rose nursery

The April edition of New Zealand Gardener features a useful guide to propogating your own roses from cuttings. I decided to try it, using several shortcuts from their version as I know that if I put the cuttings into a pot or propogator tray, the garden murderer will kill them for certain.

The garden murderer went to sleep soon after 4.30pm, sleeping off days of toddler partying. So the gardening began...

I've decided to turn the garden along the back of the house into a rose potager with garlic and other vegetables and herbs around them. Roses climbing up a brick wall which gets full sun almost all day seems a gorgeous plan to me. So I weeded the next section (I've got my first rose cutting growing well along here already, plus raddiccio, rocket, broccoli, welsh bunching onions and florence fennel) adn then tipped a 40 litre bag of sheep poo over the top. I've had this bag decomposing for about six months. Then I tipped a 40 litre bag of potting mix over the top. It would have seemed wildly extravagant to go and buy these especially for the job, but as I've had them a while and it is improving and building up the soil no matter what goes in after the rose cuttings, I thought it was worthwhile.

I trimmed the big branches of roses poking through the fence from our neighbour's place. Shirley is a very keen rose gardener who grows as many roses as she can possibly squeeze into her small section and shows the best blooms locally and at shows throughout the South Island.

I made eight cuttings, all with four leaf nodes on them. I trimmed the bottom leaf node off, scraped down the sides of the bottom 4 centimetres and cut the leaves back to just two on each of the top three branches. Then I pushed each one into the soil, making a bed of eight cuttings in a space about 100 x 70 cm. If they all 'take', then I will transplant six out. There is room to have two growing there long term though. I watered the area thoroughly, mulched with pea straw and watered again. I will be watching with interest. If even one of them turns into a flourishing rose bush, then it has created beauty without the expenditure of nearly $20 per rose bush.

While I had the gardening window, I also weeded and watered and mulched around my youngest cavolo nero plants and planted daffodil and freesia bulbs. I admired the pretty pink flowers coming out now from some bulbs gifted by a friend in early summer. Not completely sure, but I think they might be autumn crocuses (croci?).

inside outside world

Today I remained inside my house for the entire day, excepting feeding the chooks twice and hanging washing out once. The purpose was to keep my children inside in the warm and to cosset and coddle my son out of his wheezing into improved health.

I will not even pretend it did great things for my sanity. The children were fine, within the usual realms of children challenges. Once again, the problem was the house. I need to leave the house. Every day.

So while I was inside more than ever, no longer discussing the financial literacy of the nation's youth with the local MP but instead teaching two young children how to share, then insisting on the sharing, more times than any non-parent might imagine.

I sneaked in some reading, but although I am enjoying Catcher in the Rye, the endless monologue of a depressed teenager isn't hugely uplifting. I read the weekend papers almost exhaustively, ignoring the milk spilt on them and blocking out the origins of the green shrek toothpaste smeared throughout my daughter's hair. I read about the woman behind a new book called Love in a Headscarf and found her blog. Spirit21 is my new must-read, a British Muslim woman thinking and analysing and living outside the square. Her header says it all:

'They built me a box to live in and painted my
caricature inside.
They said "this is you".
I said no thank you, I'd rather be me'

In my inbox today, the electronic version of the latest magazine of the (NZ) Labour History Project, formerly known as the Trade Union History Project. One of the best articles in this magazine was by David Grant on Mark Briggs and Archibald Baxter, conscientious objectors in World War One. Whereas Baxter wrote a wonderful memoir which I recall reading as a teenager (partly while in detention ha ha ha), Briggs was an ordinary working class man whose life has not received much attention until now. I copy here Grant's final two paragraphs from the article:

Mark Briggs will be best remembered for his experiences during
the First World War, and rightly so. I contend that Briggs was not a hero but
an ‘ordinary’ man caught up in extraordinary circumstances, events that
he faced with enormous moral courage. He and the other transported
objectors were tortured in varying degrees in the most astonishing incidence
of State-sanctioned cruelty in this country’s history. Forcibly taking the
14 men, without warning, to the front line to cure them of their
insensibility represented the nadir in the State’s bigotry towards legitimate
dissent. Twelve of the 14 succumbed to the army’s wishes, some in the most
trying of circumstances. In a poignant irony, one, William Little, was
killed within 18 days of becoming a stretcher bearer.

Baxter and Briggs prevailed, making them New Zealand’s
first successful dissenters, succeeding against all odds in a young,
immature, subservient, insecure and martial society that feared
nonconformity, even more so under the stresses of war. They stood at the apex
of the State’s intolerance towards such dissent. They are key in our
tradition of anti-militarism that includes Moriori leader Nunuku-whenua;
Taranaki’s Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi; the brave young working class
men mostly from the West Coast and Canterbury who protested against
compulsory military training when it was first introduced in 1911; the
anti-conscriptionists of World War One; other pacifists before and in the
early days World War Two, and the myriad of antiwar activists who emerged in
the nuclear age. Briggs and particularly Baxter (through his book) became
heroes to many of these later activists. They are exemplars of the cause of
war resistance in this country, men of courage, spirit and principle, to be
lauded in the same breath as Te Whiti, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and
Nelson Mandela.

Grant also has a book out on these men and I'll be down at my local library making sure they have it/have it on order later this week. The Labour History Project website is here. Here on the Coast we have our very own labour history project and this is our website for the Blackball Working Class History Museum.

And the garden? I read in the (Christchurch, NZ) Press in the weekend an article by some uber-capitalist stockmarket enthusiast bemoaning people becoming hysterical about the market and planting vegetables instead of shopping. Like women who ask too many questions, lets paint sensible people who aren't conforming to the way the big boys want us to bail them out by describing them (me, probably 'us) as 'hysterical'.

I didn't get to get my hands dirty today, but I did consider the view from the study window. Since I moved the temporary chook shelter, I get a much better view of the far corner where we have planted cabbage trees over our children's buried placentas and a few blackcurrant bushes. The chooks have been clearing this area nicely and I think there is room for a plum tree this winter and - given how I get to see it so well from my computer now - some spring bulbs.

4am

Isn't there a song with the phrase 'four o'clock in the morning'? I can sort of hear it in my head but not the rest of the song.

Anyway, while I'm up, more on my life.

Yesterday Fionn and I planted his broccoli. It is getting quite late for planting here, but worth a go, especially if the alternative is throwing the seedlings out. Before we planted, I emptied a 40 litre bag of sheep poo on the garden site, added blood and bone, kinpack sheep dags soil conditioner and dolomite lime and then dug it all over. We've planted the broccoli plants fairly closely - about 20cm apart, but I'm figuring that with the intense amounts of plant food we've given them, they should thrive. I'm not thinking too much about my frustration with broccoli last winter - when my six year old announces he loves broccoli and wants to grow some, there ain't no way I am squashing his enthusiasm.

I also made green tomato chutney. I haven't tasted any yet but am, naturally, hopeful that I haven't wasted my time trying to emulate Barbara Kingsolver merely for all noses to wrinkle when the chutney comes out.

While I was being so clever, I made ratatouille with the gifted field mushrooms, the aubergine which was on special and with our own red tomatoes and (green) zucchini. We had that for tea after snacking on smoked chicken sandwiches for much of the afternoon. A grateful person connected to FH's work gave him a home smoked chicken which we all enjoyed.

The other thing we did was Fionn and I went to the Warehouse. If you don't live in New Zealand, The Warehouse is a huge shop full of all kinds of supposedly cheap things. It makes a big song and dance about being NZ owned and having NZ made products, but the reality is that most of it's stock is made in China. Children love the Warehouse. I'm less excited but as I woke up feeling strong and brave, off we went to buy stationery, a new alarm clock and to research mugs (and from the other in the party, to oggle hot wheels cars).

Lots of very cheap mugs, generally under $5 each with some packs of 4 (that I didn't like) for $6. I realised that all red mugs were ruined because they all look like those Nestle mugs and yes surprise surprise I am a nestle boycotter. So two mugs of pretty floral patterned-ness went into the trolley. But wait. There's more. On the way to the Hot Wheels aisle, I saw a stand of 'urban revolution' branded items on remainder sale. Ha ha ha the irony. I bought, for $2.97 each, some rather styley mugs which were almost definitely made in China, but which had printed upon them, spanish text about Cuba and a romantic photo of a Cuban car and building. So in the capitalist temple, I bought remaindered mugs of probably sweatshop origin which glorified Cuban life, the socialist state which eschews capitalism.

I also bought some daffodils as I had to because they were called 'Sandra' which I've never seen before. It says they are polyanthus type, which I don't understand at all in relation to daffodils. I'll have to raise them in pots on concrete to reduce the likelihood of slugs eating them. By Spring, our garden will be a-slime with slugs and daffodils are a favourite food of the slimeys. So last year we had anemones because they were called St Brighid and this year is my turn. Haven't seen any flowers named for Fionn or FH.

While I was making a mess in the kitchen yesterday, I also got to listen to the second of Margaret Atwood's lectures on debt. Yesterday was debt and sin. Fasicnating stuff. This link gives more information and has the podcast of the lectures.

In a few hours, so long as I don't forget, overcome by the challenge of making school lunches and getting organised after having been awake in the middle fo the night, Brighid and I have a meeting with our local MP. Our local MP is Chris Auchinvole and the fact that he is a National MP hinders me not. He is paid to work for our electorate and I have some work for him. I've been reading and learning about loan sharks. I first started to learn about loan sharks when I saw the Ken Locah movie "Raining Stones" back in the early 1990s. For a nice, sheltered girl like me, it was a powerful eye-opener. Raining Stones is seet in Northern England but I've been finding out about loan sharks in New Zealand, about people in vulnerable situations being loaned money at interest rates of 8% PER WEEK.

Before the last election, there were noises being made about two things related to this topic. The first was a move to limit the interest rates which could be legally charged as parts of Europe, Australia and the US have done. The second was for the government to fund financial literacy education for New Zealanders. I have a particular interest in the effects on vulnerable young people of poor financial skills and knowledge and today I have several suggestions for Chris Auchinvole. I don't know that he is very important in parliament but I aim for him to be better versed on this topic and hopefully inspired to make a difference in some way, locally or nationally.

If I organised my blog nicely, there would be several different posts instead of this one altogether. There would also be a lovely photo of my green tomatoes freshly picked and then another one of the chutney in jars also looking lovely. Perhaps photos of the packet of daffodils and of the MP and of Margaret Atwood or her book and perhaps an image from the movie Raining Stones. But I'm not that kind of girl. You'll know if I ever do acquire such skills as downloading photos as suddenly there will be more photos than text. It's not on the near horizon though.

year of the climber

Last year was the year of the chooks and a very successful one I think. I learnt a lot and we ate vegetables, herbs and eggs from our garden in increasing quantities.

This year is, I suspect, going to be the year of the climber. I'm still interested in growing as much food as possible, but I've come to the conclusion that flowers are welcome and indeed needed across the fences and the sides of the house. I once thought the climbers would be beans and peas but after two years of very average to poor performances from peas and beans, I think roses and clematis deserve a go instead.

Tonight I gave some time to my little clematis this evening. I pulled the rampant nasturtiums away from it, weeded, watered with my liquid fertiliser brew (mostly seaweed and comfrey) and mulched with pea straw. I retrained the clematis vine which had been vining through the nasturtium to go up the bamboo, with the help of the twine recycled from the bale of pea straw.

I stared through the fence to look at my neighbours' beautiful roses and noticed that they use a dark green rigid mesh (looks like plastic coated wire) to train their roses up. I'll be pricing that down at the garden shop this weekend. As well as putting some up for the clematis, I want some against the house. My pink rose cutting (the one I struck myself) is looking happy so far and I have plans to put more roses in against the house. The house is made of bricks and I think roses growing up against it will look wonderful. Of course, I'll be putting garlic in around each one this coming winter.

In the punga raised bed is my first rose (apart from the ones in front of the lounge which were here when we bought the house) - a Dublin Bay climber. The punga raised bed is otherwise currently swamped by yams. I hope there are some tubers underneath come winter. The foliage is impressive, but not edible. But perhaps once the yams are out I could shift the white rose from the front of the house - the one which rambles and swamps everything else and flops onto the driveway and threatens to puncture the car tyres - into the punga garden where it can flop all over the punga logs and generally spread everywhere. I would still plant vegetables, or herbs at least, around the roses. Maybe carrots would like it in there with them? Maybe 2009 will be the year in which I successfully grow carrots for the first time ever?

I'm still undecided about my yellow banksia climbing rose. It's the yellow thing. I bought it for the front and I'm rethinking the front and moving towards stately tall things and perhaps a bush rose with garlic around it, but not a bold yellow climber after all. Which means the yellow goes somewhere out the back. White, soft pinks and bold reds, really bold reds, I do. But yellow, hmmm less often. Perhaps it could go where the last tiny kale seedling died, beside the rhubarb. Then it wouldn't be in the same eyeframe as my pink rose. Although as I type I'm thinking that two years running a tomato did very poorly in that spot and then the kale died. Perhaps it isn't the place to put a $17 rose. Seventeen dollars might not be super expensive in terms of roses, but it is pretty flash on my scale.

I'm also thinking flowers because the bulb catalogues and advertisements are out now. Every year I imagine that despite a straightened budget that year, the next I might splash out on hundreds of dollars of bulbs and have totally gorgeous profusion. This year is no exception. But I always always allow myself a few new bulbs each Autumn. Last year I left the freesias in the ground amongst the herbs down one side of the house. I got annoyed with the few bulbs which came up along the back of the house as they looked silly in isolation and dumped them on the compost. I gave up on planting special expensive canna lilies as Brighid ripped my one and only out last year and hid it somewhere where it has not grown. I've left the bluebells from last year in along the front of our bedroom and am hopeful that they will come up even more plentiful this year. I think I will get some more for that garden as I ultimately want a thick carpet of spring bloom there. I've already bought some yellow freesias - I planned to plant them around the yellow banksia rose.

Daffodils, which I always assumed were dead easy to grow, haven't done well at this house. Today I read that slugs love daffodil bulbs. I expect that explains the problem. I guess I could raise them in pots (where I can control the slug population fairly well) and transplant in spring.

Tulips are totally and utterly gorgeous and I'd love hundreds of them. I've had mixed success with them here.

I have found a catalogue with snowdrops in it. I've not seen them at the garden shop in the last three years that I've been gardening on the coast, but I have missed them. They were the first sign of imminent spring in the garden of my childhood. Onionweed provides a similar looking, albeit smelly, alternative, but I do fancy the 'real thing'.

On the vege front, the kale and silverbeet is looking well. I am about to cull one poorly tomato and plant some more winter veg. Brighid sat on the cabbages in the weekend so I'm not yet sure if they will survive the ravages of the fat bottomed nappy girl. We are eating our own tomatoes and the beetroot seedlings are perhaps a week off transplanting. The new rhubarb is looking sickly but I figure that often the old leaves die off and just when despair looms very close, new leaves appear.

Gelatine Sunday

Two lots of stock today. I started the beef stock last night and cooked it in the slow cooker until midday today. Then I switched the cooker off and left the stock to cool until it was manageable. It is now strained and in the fridge. Minestrone later in the week I expect. Too bad that it is summer and thus quite heavy food. But any other favourites for using beef stock which are more summery in style are welcome.

The fish stock is cooking as I type. That will be used tomorrow night for potato and green olive tagine. Currently we have neither green olives or a tagine dish in the house but this recipe from Cuisine magazine has worked with lots of adaptations in the past so should work tomorrow also.

I also made sushi and basil pesto today. The tomato pasta sauce I am leaving for tomorrow. A girl can only be so good in the kitchen in one day. I put some finely chopped celery in the sushi as according to Laksmi my herbal/cranio-sacral/massage therapist, celery is very very good for me. So is ginger, which I also put in the sushi. I've been reading more on Chinese medicine and some people are deficient and others are excess. I'm excess. I am also damp and need cooling and drying foods. Well well well. It's quite fun being a food nutter. All sorts of new things to try and to think about. The book I am consulting for all of this (Paul Pitchford, Healing with Whole Foods) also says alcohol is bad. I did go alcohol free Monday - Friday last week, but not in the weekend. I'm not that committed.

I forgot completely about today being seed sowing day until I read Nikki's blog tonight once it was dark. Seed sowing is risky with Brighid around anyway. But I did spread some more pea straw on the old chook run. I left one tomato to grow along the ground unstaked as an experiment. I'd read somewhere that they can grow well like this. We are eating yummy cheery tomatoes from this snaking along plant and tonight I discovered that it has made roots in new places. One way of increasing the nutrient intake I guess.

I also watered the zucchinis and globe artichoke with my seaweed and comfrey brew. I've been watering the tomatoes and brassicas with this over the past few days but I've still got a few litres left. My comfrey plants have grown vigorously, all in places where many other plants don't grow. Two plants are in the shade and in a relatively dry spot. Two plants are in partial shade which is a bog for all of spring. As nothing else grows in the boggy spot, I'm going to put more comfrey there for next year. I've cut most of the comfrey down and chopped it up. It has half filled my large rubbish bin and been covered with water and then with the lid. Next time I go out to the beach north of smallwettown, I'll gather seaweed and add it to the brew.

The strip of garden along the back of the house is one I made myself in early 2007. I started with broad beans (which we mostly didn't eat) and then grew tomatoes in it last summer. The celery I put in there lasted all winter and the brassicas have done moderately well this summer. It is on quite a slope though and the bottom part gets very wet during the very wet season which here is about nine months of the year but particularly in Spring. I have often looked at it and thought we need to wait until we can afford a truck load of compost, or a trailer load at the very least.

But my latest, and definitely better, plan, is to build it up in small sections. I started last week with the mushroom compost. The rocket is poking through there and the radiccio (which I misnamed chicory when I last blogged about it) is looking healthy. Tonight I found a piece of wood and used it to set up a small terrace effect just under a metre below where the mushroom compost patch finished. Then I sprinkled dolimite lime, boron and powdered blood and bone. I covered that with sheep poo and covered the sheep poo with kinpack powdered sheep manure which is a product from ground up sheep dags. Then I forked on big wads of pea straw and grass clippings from the compost heap. I have only just remembered that this is possibly the site where I buried the chicken bones last week. It should be Jack and the Beanstalk country at this rate. I watered all that in with the hose and in a week or so I'll plant some seedlings.

A few weeks ago, maybe a month, I took cuttings from my neighbour's rambling rose bush. I potted up three cuttings and two of them 'took'. So I have them on the outside table hardening up a bit before I plant them. I had thought all new flower acquisitions would go in the side garden but I already have red and orange flowers there and the rambling rose cuttings are pink. Perhaps I should put them in along the back of the house, which would suit pink. Where I have just made the richest new soil imaginable? Hmmm. Then I could add garlic there in winter. Given that garlic and roses make each other so happy in the garden. Then maybe as there are two cuttings, I should put the other one along the side fence out the back (no I don't expect anyone else to visualise where that might be!) where a kale plant died last week. Hmmmmm. I was thinking more veges for those spots but gardens don't have to be all veges (though mine has to be mostly veges). I guess I'll have to sort out trellis or some kind of training apparatus for the roses, no matter where they go.

On the subject of roses, I assumed that the yellow one I planted out the very front by the big climbing tree and on the edge of the driveway, would be swamped and suffering. Everything else in the yellow garden patch seems to be rather overgrown. But no, it is growing and indeed has a flower on it. So it can stay there, where I shall build up some rich goodies like blood and bone and compost around it, and eventually it can wind and twirl itself along the old fence which borders the driveway and smother it with yellow roses. There might be a lot of mess and rough edges on our section, but it most surely is growing food, flowers and pleasure for my family.

flowers and tomatoes

I did finish weeding the watercress out and I dug that end of the old chook run over, removing the dead zucchini along the way. I've now planted the rest of the tomato plants in the new space. They may be too late going in, but I think it's worth trying.

Last night I had admired some beautiful flowers in my friend's garden and this afternoon she brought some bulbs (in plant and flower) around for me. Very very lovely. They are now living in the corner of the potato patch, which is a space where we can see and admire them often. I don't know their name yet.

Although one zucchini has died the other, planted out the front quite a while ago, is doing wonderfully and I think we will be eating zucchini by the end of this week.

I planted out the rest of my sunflower seedlings this evening. They are out the front in my yellow garden. The yellow garden is all weeds at the back (too much to attempt at once and that is still our dumping ground for large tree clippings and rose prunings) and is also sporting a riot of orange nasturtiums. I must put them in a salad soon. The pumpkins are also in the yellow garden and they are doing rather averagely. My explanation so far is that they need deep compost and do not have it. Underneath the thinnish layer of horse manure and pea straw which has been settling down and baking compost all winter, the soil is not very rich and is mostly taken up with large tree roots.

Today is Westland Anniversary Day so we were all home which is how I got to escape alone into the garden. I do appreciate it. I also made bread and turned traffic light peppers (red/yellow/green peppers in a plastic pack - yes green God I have sinned) and baked beans into something that looked exactly like that but made me feel like we weren't having beans on toast for the millionth time. I still had some garlic butter mix left over from the garlic bread I made up last night and that went on the toast with the traffic light beans most satisfactorily.

No cooked beans or gingerbread so far nor is it particularly likely. I am reading a book Margaret Mahy which I'm enjoying and being inspired re: children's literature. Favourite Handyman has spent much of the day reading The Faraway Tree to Fionn. Ah, Enid Blyton. My childhood friend. Great to see my son making friends with her as well.

A Perfect Day

Sunshine all day. All four of us together all day. Poached eggs for breakfast. Home made bread, barbequed-outside-over the wee open fire-sausages, pea and silverbeet pasta, home made pesto for dinner. Sausage sizzle lunch at the Totara Flat garden extravaganza. Ice creams on the way home. Children riding bikes, playing in tents and helping to gather grass clippings. We all fell asleep before eight after reading parts of a children's encyclopedia which belonged to Fionn's grandad many years ago - old planes are still fascinating to my five year old.

The bits in the middles also wonderful to me...

The chooks spent the day clearing up another spot on the lawn/garden. This time around one of our feijoa trees. In the evening, once they were back in Poultry Palace, Favourite Handyman and I moved our temporary enclosure again ready for tomorrow. I am still thinking and hopefully on the way to learning more about the best environment for our fruit trees. The grass around them clogs and threatens to strangle them on regular occasion. I don't want to be spraying around it (heaven forbid) and I didn't think they should have lots of plants close to them. But the grass (quite weedy lawn at that) must be using some nutrients and so perhaps it is better to grow herbs around the fruit trees. I could put the chooks in for an extended period with lots of pea straw mulch and they would weed and fertilise for me. Then more thick mulch and some herbs? I have no attachment to lawn and the place where the fruit trees are is deliberately not set up as intensive children running space. The trees are north of the sandpit and they tend to run round south of the sandpit. So ideas on companion plants for feijoas and blackcurrants are most welcome. The way the weeds keep coming through in my blueberry bed, I'm wondering if the soil would be best filled (i.e. with deliberately planted, welcome plants) round the blueberries as well.

The Totara Flat garden extravaganza was a lovely hour or so in a small and friendly community. We didn't want to buy lots (though it would have been possible - they had lots of lovely big trees and plants) but are very pleased with our tiny chilli plant. I didn't bother with buying chilli seeds when I knew we had no need for more than one chilli plant. A friend at the extravaganza was giving away Maori seed potatoes and we now have five tiny Maori potatoes ready to plant this week.

Back home I got stuck into making a home for my Maori potatoes - the sunny edge of the oldest compost pile, which we have been steadily using up in the garden. The edges of our compost pile our thickly bordered with onion weed and I set to digging up the remaining weeds on the north facing border. Brighid helped too. Sometimes you just have to quite worrying about compacting the soil, because it is too late. I guess her 13+ kilos is less injurious than my 13+++++ kilos on the soil. We found snails which had such strong shells that the chooks couldn't break them, slugs which they certainly could wolf up easily and a volume of worms which a) delighted me and b) led me to think that we really do have a worm farm here, just not one in a special wooden or plastic container. So the potatoes will go in there tomorrow.

My Red Rascal potatoes are peeking through the ground in lots of places.

The rocket is ready to eat and some went into the home made pesto, together with home grown basil (first of the season) and home grown parsley.

Our mint is rampant, in an area where it has express permission to do so - indeed to out-invade the wandering jew and the onion weed. After a friend told me about eating lovely mint pesto recently, I think I'll be trying that out soon.

I now have four bean plants. Not quite ready to plant out, and I'm thinking I'll make lemonade bottle collars for them as slug protection when they do go out into the garden. They are living on the study and kitchen windowsills for the moment. Tomorrow is a lunarly good day to transplant tomatoes and zucchinis so I hope the weather is obliging. I've got room for 2-3 more tomatoes to go into the garden and the remainder will go into pots.

This morning Favourite Handyman pruned the tree which overhangs our garden from the neighbour's place and was blocking quite a bit of morning sun from our yams and garlic. Now it still looks balanced and provides pretty foliage for our neighbour, but is nowhere near as thick as before.

This afternoon FH mowed the front lawn on the property (much to the relief no doubt of some of our neighbours who are lovely people and also people who may value a spot of tidiness over our various pumpkin and blackberry experiments) and then planted two red flaxes.

I've officially stopped planning for Autumn leeks. When the envelope from Koanga Gardens arrived on Friday, I was walking up the drive from the letterbox wondering exactly where to put the leek seedlings and realising that there really was nowhere (except maybe a bit of room where my Maori potatoes are now going) for them to live. So when I opened the envelope and found they were out of leeks for the season, it all seemed to work out for the best.

Koanga had also run out of the marigold "Naughty Marietta" and sent an unusual substitute: Marigold Inca. Apparently the flowers on this are "insignificant" and it instead is useful as a quickly grown shelter crop (grows in tree form, similarly to sunflowers and is 2 metres tall) and also as a compost crop, providing good carbon with it's woody stems. Just as well I wasn't relying on Naughty Marietta for a very particular spot in a 'just so' flower bed. I think Inca will be an interesting experiment and eventually I'm going to interplant it with sunflowers out the front. I sowed some this afternoon, together with some "Marigold Jolly Jester" which I still had from last season. I've put them inside the tool shed to grow in the protected sun - last year it took me ages and ages to get some marigolds to thrive from seed and I suspect slugs were involved in many of the plant losses.

The home made bread was the second go at this recipe. Thanks for the link at the end of your recent bread post Joanna. I'd not been blogging and bread making back when it was originally posted but the ease of making this bread is something wonderful! It got rave reviews round the table tonight. I've just noticed Joanna has a post on two other no knead recipes and I'll be giving them a go in the near future.

peastraw, wenching dress

'Cos they're linked obviously. Well, I could be wearing a wenching dress with my gumboots as I garden? Indeed I could and will do yet.



Today I planted all of the fuchsias. They have ended up along the front of the house. I think they'll look great as they get bigger. I'll fill up the shady fence line out the back some other time. I used my own homegrown compost and felt very special.



When I went to plant out the first fuchsia, I remembered that I did have a go at using local materials as mulch instead of peastraw back in July. I weeded a strip in front of the lounge window, layered horse poo on top and then covered that with dead punga leaves, which look like bracken by this stage. Today I lifted the leaves and discovered that the horse poo had decomposed down very nicely underneath it's eiderdown. I'll be doing more of that. We have plenty of punga leaves laying around the section for free.



I sowed sunflower seeds. The variety is called Moonwalker. I transplanted one tomato plant into the garden because it was getting too tall and unwiedly for the kitchen windowsill. It hasn't been hardened off at all but it wasn't going to fare any better if it fell into the sudsy sink. I prepared a rectangular planter for sowing leek seeds and then found that they mysteriously disappeared off the face of the potting shed earth. Seeds are one thing I have very well organised I think, but ultimately nothing is immune from the Sandra chaos factor. So now there are beans slenderette in the pot instead.



I tried on my latest almost a wenching dress find. I fancy one of those deep red velvet dresses which lace up the front and have a full skirt. It would go great with my gummies. Maybe even better with work boots. I'm taken with the work boots idea after reading Chrissy's blog. I want some overalls as well but I outgrew the last pair I owned. So periodically I find something velvety and hippish in an op shop and usually it doesn't fit and sometimes it is awful. But yesterday I spied another approximation (the lace up front is always fake in my experience so far - I'll probably have to start sewing again to make the real thing) at the Camerons Community Market in amidst the fuchsias and home made raspberry jam. It fits not too badly and I'll definitely wear it. But they've tiedyed it - black over pink. Tie dying should be outlawed. It is yucky and the colour smudges and patterns make me shudder. But still, it was a long velvety dress and it did fit. So I need to order some dye to reduce the ridiculous pale pink/leaky mascara black contrast. Deep green or blood red? Maid Marian or the bloody trollope? I did look at some green clothes in a new clothes shop the other day and step backwards at some of the green shades, so battlefield red it may be.



I am solo parenting again while Favourite Handyman talks at a politics event. He is one of seven 'ordinary people' who've been asked to talk about the key issues they perceive for the upcoming national election before the candidates then speak. I could pretend that I'm home being a good mother but I'm a hopeless liar. They're grizzling and shouting and wailing from behind the toddler gate while I type. That's what happens when I think tvs are bad but forget to wash the angel wings which would enable me to serenely play trains read books change nappies feed endlessly wash clothes wash dishes make more food. The angel wings fell apart. I lost them because the house was so messy. Now I can't get any more and my children will grow up messed up and neglected. Maybe they will have some compassion. I once read the book by Vita Savkville West's son about his parents' lives and marriage. She spent a lot of time gardening and the son still wrote a whole book partly in her honour. Of course it was also about their weirdness. No such thing as a free lunch...

progress

This photo is a week old. Even since then the swiss chard, borage, strawberries and lettuces have grown lots. This bed is raised about ten centimetres, possibly less, above the surrounding lawn and bordered by logs from the beach. It is in one of the better draining spots in the garden and gets lots of sun. I noticed how warm the soil was when collecting slugs from under the border logs yesterday. Significantly warmer than the soil at the other end of the garden which was getting sun but which is also contending with too much water.

This morning I went out to Camerons Community Market. I spent $24.50. For that I got:
1 beautiful clematis, a white flowered one which is already half a metre tall
1 small rose which will have lemon flowers
4 medium sized fuchsia plants
1 small fuchsia plant
2 other plants whose names I have forgotten but which are suitable for damp shady spots where vegetables do not grow
2 jars of home made jam
1 lolly cake

I was pleased. The yellow rose is going out the front in my yellow garden project. I want it clambering over the falling down fence which borders our driveway and up the large old tree.

The clematis is going along the back fence. I think I'll plant it behind Brighid's Forest. The fuchsias are also for damp shady spots. I was going to put them all along the back fence but now I'm also thinking of putting them against the fence in the courtyard area the side of the house. Well it is going to look more like a courtyard over time.

I also collected two bales of peastraw and paid $10.50 per bale. 'Tis like gold, pea scraps. I had vowed I would find alternatives in order to be less dependent on a product which has to be trucked over from Canterbury, but I haven't yet weaned myself off in the slightest.

phew

Great things:
Favourite Handyman is back.
I still have carrot seedlings.
I have germinated kale and calendula and lettuce seedlings from the latest sowing.
The chooks are laying an egg each every day.
The tomatoes and pumpkins and zucchini are getting larger and stronger inside. Just a fortnight or so more before I can plant them out.
I have gorgeous yellow striped with red tulips in the garden.
I have irises in the garden - the yellow ones are fading and the purple ones are unfolding.
I have self seeded pansies growing out of a crack in the concrete. Beautiful yellow splotches beside the dock leaves.
The freesias and calendulas and the rest of the pansies are blooming on.
I can identify the red stemmed garlic from Northland now - I think it is called Takahue.
Although all the large leaves on the lemon tree have turned bronze and fallen off, there are new, tiny leaves appearing.

Zantedeschia Majestic Red

I had a splurge at the Garden Centre today. I came home with a new feijoa called "Kaiteri", two pots of comfrey, a bag of potting mix, a bag of tomato growing mix, rocket seeds and a Calla Lily bulb known more formally as Zantedeschia Majestic Red. I've planted the calla lily in a pot beside the punga raised bed. It is shaping up that the courtyard (not remotely as grand as it sounds, but it is where we have lunch and barbecues in summer) will be the red garden space, as I have my Dublin Rose at the other end of the punga raised bed. The packet actually showed a much deeper red than the internet picture I've copied above.

I took a root bound and beginning to be unhappy rosemary out of the big pot to make room for the calla lily. I have tried plonking one fresh growth new piece in the garden with a bare piece of stalk in the ground to see if I can propogate it by the layering method. I've replanted the rest of the rosemary in the herb strip by the kitchen. I use it often and don't want it anywhere where I have to cross grass to get to it at cooking time.

I've transplanted 11 tomato plants and numerous basil plants. I don't have room for anything else on the sunny windowsills in the study, the kitchen, the back porch or the tool shed. Starting tomorrow I'll be giving some away to friends as I need the space to grow some more zucchinis, pumpkins, beans and corn. Even as I write that list I know there is more!!

Favourite Handyman stacked the last of the wood pile which had been waiting patiently for a very long time. He raked up two barrowloads of bark and sawdust afterwards and threw it all into Poultry Palace. This has reduced the wetness in parts for the time being. I think the mix will be good for the soil as it has some slow decomposers in it which should help the soil structure.

The last of the celery has bolted. I've pulled it out and thrown it to the chooks but now it occurs to me that if I'd let it actually run to seed, the chooks may have enjoyed that more.

I pulled the roofing iron away from my horse poo and pea straw experiment. A few months ago I put cardboard down on an area (about 1 x 1.5m) near my pumpkin plot and then layered horse poo and pea straw and a few other bits of compost material on top and topped it all with roofing iron. The idea was the heat would speed the decomposition up. The lack of sun has not deterred all activity and I see worms in there. I put the iron back on. I think I'll plant straight into the mound in about a month's time - either a pumpkin or a zucchini.

I've planted the comfrey near the invasive garden. I'd love it to grow rampantly. Two plants wasn't enough for my compost ambitions. Even four might not be enough.

I also planted some more rocket this afternoon. But my chief gardening assistant reinterpreted it as sandpit fun.

Dublin Bay

Above is a photo of the rose 'Dublin Bay'. It's not my one. My one is a bare rooted stick which was marked down to $4 at The Warehouse yesterday. So the main point is that I now do indeed have a Dublin Bay rose. I'll be putting it amongst the garlic in the punga raised bed and it will climb up the living punga tree which grows beside the bed. I did have ideas of a pale pink old fashioned rose here, but they did not have them for $4 yesterday.

I've got a climbing rose, climbing rose, climbing rose.

yams, peas, onions, broccoli, calendula

This afternoon Fionn and I planted the yams. They all fitted in the punga raised bed with the garlic which has left me some room in the other garlic bed for more swiss chard and some lettuce in a few more weeks.

As I planted, I removed any weeds. Including the germinated pea shoots from two weeks ago. But perhaps my foolishness was a little fortuitous as I then consulted my companion planting guide and found that peas do not like growing near garlic, onions or shallots. Oops. Scarce is the garden bed at my house without one of these alliums at the moment. So I've planted peas amongst the freesias and pansies and hope to fit the crop in before it is time to fill it with perennial herbs.

I transplanted some calendulas.

I transplanted my red brunswick onion seedlings from their tiny propagator trays to a larger planter box. Then I placed our long cloche from last year over the top and put them in a sheltered spot outside. I won't plant them into the garden for another month, perhaps longer. Last year I sowed these seeds direct into the garden and the blackbirds, who are very hungry and always fossicking in my garden at this time of year, ate all bar one seed.

I transplanted four broccoli seedlings. I have another two to plant out once we've harvested some leeks and thus made room. Leek and spud soup dinner likelihood this week is very high.

I fancy planting more seeds - I have no shortage of packets of seed - but there is the vexed question of where to plant them out. I have spaces put aside for zucchini, pumpkins and tomatoes, for the onions and with them will go carrots (fingers crossed) and beetroot. Lettuces and herbs will squash in somewhere I'm sure (hope). There won't be more room for more than that until summer when higher and longer sun will make some currently shady spots viable.

Got my blog back

and very relieved I am about it too.

Where on earth to start?

Beans. I got a big order of beans and pulses from Piko Organics this week. Half of which is stored beautifully in glass preserving jars and the other half is still in the cardboard box. I did use some to make Black Bean soup today though. Black Bean soup (the recipe is here somewhere if you check out the recipe label on this blog) is one of my favourite things because it tastes a bit sophisticated (lime and coriander on top and sherry in it - may sound very ordinary to you but it aint sausages) and it is good because no methane emitting animal meat. Though we do spoon sour cream on top. Once I've got over the cost of red peppers in soup making season and got two meals out of the recipe, then it gets quite good budget points.

Today Favourite Handyman worked on the poultry palace. Delivery to smalltown is less than 13 days away now.

The sun shone today and yesterday. This is a first for a long time and a seriously utterly wonderful thing.

I've been re-reading Companion Planting in New Zealand by Brenda Little. I really need to buy my own copy because in the interim since I last had it out of the library, I've put brassicas, garlic and strawberries together. Turns out brassicas and strawberries really hate garlic and suffer in performance in it's presence. When the soil dries out a bit, I'll be transplanting the strawberries into a new bed and complementing it with borage. When I've grown the borage. I've got just two tiny kale plants left there which can go but I narrowly missed planting four broccoli plants with the garlic. The book didn't comment on yams. I'm going to put yams in with both my garlic beds. Only time will tell.

My potatoes are sprouting nicely. Just homeless until I find a pile of cheap buckets. Their original spot has been re-assigned to onions and carrots and chamomile.

I have lots of spring bulb foliage up but no flowers yet. Though the flower stems are up on the freesias and starting to come up on something else unidentified but possibly a crocus (or a bluebell).

Flowers are out on some onion weed. Onion weed is up in chunks of the lawn around the compost and our biggest tree. I used my dried onion weed in the stuffed pumpkin meal I made last weekend. I think drying it first might be the way to go as it yields little flavour for it's size when thrown in raw.

Favourite Handyman made me an excellent cloche today. It is an old vegetable box (strong transparent plastic) for a fridge which came with some toys for the children. They never put toys in their boxes anyway so it's mine thank you. FH drilled holes in the base (which is now the roof of the cloche) for ventilation and now it is protecting one of my spinach seedlings with the idea that it will be warmer and grow faster.

Tomorrow I might sow seeds. Better go and find out if that is lunarly suitable. Which will most likely determine whether I am lunar follower or not. But less likely to stop me sowing seeds if it is Sunday and the sun is shining and no one has an earache or broken bone.

bulbs for St Paddy's Day

Today I planted 25 freesias and 10 bluebells. The bluebells are in front of our bedroom window, a semi shaded area. The freesias are alongside the path which leads to the kitchen/back door. It's the area which I grew garlic in last season and which now has some herbs in it plus lettuces and pansies. Some lettuces have gone to seed which looks quite pretty. I may leave the freesias in the ground to see if they naturalise there. I'm moving that bed towards perennial herbs and other plants which don't need to be replanted every year or more.

The freesias and bluebells are my new bulbs for the year (though I want more). I still have various bulbs - tulips, irises, crocuses, freesias and daffodils which I lifted in Summer and which will be due for replanting soon. If I can make the time to create some new soil in front of the garage, then I will plant them out there. Should be pretty to arrive home to and not take out edible growing space from the back garden.

Today I did something I should have tried months ago. I bought some fine frost mesh from the garden nursery and laid it over my brassicas. This will prevent the white butterflies from laying their eggs on my plants, or at least that is the plan.

I'm still eating cherry tomatoes off our vines. The non-cherry ones are all caterpillar-ridden. The harvest is slowing markedly though and fruit is often split. They'll be for the compost soon I suspect. Swiss chard, leeks, celery, basil and marigolds are growing around the tomatoes at the moment. I'll leave the celery in as long as it survives or until we eat it all. The leeks are for Winter/Spring but the others will die off or get eaten as winter approaches. So all this will leave space for lots of garlic. I ordered some garlic from Koanga Seeds in the weekend to add to my own cloves from last season (which in turn originated from an organic grower in Raglan, Waikato, NZ) and also some from the 3kg of garlic I bought from an organic grower in Karamea, West Coast. I haven't forgotten about keeping some bulbs for Patrick.

Colour

Beautiful painting above by Gretchen Albrecht. Called Sheba.

Last night's dyeing was partly successful. Brighid's dress came out a very pretty lilac. Perfectly even colour and the fact that (as I'd expected) the stiching stayed pink doesn't detract from the overall look. Favourie Handyman's shirt is problematic though. The lovely Bernina lady used cotton thread to stitch the white pocket on so that the colour would take. But two things happened which weren't perfect. First the cotton thread appears to have shrunk in the hot washes related to the dyeing. Puckering the shirt pocket. Second the white pocket has turned out a different shade of blue to the rest of the already blue shirt. So I need to go and talk to my Bernina ladies again. I think I need to get some already blue 100% cotton fabric and then dye the shirt and a piece of fabric a darker shade of blue and hope that the take is much more uniform. Then match the thread to the new shade and get the pocket sewn on. Quite faffy, but a good quality 100% cotton business shirt is much pricier than this is faffy. Does anyone know if I can double dye the shirt without likely mishap please?

My sourdough bread is progressing well. I'm up to step three - it's doubling in size overnight for me I hope. I enjoyed the kneading.

Out in the garden in the rain and rainbow this afternoon (yes both at once) I noticed that nearly all my flowers in the back yard are yellow (bar blue pansies and white alyssum). These are the marigolds I waited through multiple failed sowings for (sorry Kings Seeds photo, no photos from here lately). They are worth the wait - really beautiful. The much smaller dwarf marigolds I bought from the nursery in desperation earlier in summer look nowhere near as good now these beauties are in full bloom.

Then there are zucchini flowers from opposite sides of the garden. Plus some yellow cherry tomatoes. Then there are calendula flowers. In flower, as tiny seedlings not long transplanted and as even smaller seedlings in the seedling area. Calendulas flower right through winter for me and are such cheerful survivors. I have friends in several parts of the world right now who are longing for tiny babies to grow safely inside them and then join us all later this year. Friends who have scary histories of miscarriage. But for all bar one of them, I can't be nearby to do anything practically useful. So I've planted calendulas, the survivors, the toughies, the beauties in all four seasons, as a way of directing my hopes and thoughts and prayers for my friends. May you all be holding new babies in your arms this Christmas.

The walnut tree

Months ago I threw a pile of unwanted walnuts in the forest on the far side of the garage on the grounds that they would take too long to decompose in the compost or Bokashi. The garage forest is no longer and today I found a walnut seedling. So now it is in a pot and perhaps we'll have a beautiful walnut tree one day.





I transplanted lots of veges into larger pots today and parsley into the garden. I've laid about six new beer traps for the slugs. I've caught caterpillars in them before now too. I went to the local nursery and bought more comfrey and have added it to the front garden - the permaculture nutter sign in effect.





I also bought seeds of these:
St Brigid's anemones. My daughter is named for St Brigid. Must look out for plants with name connections to the rest of us.

Made zucchini pickle this afternoon. Zucchinis from our garden. Oh blah blah. How often can I skite in one season?

tulipmania

I think I have it. Now I want to read about those Dutch merchants (16C?) who had tulipmania as well. I'm planning a tulip raising garden now. I've been learning about carbohydrate storage and browning foliage and seed pods and I want to experiment with it all, especially as even the person who seemed the internet guru on tulips hadn't raised them from seed. My first tulip of the season is to the left here, already bigger than how I described it a few days ago.

tulips

I saw the first tulip flower bud emerging in my garden today. It is deepest red and currently looks like a heart. Not a cute pink heart shape, but a blood red life force within the plant. There are no edible or medicinal properties to tulips, freesias, irises, crocuses (let's just not go there on the latin plural issue aye?) or daffodils but I have them all in my garden because winter is long and spring bulbs are so beautiful. I'd no more take them out of my garden than remove music and art from my life.

The red tulip under discussion is from my mother in law, who bought them for me when she and fil visited earlier this year. I need to have a read up on how long I can keep the bulbs going - perhaps Brighid will have the same blood red flowers in her own garden one day.

Now shrubs are another matter. Shrubs do not make my heart sing. Even the word 'shrub' is ugly. Who remembers the low maintenance shrub and bark garden, still found around municipal buildings? I'd rather have a section full of weeds. I've seen shrubs look pretty on occasion but never have I wanted to take one home with me.

I know anyone who is still around only really wants to look at pictures, but pictures really aren't my forte. Specifically, I'm still short of some key knowledge on getting them from the camera onto the computer. I'll try for a tutorial this weekend.