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.

Potatoes and feijoas

This is my 401st post. Not only do I talk too much in real life, I blog rather incessantly as well it seems.

Today I could wait no longer. We virtually live in Noah's Ark here in Spring. I cannot imagine quite when the soil will be dry enough for digging or planting. The prospective potato bed will just have to be a little compacted. I weeded the spreading buttercup and the docks which had pushed through the mulch and then planted 14 potatoes, each with a piece of comfrey leaf underneath them. I've left a gap at the back for beans and a gap at one end for herbs which I fancy and which otherwise will have no home. I had six potatoes left after this and have planted them down the bottom of the garden. It is quite wet and not at all raised there but apparently potatoes grow in most places and do good things for the soil, so an experiment worth doing.

I also cast aside concerns about compacting soil to plant the feijoa I bought earlier this month. I learnt not long ago that feijoas are very hungry so I made up a mix of sheep manure, blood and bone, potting mix and compost and dropped all that in a hole twice the size of the plant. Pea straw on top and hopefully now the other feijoa tree has a friend, they will both go forth and prosper. The top layer of weed/grass lawn which I dug out, I threw to the chooks so they can eat the greenery and feast on any worms and insects. Then they can scratch it all up and spread it round the chook run.

Do you believe?

A number of people whom I know and respect are strong believers in a Christian God. Their God informs their ethical judgement and through their study of scriptures and reflection on the message of Jesus, they draw strength to live purposefully for the 'good' of those around them.

I also have the privilege to know some people who are strongly committed to the importance of scientific research which indicates a scary degree of global warming in the present and future and to the significance of our declining, or soon to be declining, access to oil. Their understanding of this research and the implications of it for our daily lives informs their actions, both large and small, and their sense of responsibility to minimise the effect of our lives on the environment at personal, community and global levels.

Much as it might horrify scientists who see no place for a God in their lives, I see many similarities in the two sets of beliefs. With food prices rising inexorably, adults everywhere are reigning their non-essential spending in and considering how to limit the damage of inflation on their food budgets. There is an understandable frustration on the part of peak oil enthusiasts that many people aren't seeing 'the bigger picture'. Which reminds me of the edict I've heard in Church that good works alone aren't enough. Faith is essential.

Both Christianity with it's notion of the Second Coming and Peak Oil seem to appeal to our fascination with apocalypses. Like watching gory movies where we don't want the horrible thing to happen but we watch, gripped, anyway.

Perhaps I'm a big softie with no stomach for the tough stuff. I believe in God as hope personified, as my guide, my strength to believe in the wisdom of working for change, for better lives, for redemption from sorrow. I have little time for the notion of a God of fear. I'm also a believer that we need to change our habits and become less wasteful, less reliant on commodities and cash and more connected to the growing of the foods we eat. If there is an apocalypse coming, (I can't help but think of when Dorothy got whisked out of her home in Kansas and dropped into the land of Oz in the musical), then we are wise to live carefully now. But if there is not an apocalypse coming, then I still think we are wise to live carefully now.

agflation

We've been giving much thought and discussion over to the rocketing prices of food staples world-wide in our house lately. Rice, I read in the Guardian Weekly today, rose in price on the international market by 50% in the last fortnight. Just one of many examples. We are reading of the very real possibility of food riots in some parts of the world.

The Guardian Weekly also had a review of a book on the history of the potato. Has more to offer nutritionally than any of the grains. Really, we should give over our entire lawn to potatoes I think. But for the mean time we will leave plenty of running space for the children. We do plan to double or triple last year's potato harvest though, including growing early, mid and late season varieties. I'd like to have veges to store for winter next year. My Dad has that one all sorted out with potatoes and pumpkins plus he leaves carrots and parsnips in the ground to store and I have more to learn on that front. I have got my own garlic in storage though.