So, what does democracy mean round here? Really?

Last week raids were made across New Zealand supposedly in the interests of protecting 'us' from terrorism, though the actual threat has not been clarified, or indeed specified in any way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_Zealand_anti-terror_raids

We had lunch with politically active friends in the weekend who raised the issue with us. I had that 'mother at home out of the loop feeling' and didn't say a lot, assuming I was feeling uninformed because I hadn't been paying attention. Not so, it seems. I received a forwarded email from my sister this morning which showed that the media is being tightly manipulated and they in turn are manipulating what information we have access to. Finding out that 17 people are in prison (i.e. arrested and awaiting trial and not granted bail) galvanised me into more active pursual of information. Favourite Handyman found the wiki link I've pasted above.

We're still on the lookout for more information. After fairly idle comments about the responsibilities democracy bestows on us all earlier in the month when the local body elections were held, we are thinking that this is when democracy can be handed over or fought for. I'm getting prepared to fight for it.

Wherever you live, talk about this. Spread the thinking, no matter what you ultimately decide to think.

Things I learnt on Friday

On Friday I had the pleasure of lunch with my friend Marie who lives an hour south of us and is much more knowledgeable and experienced in the gardening ways of wetville than I. Kids played, did the meat coop, had yummy home made lunch.

Tangible treats:
1. a bulb of florence fennel to eat. There was some in the leek and potato soup we had for lunch and that inspired me to try it. I've never eaten it before.
2. Spinach tree seedlings to plant in my garden. Marie reckons they are the best spinach she's ever grown. I've never heard of them before, but after looking at her garden, if she advised me to turn cartwheels each day in front of the tomatoes to help them grow, then I'd probably try that also.
3. A comfrey plant. I'll plant it in my special invasive plants garden. I loppered some horrible ugly and invasive trees down earlier this year and pulled out some unnammed weeds. Planted mints to compete with the nasturtium and convulvulus and wild lillies and onion weeds. So the comfrey can hang out there as well for the meantime.

I took down some homemade humous (shades of Nigella again do you notice????) and some borlotti bean, epilobium willowherb, elecampane and echinacea seeds for Marie.

Valuable information treats:
1. A few days ago I threw the towel in on the pumpkin project. But Marie's friend has grown them in a nearby valley which is much colder than where Marie or I live successfully. Marie has advised me that here in wetville the season is much later and not to worry about only planting things now. We get a long Autumn. Ha! Now I see she is so right and we won't be paying any attention to those East Coast garden books ever again.

2. She has two glasshouses and one has no roof. It is still well ahead of the fully outside garden because the sides get pretty warm. Thinking about adapting that for here and finding more stakes at the beach to 'fence' one of the gardens with polytunnel plastic.

3. Blueberries. Hers are in the enclosed glasshouse. Yields of that variety are much better under glass she tells me. I asked about a commercial grower inland and north from me. Apparently he grows outside but a different variety (his are prolific and seriosuly yummy). So now I want to find out what variety my commercial grower is using.

4. She has also lost zucchini plants recently. She assures me I should not despair and should try again in a couple of weeks. Will do.

A special day indeed. It was even gorgeous weather.

fuel emissions

They wre talking about fuel emissions on the radio earlier this week. Apparently New Zealand is fairly unregulated when it comes to fuel emissions and cars compared to the rest of the OECD world. I know each individual car runs differently, depending on whether it has been regularly serviced etc., but still I'd like to see a comparison chart of cars and emissions. We have 1.6 litre 1991 station wagon. Basic model so no air conditioning. It runs beautifully and costs us very little beyond basic maintenance. We plan to run it until it dies. The longer we can do that, the better the chances that we can afford a significantly newer and more efficient replacement car.

I'd like to see a chart where I could look at emissions levels for my size and age of car and compare it to those of other vehicles. So I could consider whether say buying a car five years less old than mine gives me significant emissions reduction or whether it needs to be only two years old (i.e. 2005 model) to get significant improvements.

If this exists, I'd love to know.

Meat coop outing

Tomorrow is our organic beef collection outing. I've been collecting orders and chilly bins from friends this week and we'll drive south for an hour and have lunch with an old school friend and admire her truly fabulous garden and pick up some more tips on growing in wetville and then collect 40kg of beef from her organic beef growing friend when she comes into the village to collect her children from school and then drop it off at each friend when we get back to smalltown.

Just felt like sharing my buying local and organic cooperatively project.

A green thing

In terms of treading lightly on this earth, a sewing machine is a very useful thing to have. It is most especially useful if you have a spot to leave it permanently set up. Mine went to live with friends while we were in the UK and has recently made its way back to our home via the local sewing machine service and repair person.

If you have sufficient eyesight and hand-foot-eye coordination to drive a car, then you will be able to use a sewing machine for basic repairs and making simple things. With practice, you and I will be able to do much more but I'm not at that stage at the moment.

Useful things I have done:
1. Turned a torn nightie into lots of wipes for Brighid's bottom.
2. Cut up a very worn out Thomas t-shirt into patches for mending Fionn's trousers.
3. Mended a pillow which had come apart at the seams and made it instantly reusable.
4. Mended a previously unwearable but much loved dress of my own.

I've got some other projects lined up but already it has helped me reuse items that would otherwise have to be replaced with new things.

Which in terms of dollars and carbons and chemicals is a good thing aye?

Garden roundup

for the first time in a while.
Today it stopped raining for about 3.5 hours. You get grateful for the small things eventually.

I need to update my growing list on the blog sidebar sometime soon. Cos' it's working out a little differently - I also want to redo my garden map just for Tania.

The broad beans grow well here. The only drawback is that I really don't like them that much. Will be doing kale instead for winter growing next year.

I pulled out some struggling garlic today to make more room for the rest to grow large and pungent. The ground is sodden. If things don't dry out soon then it will all rot in the ground.

Potatoes in the raised bed are doing very well. The ones in the tyres are not at all. Though the peastraw in the tyres is full of worms so at least I'm creating a good growing medium for a new crop of something else.

I recently found out that the Austrian Heirloom seed pumpkins (or whatever similar name they are properly called) are really an upper North Island variety. I haven't got any to germinate so I'm going to leave them for this year and plant zucchinis in their place. I've transplanted some zucchinis into pots and two into the ground. Despite the pots sitting right next to the relevant piece of zucchini garden, the ones in the pots are thriving and the ones in the garden are dead or dying. Current hypothesis is that the ground is too wet and the pots drain better.

I've started to harden the tomatoes off in preparation for planting out in the garden. Until now, they've been on window sills inside the house and adjacent shed.

Freesias didn't appear at all this year. I'm going to mass plant all my flower bulbs much more tightly next year.

Things are getting eaten. I need to get out at night with a torch and kill some slugs and snails.

Tobacco seedlings are doing well on the window sill. Not my job to prepare the large area for planting them outside though.

Blackcurrants have buds on them already - they were sticks on the kindy table last month.

Who else is collecting for Plunket then?

Not long ago Rachael was asking for ideas on what makes and creates community. I think about this question frequently but had insufficient operational brain cells at the time I read Rachael's blog post.

Now I can tell you what I think makes community.

We move to a small town. I know no one and neither doe Fionn aged 3. J is heavily involved in the town toy library and is lovely to me. Fionn and I get in the local paper simply for turning up to do our helping at toy library shift on the day the local journalist visits. This year we have a new baby and J has now become the Plunket carseat hire person (as well as doing about 800 unpaid and very useful jobs in our small town) and she is superbly helpful and just lovely to boot.

So I waltz on by past the appeal for Plunket collectors on the supermarket noticeboard with just a twinge of guilt. But when J rings me personally I can't find one single reason whyI should not help such a great woman who is heart and soul behind an organisation which just wants little babies to stay alive and thrive.

So we (I'll be taking Brighid and Fionn for cuteness factor to get people donating generously) will be collecting for Plunket on our street and the neighbouring four small streets this week.

Good chance to see what other people are growing in this climate.