It's all in the soil

Tonight after my children were in bed I dug up my garlic. Well actually one child in bed, but that's enough mention of my rather average parenting. I gave up at 9.50pm as it was getting too dark to see the last few garlic plants.

A very encouraging harvest. In the punga raised bed, the bulbs were huge. The soil surrounding them was soft and quite dry and it was easy to lift the bulbs with a fork without damaging them. I know the red one is Takahue and at least some of the white one is Kakanui. Some of my bulbs were from my own harvest last year (the source of those in turn was an organic grower in Raglan), others were from the garlic I brought from Bill and Leitu Jackson at Wangapeka, a few hours north of me and the rest I bought from Koanga Gardens. I will keep some of my recent harvest for next year's seed, one head of Gilly's for seed and order some more in. Given some of the problems New Zealand commercial growers have had with inbred seed (although I'll confess I'm not completely sure how that problem occurs), it seems a good idea to keep bringing bulbs in from elsewhere in the country. I haven't counted my garlic yet, but at a glance I have perhaps 50 heads of garlic. One head per week isn't really enough for winter cooking in my kitchen. I've already given Bill and Leitu a call to put my name down to buy some more of theirs.

Anyway back to my garden. In the other garlic bed, the soil is only slightly raised from the lawn level. It is also at the bottom of the slope of our section. Two garlic necks had completely rotted through leaving the bulb in the ground while the leaves pulled free when I attempted to dig it up. Some bulbs from this garden were a good size but many were not. The soil was wet (despite it being mostly dry for this last week - only two overnight rains being practically a drought here) and stuck together in clods. It wasn't as easy to dig the garlic out and I damaged several bulbs with the fork.

I went shopping at the garden centre this morning. Boron and dolomite lime. A globe artichoke plant, beetroot seedlings and a mixed punnet of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings. I've not raised many plants from seed this spring or summer. I doubt I will be raising many from seed either until Brighid gets past her garden murdering stage.

Our chooks have been wondering free, unbidden. It took several escapes before I established exactly where they were getting out. Most remarkably, when I was out yesterday evening, two of the three chooks got out, so Fionn and his friend put them in the temporary shelter. Fionn was in bed when I got home, so I never learnt of this until much later. This morning I noticed the top edge of the temporary shelter wiggling from the study window. It was from a chook trying to get out. Yes, one chook. The other chook, it appears, got out from the temporary shelter (not especially difficult) and put herself back in the poultry palace. I think they were both anxious for their usual laying spot.

They were escaping from the door. Don't roll your eyes. They had wiggled a gap between the door and the wall beside it. So now I have wiggled some wires myself and added a bungy cord through the overlapping wire mesh section to hold the door closed. So far, no more escaping.

They were fairly gentle and unadventurous souls while we were fixing the door security. They poked around in the potatoes and the broccoli but didn't go anywhere near the old chook run, which is where they would have done the most damage. I do see though that they have scratched up some rather small potatoes, for the most part tearing them from their parent plant. So I need to collect the rest of those in the morning and cook them up. I also need to spread some more pea straw around the plants. I never mulched them as high as I'd planned. It just rained too often to get outside until it fell off my to do list. I think I will go and buy some fresh peastraw though. I'm sick of my current bale throwing up masses of pea seedlings. That can go via the chooks and hopefully the germination rate will be significantly less.

We have sunflowers in bloom now. I don't remember why I planted them so far from where we can see them though. It's akin to walking through a tiny forest to get close enough to see the blooms. The wild blackberry has no flowers on it. Wild blackberry not far from us is awash with flowers. Not sure what the story is there. Neither is there any fruit on my blackcurrants. Is that typical for the first year from a cutting? I'm sure glad we are not dependent on our garden for fruit. Eight strawberries does not a happy summer make.

Geodesic domes

I saw a geodesic dome glasshouse (or maybe it was plastic) in North Canterbury once. Good choice of shape for such windy country. You know, I think bamboo could be used to make a similar shape, not as sophisticated but good enough. Then I could cover with shade cloth to mitigate the wind or to contain chooks, or plastic for a semi-glasshouse effect. I would end up with mandalas a la Linda Woodrow. Our poultry palace is making such a good home for our chooks and our two feijoa trees. The feijoas were looking rather poorly before the chooks and their palace moved in around them. Could I extend the concept for very little financial outlay?

I put the smashed mussel shells in the chook run this afternoon - hopefully that is a good source of calcium for them. We've had a few very pale, thin egg shells lately.

I had a lovely parcel today of a plait of garlic. Thank you Gillybean. I'm so pleased I actually made it to the post office to send your kefir last week. Sometimes the post office runs away and hides when I write it on my errands list. Shocking is the list number of gifts and cards and other things which hang around my study with the name of a friend on them, waiting forlornly for me to take them to the post office.

I might harvest my own garlic tomorrow and lay it out to dry. I have two beds of garlic, one happy, one spindly. The happy garlic is in our punga raised bed and enjoys lovely lovely soil. The spindly garlic is in a less well nourished bed which it shares with strawberries and peas, neither of which are good companions for it. There are some tomatoes in there as well and they are doing rather averagely-to-poorly. At least I will remember for next year. I shall take the peas (rogues from some badly behaved peastraw mulch) out at the same time as the garlic. The strawberries can have a bit longer to earn their keep. Then it will be time for the chooks to have fun in there I think. Two years ago I turned the lawn over and slowly weeded it myself, with only bokashi as fertiliser. Since then, it has had the odd bit of seaweed brew and some menstrual blood. Not really enough input for the kind of productivity I like to see.

When I went to feed the ginger beer plant tonight, it fizzed when I opened the lid! Hurray, we are definitely making progress.

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.

trouble in poultry paradise

One of our chooks is sick. She was very quiet all of yesterday and finally laid a shell-less egg in the late afternoon, just plop out in the open. She has a red anus and is clearly unhappy and only eating and drinking a fraction of her usual enthusiasm. My initial research online suggests an infection which should be treated with antibiotics.

My chook guru friend Raelene rang back with ideas once I was in bed asleeep with the children (I'm up in the middle of the night because I don't have sensible sleep patterns at the moment. Nothing wrong, just not sensible), so I'll have to wait until the morning to learn about them. Pending Raelene's views, I'll probably have to ring the vet in the morning (I have never had anything to do with a vet before. This appears to be more responsibility on top of having two children. Cue: goggly eyes).

I'll also be down at the feed shop buying straw to replace the existing straw in the laying box. It wouldn't cost a great deal more to replace the straw in the run and perhaps that is even more important given that is the wet area. Presumably the existing stuff will go on the compost and diseases heat up and die. Not sure about bacteria dying at temperatures which won't rise above 70 degrees celsius and may be quite a bit less. But then the chooks aren't going to be living on the 'made' compost.

I'm also thinkg garlic. Planning on cooking up some wheat with garlic and cider vinegar in the morning and feeding that to the chooks. Everything benefits from garlic in my world view.

It is par for the course possibly that the run is so wet and that is a breeding ground for disease. I am liking the idea that we could build our glasshouse this summer and use it as a chook home out of tomato season and a tomato growing house the rest of the time. Living in a bog was never good for Irish potatoes and neither is it good for chooks, or so I'm learning.

I do continue to get huge satisfaction from collecting slugs every afternoon and feeding them to the chooks.

Last night's dinner was quiche which included eggs, leeks, thyme and parsley from our garden. I liked it. Favourite Handyman liked it. The short ones demonstrated their lack of sophistication and class on the taste preferences stakes and were rewarded with empty tummies.

I am making progress on Fionn's knitted sleeveless hoodie. I'm up to the armhole shaping on the back.

I have started a great book called "Mr Pip" by Lloyd Jones. I should be reading it now instead of blogging and knitting. Or perhaps I should be sleeping. Being sensible.

We don't have a television so I was unable to form my own opinion about a programme which apparently aired here in New Zealand showing that plastics recycled in New Zealand are shipped all the way to China where the create a huge plastic city of filth and are recycled into more plastic in unpleasant circumstances. Maybe it is not so bad that our Smallwettown's council provides no recycling facilities.

Our one solitary feijoa tree needs some food and a friend. I didn't realise feijoas were hungry until recently. So some blood and bone and mulch will be coming its way shortly. I've weeded around it. It was sold as a self-pollinating variety but apparently even self pollinating feijoas do better with other feijoas for company.

My seedlings are coming along nicely. If tomorrow is fine, then I'll be able to plant out some borage, calendula and silverbeet.

Have I mentioned that the yams are showing above the ground now?

The comfrey has risen from its winter slumber. I want more of it though. I wonder how it manages in bog soil. It would be more useful than Wandering Dew.

Out the front I pulled more onionweed yesterday. I'm weeding around the wild blackberry, which I've decided to cultivate this year. In the background to the onionweed, blackberry and the plots which await pumpkins and zucchini are tulips and irises. I like the idea that there are somewhat hidden treasures of beautiful flowers here. I have silverbeet growing around the perimeter of the zucchini patch at the moment. No place too wet, cold, hot, dry, sunny or shady for silverbeet round here.