plants and learnings I have gathered from Crop Swap. Even though I am missing the amazing people I am reveling in the connections I have in our  community and know as we unlock we will be able to meet again.

Here is a link to the first Crop swap day.

Tansy

Tansy is a constant presence in my garden. If allowed it will grow up to 2 meters all and run riot with beautiful yellow flowers.
I use it for an ever ready source of chop and drop mulch, food for insects, flowers for my table and as it is a perennial it provided growing roots in the soil all year.

Next years potatoes

Last years potatoes where a big experiment. We planted them into sheet mulched straw.

After harvest the potato patch was converted into a diverse cover crop. The seed were coated in a vermicast slurry and broadcast.
Buckwheat, corn, sorgum, sunflowers, oats, wheat, linseed, kale, spinach, fennel, clovers, phacellia, blue lupin, broadbeans.....
Come spring this will be mulched and corn planted into another diverse mix.

This year the potato experiment continues...
We have made a big compost windrow next to the cover crop and as we turn/move the compost we will sow a winter cover crop. At potato harvest time this will be mowed and potatoes planted in to cover crop an finished compost.