a change of pace

The long languid days of summer have turned into hot sticky days of school and work. I didn't even go to work today, just organised everyone else, and that alone wore me out. I'll get my stamina back some time this month I guess.

Kept my sunglasses on as I watched Fionn (6) in his new class and then watched the whole school assembly...

I even started proper mother activities like swimming lessons. I was the taxi and financial provider for them, not the actual lesson provider.

Tonight I have made lunches for everyone for tomorrow as we all hit the term time world then. I have put all the ingredients bar the hot water for spicey lamb shanks in the slow cooker. I figure the shanks can thaw out overnight and at breakfast time I will add the hot water and turn the slow cooker on. So that's tomorrow's dinner sorted. I have two loads of washing on the line ready to dry tomorrow and the nappy wash is on as I type. I've got the oats soaking in whey and water overnight (a la Sally Fallon) for tomorrow's porridge. I've got that going as a routine finally and hope that indeed the children do absorb more nutrients from the porridge with the phytates neutralised. Fionn has stopped asking me suspiciously if I've been putting kefir in the porridge because it tastes different. My children seem to be able to sniff out and reject products with kefir in them from a distance of metres.

I buried the bones from my most recent batch of chicken stock in the garden this afternoon. A friend who visited a few months ago recommended this as a way of returning nutrients to the soil and this is the first time I have made it happen. I don't know if this means that my whole garden will eventually be a graveyard or not. Maybe chicken bones rot down soonishly, but I suspect large beef bones would take longer.

Back to the subject of kefir. I got sick of the dishes and milk outlay involved in changing the kefir milk every day. So instead of several jars of kefir (old Hellmanns mayo jars of just over 800gm capacity) with the plastic lids on loosely, I put the kefir in a 2 litre jar with cling film over the top and put it in the ingredients cupboard instead of the hot water cupboard. I also got slack about the proportions and often only put as much milk in as there were grains. I only drained the kefir every second day and found this less of a hassle and less of an expense. I was using huge amounts of expensive organic milk every week on the old system. Except that today when I drained the milk off and sat down to have a kefir drink and check my email, the stuff tasted disgusting, really acidic.

So back to the drawing board, or to the hot water cupboard anyway. I've read that kefir can almost always be resurrected, except if it has turned pink or brown and my kefir has done neither of those things. I've split the grains into two old mayo jars and topped up with milk on a roughly 1:5 ratio and put the jars in the hot water cupboard. I'll be draining and adding fresh milk every day and we'll see what shape the kefir is in in a week's time.

My order of freshly milled organic flour from Terrace Farms arrived this morning. So I have rye and purple wheat and otane wheat - 20kgs in total. I can report that although brown paper bags have that enviro-aware aura, they also tear very easily. I'll have to rebag two of the four bags into plastic already. Come Wednesday and hopefully some time not at work, I'll get a rye sourdough starter going. Although I have tentatively booked in to clean my friend's chook house out then and nothing as unimportant as a food project will be allowed to get in the way of a compost project...

holidays ...

Crikey, it's amazing what holidays can do. I've cleaned even more today. The house is in such a nearly good state that I would invite people in for dinner on the spur of the moment.

I feel ill to think of how many clothes my daughter has. When I put the Christmas decorations away this afternoon I found another bag half full of size 2 (and other half of size 3) girls' clothes. Some of them are new, presents from when she was firstborn and others are handed down. Her drawers are already bulging. It's just not right that half of the world is starving and another big chunk of the world's workers eke out a pittance doing criminally long hours in terrible conditions in order to make more clothes than my daughter could wear in a month. Just as I've done with her brother's too many clothes, I'll be making up bags for friends, acquaintances and the Sallies very soon.

I've been tidying up the concrete path end of the old chook run this afternoon. You didn't expect me to stay inside cleaning all day did you? Well not even all afternoon - we spent the morning supping tea and gingerbread biscuits at a friend's house. I thought there was an odd shape to the garden at that end but actually there is not. There was just so much soil sitting on the concrete that things were growing in it. Weeds. So that is all gone and I've transplanted three thymes from another bed into the spaces around the bay trees. The bays, or one of them at least, has grown noticeably since I moved them from pots into the garden.

So I've pulled most of the thyme and welsh onions from the second raised bed now. Once I've got everything out of there, I think I'll move some existing compost in, add the chook poo which needs to be cleared from the coop right now and then put the next lot of lawn clippings on top. I want that area very fertile in readiness for growing winter brassicas in it. Maybe I'll add blood and bone and lime and sheep poo and comfrey as well. In with a penny, in with a pound.

New Year - gardening plans

It's not, obviously, the new year just yet on the calendar. But now that Christmas is gone, a mass plethora of guilt and jobs which overwhelms me every time, I'm ready to look ahead. In just a few days Fionn turns six and so my festive mind is now switched to how to make a Lightning McQueen cake without the services of the currently closed shop which sells those fancy things which you put on the icing and make an impressive image with. It does seem at the moment that an actual miniature car on the top is the biggest attraction and I can do that. The shop that sells them never ever seems to shut.

I've been making plans for the garden for the winter ahead and to some extent for next Spring. I've got eleven garden beds, all differing sizes. I must try and create a map and label them consistently.

Bed one has garlic and strawberries in it this year (and rogue peas and three very modestly sized tomatoes and some calendula). That needs a rest and I'm thinking I'll put lupins in it over winter. I'll plant potatoes there next spring. I try and keep potatoes and garlic and tomatoes in a new place each season. Potatoes and garlic is a four year rotation according to my reading. Tomatoes - the information varies.

Bed two is the raised bed which I made last summer. It currently has thyme, onions and one sad looking tomato in it. Also some radishes and a yellwing spinach plant. I am going to transplant all the thyme over to the old chook run, use up the onions and then dig in some generous amounts of blood and bone, compost (if we have some at the time) and sheep poo. It is quite a low raised bed and perhaps we can make the sides higher and build it up more. It is at the esttest end of the garden. Once that is all in order, then in early Autumn I will be planting more brassicas and silverbeet there. This is the bed which I had an experiment with turning into a mini-tunnel house and we might try that again with stronger plastic.

In between beds one and two is a rhubarb plant, gifted by our friend Ruth and currently looking very healthy. we mulched with more compost around it the other day and then put a circle of wire mesh around it so the blackbirds couldn't spread it all over the path so easily.

Bed three is the other side of bed two. So bed one, rhubarb, bed two, bed three, all along the eastern fence of the section. Bed three has blueberries in at the moment. They are not happy. One looks dead. The other looks okay but all the flowers fell off. In Autumn I will transplant the healthy looking one to the top end of the section and buy another one to keep it company up there. I think the other one will be compost sometime soon. The bed they are currently in is not a no dig method and there are weeds showing through, nasty vigorous perennial weeds like convulvulus and docks. So I need to dig down and do some serious weeding and possibly change the border. It is made of logs but they don't seem to deter much in the way of weeds creeeping under and carrying on their breeding party. We have been offered more rhubarb plants, this time by a work colleague. Rhubarb apparently doesn't mind wet feet, one of the very few plants to be so accommodating. So I'm going to put rhubarb in this bed instead of blueberries.

Bed four is the old chook run. Currently it is home to tomatoes, some of them looking quite good, lettuces, beans (very small plants), marigolds, a chilli, some oregano and thyme and borage. For winter this area will have lots of brassicas and silverbeet. It will be our main winter garden and I want to produce as much green food as possible. This time I hope to have better patience and vigilance with the white butterflies in the summer garden and to have more greens ready for early winter and if I can improve my game enough, staggered right through. In the photo below you can see the old chook run about six weeks ago. It is now a lot greener and full of plants but I don't have a recent photo of it. To the far left, beyond the wind break cloth, are beds one and two.

Bed five is a small square up the top of the garden. It has recently had borage, silverbeet and some strawberries. But I cut all the silverbeet out the other day and put the chooks in for a couple of days. They have had a wonderful time. It is a great little spot, very warm, raised about ten centimetres above the lawn and was well mulched with compost. I am still considering exactly what to do with the area around this bed. It is about two metres from the corner of our section and just beyond that corner our neighbour has built a large garage recently. I would like to take the entire corner part (at least two metres square and maybe more) out of grass and that is why I've had the chooks in there. They work hard in terms of digging up grass. So where the raised bed fits into my plans, I'm not yet sure. If it stays as a raised bed, then more winter greens will be growing there.

Bed six is currently in potatoes, with some cavolo nero down one end. This is the bed which had tobacco in last year. It probably has the best drainage of any non-raised bed on our section. This is where I am moving the blueberries and raspberries to. So it will become a permanent fruit bed.

Bed seven is the strip along the back of our house. It had tomatoes in last summer which were quite successful. Currently it has onions, chamomile, raspberries, Maori potatoes and broccoli in it. The plants up the higher end are doing much better than the ones at the other end which have spent too much time in puddles of rainwater. We need to do some serious bed raising work down the bottom end. For the meantime, this winter I will use my horse manure and pea straw layering method which worked well out the front last winter. Thick layers of pea straw, then generous lashings of horse manure, then more pea straw on top. Let it sit for several months. I'll leave it to Spring to decide what goes there next Summer season.

Bed eight is the herb strip down the side of the house, nearest to the kitchen door. I've got chives, parsley, aloe vera, feverfew, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, pansies and some Maori potatoes in there at the moment. Aside from the Maori potatoes, the rest will stay the same. I'll add more herbs as and when I have room or they need replacing. The photo below shows a section with feverfew, pansies and chives.

Bed nine is the punga raised bed. It is a forest of yams, garlic and one beautiful Dublin Bay rose bush at the moment. The garlic will come out at the end of January. The yams are more winter food for us and will be harvested around July. When the yams come out we will probably put the chooks in for a few days of feasting and then add lots more compost. This is our best raised bed and we try to give it as much compost each year as we can. I'm not sure what will go in there next summer. This bed has now had potatoes, brassicas and garlic already. Perhaps it will be a summer cover crop. Below is a recent photo of the yam forest.

Bed ten, out the front, is the lovely new raised bed which Favourite Handyman made for me recently. It has potatoes in it now, and I plan to put either brassicas in for winter, or garlic. The photo below shows it as it is now, with netting and bricks to prevent the blackbirds and the neighbouring dogs (this garden is beyond our fenced area) from pulling it apart and spreading the compost and soil everywhere. I'll remove it when the potatoes start to show through.

Bed Eleven, also out the front, is the raised bed which I made last Autumn. It has zucchini and silverbeet in it at the moment. I'll put garlic in there this winter.

I had tried making another bed for pumpkins out the front. But I have realised that it is in the wrong place and the area I cleared for the pumpkins which aren't growing very much, actually needs to be made into a path for Fionn to get to the climbing tree. I'll be moving the flower bulbs away as well as they are at the base of the tree and liable to get injured by climbers.

This final photo is not from any of my numbered gardens, but from the rose strip along the front of the lounge. I like the sprays of deep red.

Is there a greater love

... than a man who makes me another raised garden bed, when I hadn't even specifically requested it?

My delight is boundless. These holidays are off to a wonderful start. The sun is shining. The plants are growing.

Favourite Handyman has turned the area which I made a compost heap on out the front into an almost square raised bed and this afternoon I bought some Rua potatoes to go in it. After the potatoes, I'll be putting winter greens in there. We are talking about making a dome structure over the top of this new raised bed which we can cover with plastic for winter. I'm thinking of having a half round of plastic to offer some shelter and enhanced warmth yet still leave easy access to the garden bed.

I can do it

I can do it and I will do it. It is true that our very high rainfall and short season summer make gardening challenging at times. Sometimes challenging equates to many things dying, or failing to thrive. My plans for eating our own fruit have been thwarted somewhat. The first lemon tree died and the second one has had a hard life but I do see a couple of new leaves, so still alive. The blueberries lost their berries and one of the two bushes looks very unwell. The blackcurrants are alive and have a few currants on them. They are up the best drained end of the section. The feijoas seem fine but no flowers. At least I have two this year.

So all the fruit needs to be moved to the highest end of the section. And nourished a lot. The glasshouse when we build it needs to go where the old chook run garden currently as. It needs to be raised off the ground quite a lot and have well drained (deepish shingle or bark or sawdust) paths all around it.

The garden along the back of the house grew us some lovely tomatoes last year. The part of it where I mixed in some blood and bone, lime and seaweed is growing quite well - I have a broccoli forming a head there. A head! First time in years. But the poor raspberry, even though I encircled it in seaweed, is definitely not happy. The onions are doing okay there but not fabulously. Though of course at least they are alive which is more than I could say for my onion attempts last year.

So last night I weeded and pulled out the flower bulbs which were still in the ground. I now have a blank patch of over a metre long (and perhaps 6ocm deep back to the house) with nothing in it except one tiny maori potato which has just peeked through. That could push it's way up through more soilish items though. It is time for intensive help. I think the biggest probelm over and above the wet is that the very large tree which is not far away from this garden bed has roots extending down into this garden. Deepish roots for the most part and if I raise the bed up with lots of nutrient-intensive material, I should get noticeable improvement. My fingers aren't crossed because then I can't type, but in my mind I have many things crossed.

I've got sheep poo, sheep dags ground into a soil conditioner, seaweed, blood and bone and pea straw all on hand. I'll have to check the state of the last batch of compost because it would be great if that was ready to use as well. I want to raise the soil by 10 cm and then put pea straw on top of that.

My kefir is still alive. I'm hoping that if I leave it in a coolish place (i.e not the hot water cupboard like I have been), then it will be okay to leave unstrained and unrefreshed by more milk for 2-3 days.

Why? Because we are going on holiday this weekend. Holiday. Holiday! To Karamea for two nights. I am so excited. Karamea is still on the West Coast and it still could rain but it is a very beautiful place that I have wanted to go back to (last went as a child) ever since we moved to smallwettown almost three years ago.

digging

I am going to have to dig. The old chook run is not ready for the no dig method. I spent a chunk of yesterday weeding the watercress out. I may try watercress in the compost but I am not putting it in the chook run ever again. It is all going to have to come out as I can see that the root structure lends itself to world domination.

Once the watercress is all out, I am going to dig some of the old chook run over. The zucchini is looking quite sick and I suspect it has caught something fungal. I recall from somewhere (Linda the Goddess probably) that zucchinis are prone to fungal things which often make them die. The beans all rotted in the ground instead of germinating, doubtless due to the rainfall sufficient to build a large lake with that we've had over the last fortnight. The marigolds are doing fine but the alyssum has succumbed to the elements and will be compost sooner rather than later.

The problem which I want to dig away is that although the chooks ate and killed the grass beneath the mulch, that was not long enough ago for the roots to have turned back into soil. Add to that the high rainfall and there is an almost impenetrable layer just less than ten centimetres down which is thick tangled muddy dead grass roots. I figure if I turn that over, the aeration and the mixing in of the straw will be helpful.

And if that doesn't quite work, then surely I'll learn some more things in the process.

In other news, we've been gadding about our community enjoying the company of good friends and celebrating the late but hopefully here-to-stay arrival of summer here in smallwettown.

I've been making the no knead bread at least once a week and often more. 3 cups of plain flour, 1/4 t yeast, 1 and 1/4 t salt, 300ml warm water. Mix and cover with a plate and leave in hot water cupboard for 15+ hours. Then put on floured bench and fold over three times and put the bowl on top of it for 15 minutes. Then sprinkle a clean tea towel with polenta and put the dough on one side and cover with the other. Leave for two hours. Oven to 230 degrees celsius. and casserole dish and lid in - this 1.5 hours into the 2 hour resting part. After 30 minutes, the dough can go in the very hot casserole dish. Cook with lid on 30 minutes and then another 5-10 minutes with lid off.

This bread has a thick crust but is very yummy and keeps well into the next day. It is also very cheap to make. I have yet to work out the cost of cooking so I can be confident of exactly how cheap. But given it takes almost no baking-work time, I think it is a great choice for cash strapped families to make their own bread even when they are short of time.

Today I am either going to hide and read all day or hide and garden in the rain all day or I am going to make gingerbread cake and more bread (resting now) and soak and cook lots of beans. I can't do anything about the many tins of tomatoes we use until January when I'll be cooking up a storm on the days I'm not drinking instead. But I can do something about the many cans of beans we use by cooking lots of beans from scratch and then freezing them. Surely I can?

I've got some good books though...

Herb garden relocated

Yesterday I was thinking that I would build (that translates to get FH to build) a structure to raise my smallest herb corner another 10-15cm above the lawn level. Today I thought that that would take ages to happen and there are things I can do in the meantime.

So I weeded, then pulled out the dead sage and thyme. I dug out the remaining thymes and the oregano and replanted them in the long herb garden. I used the gaps left by the marauding chooks after their home blew over a few weeks back. I had enough oregano to plant some in the old chook run as well.

Then I dug out the whole area down about 10 cm. It's only a small area, about 60cm x 70cm, so not hard to work with. I spread half a bucket of river sand in the base and then half a bucket of sheep poo. Then I piled the soil back in, broke the clods up and sowed radishes, rocket, coriander and mesclun salad mix. I'm hoping that although it is still likely to be quite a wet piece of garden, having fast maturing plants in will be easier than poor perennials being stuck with wet feet forever.

Garden notes

In the past few days I have sneaked past sleeping people and:

1. Buried two buckets' worth of Bokashi. I buried it out the front, underneath the big compost heap I made a few months ago. I layered cardboard on the bottom of that heap and that has decomposed already. I noticed as I dug that the soil is quite stoney further down which I think is good news for drainage. Drainage seems to be my number one challenge in most of my garden. After I'd put the soil and pea straw back on top, I used bamboo stakes to anchor last year's strawberry cage on top. It covers most of the rectangular pile and this will stop or at least limit the fossicking of neighbouring dogs and of blackbirds.

2. Sown beans, lettuces and basil.

3. Bemoaned to myself that no marigolds have germinated at all. Which considering I sowed at least 24, about a fortnight ago, is a terrible result.

4. Planted one sunflower in the garden and brought some others out of the shed to harden off.

5. Noticed how many different things are germinating in the old chook run. There is watercress galore, which I guess is a powerful sign of how wet our garden environment is. I found a corn seedling this evening. The chooks didn't like the corn so it stayed in the run. It isn't lovely eating sweet corn though, more agricultural feed, so I pulled it out. I threw some mesclun lettuce mix over part of the old chook run not long ago and there are some seedlings from that already. It is very noticeable how well leafy plants are doing in there compared to other parts of the garden where chooks haven't been in to decimate the slug population.

6. The potatoes are growing quickly now, or the tops are at least. I haven't had time to mound them up again.

7. I haven't moved the huge sea kelp haul from the old compost heap yet. I do need to give my second garlic bed some nutritious attention so if the sun and my daughter cooperate tomorrow, I'll be able to chop up some kelp, lift the existing mulch, spread the kelp and then replace the old mulch plus another new and thick layer.

8. My blueberries are looking poorly and all the fruit has fallen off. I think the problem is probably drainage. I am hoping they will hold on and not die completely so that I can shift them to a better spot in Autumn.

9. My sage has died. I think drainage is the problem, or the lack of it. I am going to overhaul that small herb spot completely. I want to take the surviving thymes and oregano out and then dig 10-15 cm down, put some sand and stones in, then put 20-30 cm high sides in and fill it with a mixture of the previous soil and compost and top with pea straw. I had to take the pea straw out last time as the neighbour's cat kept pooing in it. Maybe I need netting on top as well.

Planting cavolo nero

There are organic purists out there who only put home made compost on their gardens and nothing else. Something about reducing inputs and outputs. Well I'm not one of them. I think I've laboured on this before but that's not going to stop me doing it again. Linda Woodrow, my permaculture guru, doesn't get prissy about inputs. She is enthusiastic about getting whatever you can that is of grown and not synthetic origin. So yesterday I collected more watercress from the local stream and threw it in the chook run.

I started to make room for my cavolo nero, another brassica experiment. My brassicas have mixed success and I want to give these ones excellent opportunities. So up by the potatoes I started weeding. I spread the peastraw a bit thinly over poorly weeded soil in Autumn and thus have quite a bit of work to do. Mostly I was pulling out grass and spreading buttercup and during this process I really saw how it works when permaculture books say all weeds have a purpose. Spreading buttercup is all over our section and the weed books and websites all observe it is found in wet, poorly drained soils. Linda Woodrow would say don't worry about getting rid of it by chemical means - get the soil health correct and it will reduce its presence or even disappear. Whereas the grass (this area was lawn only 14 months ago) was quite difficult to get out, the roots of the spreading buttercup lifted out quite easily with the aid of my digging fork. I could see how the root structure did actually work to break up wet compacted soil.

I half filled a bucket with sheep poo, added a handful of bood and bone, a handful of lime and topped the bucket up with home made compost. Then I spread it over my newly weeded area and folded it in with the digging fork. I would never use super phosphate or synthetic nitrogen, but as we eat conventionally farmed meat and wear conventionally farmed leather and wool, I consider the sheep poo and blood and bone to be reasonable inputs which link to our lifestyle. I had some lime (New Zealand sourced) in the shed so thought I'd throw that in as well.

Then I planted four cavolo nero plants, mulched them with peastraw and took my crazy toddler apprentice inside with me so she couldn't pull the plants out. It's raining quite hard on them as I write the following morning which is perfect timing.

Armfuls of watercress

One armful for the chooks. One armful for the compost. The chooks loved the watercress. While at the compost heap, I plunged my hand into it to see if it was warm. I wouldn't say hot, but definitely warm. Goood things are going on inside my pile of grass, chookpoo, straw. Hmm I've just remembered that I put some sawdust on it. So that will need loads of nitrogen. Watercress should do the trick though. There is plenty of watercress down by the league field and removing it from the waterways is good as eventually water weeds take all the oxygen from the stream. I must remember what Woodrow says about using it for garden paths rather than gardens.

I'm going to add many more nitrogen rich things to the strip across the back of the back garden. That was just falling away into weeds last year and we started to build it up by laying newspaper down and then wood chip on top. I added grass clippings and then planted 30 broad beans in little pockets of potting mix along the fence. The broad bean yield hasn't been amazing so far but the main result is I get to dig the broad bean plants back in for a nitrogen boost. I need to edge this piece with logs so that the grass doesn't recolonise this garden plot. I think some of my Lions fertiliser fundraiser sheep manure would be well used along here. I'll plant some more legumes - peas and astragalus milk vetch through summer and hopefully the nitrogen levels will be sufficient by autumn to plant winter silverbeet along this shady strip.

I sowed many seeds this morning. Borage, basil, coriander, lettuce, kale, astragalus milk vetch, marjoram, garlic chives, sorrel, anise hyssop, chervil and calendula. This afternoon I planted a pot of beneficial insect blend seeds, two more zucchini and a bean. I gave away four tomato plants and four pots of basil this afternoon but I still need to give away some more tomatoes before I have room to plant more than one bean.

This morning I had a quick squizz on the beach and found some seaweed. I've draped it around my broccoli plants, tucked under the mulch. Fingers crossed. Linda Woodrow says it is easy to grow broccoli, but that has not been my experience so far.

One chook looked off peak yesterday and I found the remains of a shell-less egg this afternoon. Off to research what being 'egg bound' means. My aunt mentioned it last week but I was too busy thinking I knew it all about the same chook's last illness to listen properly. I had some things to learn when I was eight, and I still have them to learn now. Listen Sandra!!

More on permaculture

Following here from questions/comments from a recent post on Linda Woodrow's Permaculture Home Garden book. Nova, there is a lot in Woodrow's book for every gardener. The things she writes about making compost and collecting compost are really helpful. I had forgotten all about her advice to collect weeds from waterways but after reading that bit again yesterday morning, I found more. We were out doing a bike and baby walk (I don't usually write about the children here, but it felt like a big deal that Fionn now has his own two wheeled bike and he rode ahead and had me pushing the pushchair quickly to keep him in sight - good exercise for us both!!). We walked past the stream that I had checked the first time I read the book and it still didn't look great - mostly gorse and blackberry down the sides and just long grass on the edges of the actual water. I saw some nasturtium beginning to spread again and remembered that nasturtium leaves are good on the compost.

I did notice that the Marist rugby field has been mown recently. I must take the car down and collect the grass clippings.

Then, via the playground we got to the other stream, the one near the rugby league field. Aha. this one has something which is either watercress or similar and there is lots of it. On the way back home I grabbed two plants and tried them out on the chooks. They love it. Woodrow says it is good to pull it out of streams because the plants ultimately rop the stream of oxygen if left to grow too much. Perfect synergy. It is raining this morning but that won't stop me putting on my gumboots after breakfast and collecting lots of grass by the rugby union field and watercress by the rugby league field.

Leanne, Woodrow talks at length about the benefits of seaweed. It has lots of minerals in it and is fantastic for your garden. You can make seaweed brew with it (put in a bucket with water and a lid and leave there for 2+ weeks. Drain off and dilute and water on to plants. Refill and repeat. Once you've done this 2-3 times, throw the original seaweed on your compost heap. Given our high rainfall here, I only do the seaweed brew method in summer. The rest of the time, the last thing my plants need is more water. So I throw some directly on the compost. I chop some and spread it on my garden. When I planted my first raspberry earlier this year, I lay a wreath of seaweed around it. The high rainfall washes it in pretty easily.

Woodrow notes that seaweed is a good source of boron and is great for broccoli. She also says that broccoli is easy to grow. Easy? Not quite my experience. So I'm planning on a seaweed gathering trip this week and will be putting some of it round my broccoli.

Last time I read Woodrow, we didn't have chooks. Then while we were planning our poultry palace, someone else is smallwettown was very attached to the library copy of Woodrow. So now we are looking again at her chook ideas and designs. The idea of circles is very appealing. I also want garden curves softening the perimeter of the section. But given the high rainfall, raising every bed at least a little bit is necessary and to do that for free or very cheaply, we need to use found logs (seriously, every storm brings up more logs on our local beach). Those logs are straight rather than circular. The nikau ones are the most beautiful. Perfectly straight, with etchings which must have been the original inspiration for carved Maori totem poles. If anyone can tell me the Maori word for totem poles, I would love to learn it.

Even without the large mandala idea, Woodrow's knowledge is infinitely applicable. She is in favour of 12 chooks in an eleven metre square patch, moved on every two weeks. You need this concentration to get the optimal poo volume apparently. We have three chooks in a ten metre square run, not moved on at all yet. They do get to free range outside a few days per week.

We have many ideas about different homes and setups for our chooks. We come up with a new one each week. The thing is that much time is needed and that is not available. That old chestnut about needing to earn a living. The latest one which is in favour is to move the current poultry palace to the west side of the house. Most of our garden is to the north, with some to the east and the front of the hous facing south. The eastern part of the section is largely unused as it is open to the traffic and thuis unsafe for Brighid. It has a small compost heap in it, the house lot of windows which await turning into a glasshouse and the remainder of the enormous pile of sand we bought for the sandpit last Christmas. Yesterday we were talking about fencing this area off and having the Poultry Palace in the middle. During the day they could be let out to fossick in the enlarged area. As it has no tender vegetable plants in it, they would pose no garden danger.

And the genie landed on us. Our neighbours and friends often think of us when they are about to throw old chicken wire out and Barry and Brenda had been doing a big clear-up on their place. Would we like some more chicken wire? Would we ever?!!!!!! They passed over two big posts and 5+ metres of really strong, high grade chicken wire. How perfect would that be for making the fence between the front of the house and the eastern boundary fence? Very perfect. Not sure when it will happen, but it is looking like a very good plan. We sent some eggs over. Later that day they asked if we would like some shade cloth which they no longer wanted. Yes please. It is the perfect size for making a sail cloth above the sandpit. In winter it is great to have full sun on the sandpit. Fionn and Brighid play in it a lot. But in summer some shade on it would be better.

Last thing yesterday I decided the blueberries needed more nutrition. I added some compost to the blueberry patch when I set it up but there is not much evidence of it now. The blackbirds have been having a field day in the blueberry patch and that is before there is any fruit. So I opened the kinpack soil conditioner which I bought from the local Lions club fertiliser fundraiser drive. This is made from sheep dags. I need to get friendly with a local sheep owner so that I can collect this kind of thing for free. I spread a layer around the blueberries but didn't bother to water. I thought rain was coming and I was right. I probably won't need to hoe it on afterwards either. The rain will damp it down a lot and the blackbirds will turn it over for me.

The goddess

Linda Woodrow. The Permaculture Home Garden.

I have read this book from cover to cover at least four times. Sadly it and I have been parted for ages as other library readers got revenge on me by keeping it out way too long just as I did. Until late last week that is when I found it on the shelf, just like the wee bear in the children's story The Bravest of Bears.

Now I am reading it again in wonder. I have so much to reflect on now that we are two years down the tracks of our gardening adventures. I'm planning a trip to the beach for more seaweed and logs this week. I haven't been seaweed hunting for a very long time. I understand more clearly the particular benefits which animal manure offers compost heaps. I am reminded yet again to use sawdust and bark with great care. I am very pleased to note that of her list of herbs which have very useful nutrients for the compost heap, I am now growing comfrey, chamomile and borage.

After I inspected my peastraw and horse poo iron covered compost heap this afternoon, I realised what I wanted to do with the strip which runs along the back wall of the house. I created this garden using bokashi compost when we first moved in. In the summer of 2007-8, we grew tomatoes, basil and marigolds along this wall. In the following autumn I planted leeks and celery and silverbeet and raspberries there. Spring bulbs have also been sprinkled along this strip. I've added home made compost, a bit of blood and bone and plenty of pea straw mulch. This summer there will be more summer crops dotted along this strip but I have no plans for growing vegetables here in winter. Instead, I think I will do as I did out the front last winter. I will lay pea straw down thickly, then pile horse poo (or sheep, depends what I have for free) on top and then finish off with another thick layer of pea straw. This will break down over winter but the surface should still be higher than before the mulch was laid. Then I will plant into the mulch in spring. The following summer I may put tomatoes there again. The brick wall and the all day sun are ideal for the tomatoes. I gather they shouldn't go in the same place two years running, but haven't read anything suggesting that a two year rotation is unwise. Whereas I understand that potatoes should be on a four year rotation and the same for brassicas.

My tomatoes will mostly be in large outdoor pots this summer. I have only a couple of spots for tomatoes in the garden beds. I notice no asparagus has shown itself so far. Maybe it has rotted in the wet. Also my garlic and shallots are turning brown at the ends which seems unusual for this time of year. I suspect that the rain has something to do with it but am not sure.

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.

Bog chooks and slug deterrents

One day into my new self imposed rule about only using the internet after I've 'done' my reading in the evenings and I'm on the net at 8am. Spontaneous need to record my latest chook challenges.

Our entire back lawn and garden is a bog. The rain has been relentless and will last for a while yet. It could even be mostly wet all the way until January. So even though we've got a covered chook run, the saturation of the soil is such that rain seems to be seeping downhill and there are puddles even under cover. euggh.

We will move the chook run to a higher spot on the section at some point but even that will only help a bit compared to the enormous rainfall. At least the coop part is raised off the ground and has a wooden floor.

Hard to tell whether the eggshells are helping with the slugs. The blackbirds keep fossicking in the soil and making a huge mess as they go. So they've made craters beside the lettuces and moved the eggshells aside in the process. One lettuce has been partially eaten but at least not razed to the ground. So now I've tried another idea I read of recently and put orange peel around the lettuces. Apparently slugs don't like orange peel. We'll see.

flatworms and compost

Okay I am awake at the wrong times quite a bit lately. But anyway, here is some more blathering.
This is a flatworm. We have them in our garden. I've been feeding them to the chooks every time I find them. Apparently they eat earthworms. Which makes them very bad in my books. I've also encountered a couple of yellow oval shaped flatworm type creatures in the same habitats.

I have realised with great excitement that I am going to be able to start another new compost. Given the volume of grass clippings, chook house mix and manure I've collected of late, I think I've actually made one of those fast instant heaps they talk about in compost books where you build the compost heap in one day (well ours was in a week but close enough I think). So next lawn mowing day I'll start another one with the new grass clippings and the sheep manure which I bought from the local Lions fundraiser whcih is currently still bagged up.

On Friday morning I was working quietly on extending the garden which runs alongside the back of the house. I'm only extending it by 10-20cm width-wise in most places (it is about five metres long), but that is taking a while as I dig out well established grass and perennial weeds. I am appreciating how much easier the no dig method is. I've only dug two gardens in the traditional way at this home (I've got one more to finish after this current one), but they have taken immeasurably longer than the ones we built by the raised bed no dig method. I am excited that I now have my chooks to do most of the work for future plots for me.

sugar and stealing

Today I wrote about the sugar on the floor.

After school Fionn and I went out stealing. Grass. It must be Spring. The council mowed the large verge at the end of our street and we took big and little wheelbarrows and the rake down there and filled them. When we got back home we added it to the beautiful wormy home made compost which we had strewn over the punga raised bed. Should enrich the soil for the garlic and yams and the climbing rose.

I still love the chooks.

I made carrot and ginger and kumara soup for dinner. I used beef stock from the freezer for the liquid, bacon pieces and borlotti beans for the protein and I added a few handfuls of dried seaweed - wakame I think it's called. It was good. I should use it more often.

chookville

I am now a woman with chooks.

Three point of lay Brown Shavers are now settling in to their home in our backyard. The poultry palace isn't quite finished but I used a bit of masking tape in lieu of nails on the last details and Favourite Handyman can make changes later next week when they are in the run fossicking.

They've got water, grit, pellets, wheat, a tray of sand as some kind of dust bath and lots of straw in the coop. I'm keeping them locked into the coop for the first two days to get them used to this being their home.

We didn't have any time in reasonable weather to shift the poultry palace from it's building site to our preferred first spot. So as the forecast this weekend is for rain, more rain, heavy rain and thunder, I expect they will live on the building site for a while after all. I assume they will peck up all of the lawn the run is sitting on and am now thinking it will become another garden spot. It will be fairly exposed to the wind and perhaps I should plant some kind of lowish windbreak after the chooks move on. I don't want anything high as then sun would be lost. Might be useful for low growers like beetroot, lettuce, radishes and some herbs. Straight after chooks would be too rich for carrots I gather - makes them fork. But some more garden would certainly allow me to plant more of the herb seeds that I own but don't yet have enough places for. Perhaps it is what I need to get me breaking up the garden away from just patches around the periphery of the lawn. It would be very fantastic to eventually have lots of curves and a somewhat magical effect of walking round the corners and finding surprising things in the new garden vista. We don't have to have one big rectangle of lawn edged with plants always.

I seem to have misplaced the camera which is even worse negligence on my part than usual. Perhaps there is someone else to blame but I'm not confident on that one.

Training

Fabulous weather today, if a little cold. Major breakthrough on the gardening front: Brighid (18 months) stepped out of the garden when I told her to without me having to go over and haul her out. She and her brother filled the child-sized wheelbarrow we gave her for her first birthday with peastraw several times and helped me mulch two garden beds. When Fionn was two, he was very helpful in the garden, so odds are on that Brighid will understand how it all works (the where to stand and to only pull plants with permission aspects) in another six months. I'm sure we'll get on splendidly in the garden every day then.

As well as mulching, I also started to extend the bed which runs along the back wall of the house. It is only 30cm deep at it's narrowest point and I am extending out to double that. So I weeded and then mulched one log's worth today. The bed is bordered by about five beach logs which is partly why it is wider at some points than others.

Favourite Handyman continued work on the poultry palace. More recycled chicken wire went on today - this lot was gifted by one of our neighbours last summer when FH and his visiting father cleaned, repaired and painted the shed which borders with aforementioned neighbours.

Only 3-4 days ago, our place was pooling with water and the rain had been relentless for days. Yet today (and the previous two days) the soil has been damp but nevertheless neither soggy nor difficult to work with. Every article on weeds as indicators of soil type which I read suggests poor drainage. We have creeping buttercup, docks, plantain and daisies. I don't think we do have poor drainage, or at least not on the entire section. We just have phenomenal rainfall which means the soil is very wet for extended periods of the day/week/month/year.

Celery, onion weed, compost

I thoroughly enjoyed today. No prizes for guessing where I spent it.

I dug out three celery plants and dug up lots of onion weed. Inside I hauled out the dehydrator which I have owned since 1996 and used once before today. I have celery (including the leaves) and onion weed drying in it now. I also dried some in the oven slowly. So far, so good. My idea is to have a jar of the crumbled mix to to spoon into soups and risottos instead of stock cubes.

Then I sprinkled lime on the garden along the sunny back of the house and then I put my home made compost, beautifully dark and crumbly and full of worms, on top and then I put peastraw on top of that. That should give the soil a boost. I'll harvest some leeks next week and we will soon have enough room to plant out the six broccoli plants I bought yesterday.

Never too wet to make compost

Teemed down with rain today. So bad I did housework in the morning. By afternoon I held no care for whether I got wet, just that I got to garden. Brighid and I went into town to collect some peastraw we'd ordered and then I spread some over the old tobacco patch and a few other patches of bare earth out the back.

The rest of the pea straw went into my new compost heap by the garage. I recycled a large parcel box (all tape removed and laid out flat) as the weed supressant. Then I piled up four large bags worth of horse manure, layered with pea straw, lots of fluff collected from the tumble drier for months, some strips of old clothing and crudely shredded paper. I didn't need to wet it down with the hose - rain did a fine job. I stacked three sheets of recycled corrugated iron over it - one on each long side and one on top, leaving each end open for air circulation. I anchored it all down with some old bricks from our 'useful one day' pile.

It might be that it's best to have some soil contact to get the aerobic action going - I've meshed together ideas from no dig gardening with compost making. So I'm thinking that I will take some soil and partly decomposed compost from one of my other heaps and add to this new one as a kind of starter.

Peastraw is hard to come by this season and has to be trucked over from Christchurch, using a significant quantity of precious fossil fuel. It is a mulch par excellence in my opinion, but I am also aware that I need to look at other mulch options which can be generated (on the scale I desire) here on the West Coast. A friend yesterday had heard that bracken works well. That should be easy enough to come by so long as I'm prepared to cut it myself.