December 2018

Where the heck did December go?  I’m starting this blog entry on Christmas Day night (OK, technically it’s Boxing Day right now) so I’d better get on with it before the month runs out altogether.  It has been a lovely month, with Auntie Sally’s visit being a big highlight.  Then the gradual return of the (occasionally) prodigal sons for Christmas itself.  There’s been rather a lot of rain, but also some glorious sunny Marlborough days.  The photos were taken on Christmas Day - the rainbow appeared at around 9pm after the weird burst of sunshine on the opposite hill.

The deck is complete (apart from the pergola and bar that have been proposed but are either forever virtual or a very long way off) and awaiting its preservative application at 4-6 weeks old.  It’s really added another dimension to the house and to outdoor living.  Such decadence.  Billy gifted us an outdoor couch for Christmas, and Peter has built a huge table/bench set with some of the leftover wood.  The shade sail is up, and the living Christmas tree, incorporated into the deck design, is now resplendent with festive lights and decorations.  One day we’ll have to chop it down, but hopefully it’ll see a few more Christmases out.  The extended flower and native garden beds are starting to fill out a bit and mowing the lawn is an absolute efficient pleasure – only a few minutes all up.   

The bees have been busy, and one fine day there was the unmistakable sound of a swarm in the vege garden.  The most likely source of the bees was the Queen Bitch Hive.  I’ve long cherished a hope that the Queen Bitch would exit her hive and disappear (a much less stingy solution than finding and replacing her), but in the moment I found myself wavering about whether to try and capture the swarm.  Soon enough the decision was made for me.  The swarm found an empty hive box and settled itself in.  It was just a case of shifting this box onto a new hive base and voila – another colony!  And only my untidy self to blame if we still have an aggressive colony in the garden.

The vege and horse arena gardens have continued to be woefully neglected.  This seems to have affected aesthetics way more than production, and I’m optimistic that a few days over the next couple of weeks between night shifts will enable that to be dealt with.  The photo is included to shame me into some kind of weeding action before next month's blog.  Potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, lettuce and garlic are on tap, and tomatoes are beginning to blush.  Herbs are a-plenty, but a combination of not enough time and not enough sun when there was time, have meant that minimal dehydration has happened.  Solly is still stuck in the car port, looking a bit miserable.  The orchard feels a bit like a no-go zone.  It's so overgrown that it's practically impenetrable, and I'm avoiding going in too deep in fear of depressing myself with the volume of work required.  Hopefully the fruit trees will be thriving on this neglect.  There seems to have been plenty of rain and sun at blossoming and fruiting times.  I'm hoping that it's not too deluded to imagine that magical fruity things are happening in there without being witnessed.  Hmmm, sounds a bit like the old philosophical chestnut: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Madame Cholet has actually had a bit of a tidy up.  The tomatoes and apple cucumber had taken over and watering could only be done by jet hose from the door.  The tomatoes are now kind of bunched together and loosely tied up around a couple of extra stakes, and the cucumber is draped over some plastic mesh.  I’ll think twice about growing another apple cucumber next year.  It’s like a giant alien mass with tendrils everywhere.  If only it could be trained to consume rabbits.  And snails.  That'd be some biological control huh?

The pigs are doing their piggy thing and getting bigger.  Voldemort escaped one day, and for a brief moment I thought it was Maggie snorting around in the flower bed.  Luckily there was plenty of man-power at home to return him to the run and secure the breach in the boundary fence.  He was obviously unsettled without Dumbledore and Snape and, like all pigs, responded to the lure of food.

Auntie Sally spent several happy days with us before heading back to Hong Kong.  Mostly the weather gods were kind and we were able to squeeze in a few trips to some favourite places, like Nelson market, Lochmara and Lake Rotoiti.  We were able to ply her with alcohol most evenings, and this included a fair volume of newly-bottled mead.  The Creamed Honey Mead had stopped bubbling and was perfectly drinkable.  It filled at least 30 bottles, so plenty to go round.

Sally was also able to join me in attending Molly’s graduation ceremony.  She actually completed her wine-making degree in July, and has been working at a winery since then.  The event was at the Marlborough Convention Centre, with drinks afterwards at a local hotel.  It was a lovely ceremony. 

Lucas and I dropped Sally off at Christchurch airport and went home via Hanmer Springs, home of the famous warm pool complex and (less famous but equally popular) Lollipot Sweet Shoppe.  Sam had booked an army house for a couple of nights and he picked up Molly and Billy in Kaikoura before joining us in the pools.   It was a lovely couple of days and a stunning drive home along the outrageously beautiful Kaikoura coast.  We made the obligatory stop at 'The Store' at Kekerengu for refreshments.  It's wonderful that this incredible place has made a successful come-back after the Kaikoura quake. 

The Christmas cake theme for 2018 was ‘China’ and, as usual, there was a very high standard of decorative marzipan.  By popular request, we had that full-on traditional Northern Hemisphere Christmas turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and an old-fashioned trifle desert.  The last time we went traditional was in 2006 – our first NZ Christmas.  Fortuitously this year it rained most of the day, so an indoor hot dinner worked out OK after all.  It would be great to have the sun back now though!  Oh, and whilst I'm wishing, a 2019 garden fairy would be equally great too.  Any offers please?

November 2018

Work on the deck and garden beds has meant that the vege garden has been pretty much abandoned – mostly limited to watering Madame Cholet and occasional planting of new seedlings.  Unbelievably the gravel paths are not overgrown with weeds.  There are some weeds of course, but relatively easily dealt with by a quick swipe of my favourite garden tool – the niwashi.  The herb beds and paths in the horse arena are weedier, so they’re the next priority whenever that comes up.

I’m working away in Westport for a few days, and am hoping the deck will nearly look like a real deck by the time I’m home.  Peter’s working furiously on it and it’s already looking great.  The new paths around it are now gravelled, and the flower bed and native bed are mulched with horse poo and topped with excess peastraw from the vege garden.  A few new plants have been added, and several more will be taken from divisions of existing plants when they’ve stopped flowering.  A beautifully scented white azalea, currently tucked in front of the Tulip Tree, has been pruned (by Karyn, so within an inch of its life) in anticipation of a move to the front of the extended bed in late summer/autumn.  The paeonies are finally out and seem to enjoy the company of rampant echium.  A hedge of Escallonia (White Profusion) will be planted along the angled edge of the deck.  It’s hardy and evergreen, and its flowers are beloved by bees. 

Despite the neglect, most veges are coming away nicely.  Too many lettuce as usual, beetroot, brassicas and snow peas, corn, carrots, beans, peas, onions, leeks and spinach.  Spuds are looking good above ground, and elephant garlic needs to be dug up as it’s going to seed.  They’ve all had an occasional hammering by the wind and frost, or been overcome by peastraw.  Not all have survived alas, and a little more attention may have improved some outcomes. 

Fruit is also filling out, so the pigs should be in for a treat by late summer.  Currants are profuse, and though the various pears have been thinned by the wind, there are still plenty of them.  Blueberries are also abundant, but will need to be bird-protected for me to get any kind of a look in.  Grapes are also expanding, and thankfully all survived a recent frost that hadn’t been forecast.  The orchard is well overgrown and I’m hoping it is enjoying being left to its own devices.  At the last count, both new trees (Cider Apple Slack Ma Girdle and Perry Pear) were taking off, but will need to be irrigated now that the days are warmer and the rainfall has dropped off.

The delightful Cocktail Kiwi, that drapes itself indulgently over the Gin Palace, has finally put on a great show of flowers.  It’s flowered before but failed to bear fruit.  This time the flowers are way more profuse and I hope I’m not setting myself up for too big of a fruit disappointment.  I had warned it that it was 'fruit or die'.  Luckily it didn’t know I wasn’t serious.  It’s a lovely plant that I’d struggle to do away with.

Molly has checked the mead out and agreed that some was ready for bottling.  The 23 litre demi-john with creamed honey mead, and the dark, runny honey mead were still bubbling, albeit infrequently.  The Honeydew, granulated and Mānuka meads had stopped fermenting, so with Molly’s help, are now maturing away in bottles.  I’m wondering if anyone has ever converted perfectly good Mānuka honey into mead before?  I was going to say ‘wasted’ but really it’s just a decadent use of very valuable honey.  Could Mānuka mead be as medicinal as its honey?  Maybe medicinal in a different, kind of glazed, way.  Sounds like a bloody good reason to drink it at least.  Tasting during bottling was obviously a necessity, and happily all three were a real treat.  Even the granulated honey mead that had been less promising at the last racking was beautifully drinkable. 

The Muller frost has been trumped by a (hopefully) final frost and snow fall in the mountains in the small hours of November 20^th.  The grape growers were up in arms about the audacity of so late a cold snap.  It’ll officially be summer on December 1^st, so they have a fair point.  I’d returned very late from work but just managed to throw some frost cloth over the most tender veges.  The mountains and hills were clothed in snow and looked absolutely awesome.  Mount Riley got a good dusting of the white stuff, and particularly stunning was Mount Fishtail that I drove past en route to the West Coast.

Westport is as gorgeous as ever; even the weather has been showing off.  A great little track, starting out over a picturesque board walk at the fishing wharves, heading through native bush, along a lagoon and around the harbour, has been constructed by volunteers as a walking and cycling path.  It’s well within call back distance of the Birthing Unit so very much accessible for me.  The car is loaded with lots of rocks from Granity beach.  Karyn will not doubt snaffle a few for her garden, and the rest will go along the vines.  They’re very much characteristic of the West Coast – mostly flat and round and in a range of colours.  Mitre 10 in Westport has been an unexpected delight on the plant front.  Luckily the bath in the Health Board flat is proving to be a perfect zone for plant holding and watering.

Auntie Sally is on her way and it's great that she'll be able to occupy Ti Kouka Cabin, which has been blocked out for guests while she's here.  I’m taking some leave so can spend time with her, wherever she wants to go.  Lucas has returned home for a couple of months before he leaves for a new job and life in Melbourne.  He’s working for the Aussie company remotely until the new year when he’ll join them in their office.  It’s lovely to have him back home, and he even comes in handy sometimes!  Billy’s living in the caravan at work and comes home on his days off.  Sam’s busy with pre-Christmas band stuff but will be back in Blenheim in mid-December.  I’ve accepted a fixed term contract back with the Polytechnic next year, which I’ll do on top of my Health Board hours.  So 2019 will be pretty hectic.  Here’s hoping that it’ll be possible to squeeze in enough time for gardening, processing and outdoor life, and a tipple or two of the homemade variety.    

 

October 2018

The Wairau Valley Garden Tour has been and gone, and overall it was a great experience for me and Karyn.  The 2 days preceding the tour were totally rained out – great for growing but hopeless for tidying up and weeding.  Somehow, most of the important jobs were done and the kitchen garden has probably never looked so tidy, nor ever will again.  Signs were put up around the garden explaining how things worked (e.g. keyhole beds, weed control, pest management, Solly) and there were lots of questions and good old garden discussions.  I picked up a few tips, like using paper bags over grape bunches and thick newspaper to combat twitch grass.  By far the commonest question related to pink-flowered strawberries, which I think may be the result of hybridisation of alpine strawberries with common strawberries.  This is pure speculation, as I can’t really come up with any other explanation.  Several people left happily with potted pink strawberry plants.  Regrettably, I’d weeded that bed and surrounding path in the rain the day before and had relegated loads more to the compost heap.  

Despite being adamant about not undertaking another garden project this year, a new woodlot has made an appearance.  It started with the 8 Manuka trees that I acquired at the ApiNZ conference, 6 of which were yet to be homed.  Then I realised that 6 (of 7) oak trees that I’d grown in pots from acorns about 3 years ago had survived serious neglect/abandonment and were eager to grow bigger.  Then it was Karyn’s birthday and she’d been wanting to plant a maple tree (to tap for maple syrup) for ages.  A single mature-ish plant cost pretty much the same as a bulk lot of 10 very young trees, so instead of one, she got 10.  Then there were the 3 peach trees, grown from peach stones, gifted to Karyn, and planted temporarily in her plot.  That’s quite a list already, but luckily there’s a big section of the horse arena just sitting there being overgrown.  Digging holes was a nightmare – having to penetrate established pasture weeds and several inches of hardcore.  Each tree got a few spadesful of compost to keep them going until their roots get to the soil below the horse arena.  In the end, there was space to also squeeze in 4 Eucalypts (Leucoxylon - winter flowering for bees), 4 Kanuka and a rogue pomegranate.  And that was just one side of the section.  The other side now contains 2 of the oaks, 3 hazelnuts, 2 sweet chestnuts, one almond and one walnut (seedling).  Phew.  Who needs a gym membership?  This woodlot is much closer to the house than our previous attempt, so it’s in with a chance of being looked after.  A hose is lined up to make irrigation really easy, and each tree has its own wool mulch mat pegged around its base.  Dastardly weed killer has also been sprayed in places to reduce the massive weed load.  Here’s hoping that some of these young trees make it to firewood.

Another project that has reached the top of the list is a deck.  We’ve created a simple design that wraps around the back and side of the house so that each of the 3 ranch-sliders will open out onto decking.  It gets rid of a great big chunk of lawn (no boys left at home to mow), and the flower bed at the back and the native bed at the side have been significantly widened/lengthened.  There’ll be a single wide step down along the length of the far edge, wide enough to sit on, and gravelled paths that connect to the existing paths running along the edges of the deck and to the back gate.  One tall post will eventually hold a corner of a shade sail.  Peter’s ordered the wood and bought himself a mitre saw, and he's already got the first posts in.  The photos show the weed mat paths and rocks that will border the planting beds.  More hideous weed killer has been sprayed on the lawn that will be under the deck and paths.  That was a really awful task - so sorry bees and other insects.  Now I'm on the look-out for flowering and native plants to fill the expanded beds.  Divisions of current plants will be possible once they've flowered, and there are 5 roses that will need to make their way over.  Totally the wrong time of year to move them (I can hear you tutting Karyn) but it's hard to kill a rose eh?

A gorgeous red rhododendron behind the pizza oven is flowering away, and another red rhodie next to the front door has just opened its first blossom.  The colours in the garden are ridiculously cheery, from the deep blue of the ceanothus to the white Mexican orange blossom, and the bright red poppies.  Paeonies are poised to burst any second now, and rosebuds are filling.  The burgeoning lemonwood hedge is showing promise that it will eventually showcase the plants before it.  The herbs are also flaunting themselves – bright pinky-purple rosemary flowers and heaps of fat sage buds, and chamomile and fennel popping up wherever it likes.

Lots of veges are planted up, including spuds, though there’s still space for more.  We’re not necessarily done with the frosty nights, so the likes of beans, snow peas and corn still need some protection.  Cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes are being tended by Madame Cholet, and several other trays of seedlings are ready to be planted out.  There’s plenty of spare pea straw that isn’t needed to re-mulch the vege garden – it’s gone down in the expanded native bed near the house.   Weed control of the paths can be done with strong vinegar and Epsom salts now that all of them are young and small.  The joys of having to get all your garden sorted out for a tour!  Here’s hoping it works.  An organic weed killer was recommended by a garden tour visitor that I may try out if not.

Sad plans are slowly being made to deal with the barren cattle and sheep.  Peter’s looking at water buffalo (again) and we’ll probably get more ewes.  The bees are busy, and Derryn has a split that I can have to replace the colony that died out in early spring.  That’ll bring me up to 3 colonies again, plus enough hive ware for a 4^th if a swarm presents.  A quick decision to get pigs was made when we spotted some Wessex Saddleback (probably crosses) locally for sale.  They were delivered the next day after a bit of sty and run preparation.  As usual, Karyn got the naming rights.  We rejected the bacon-themed names (Crispy?? Really???) and have settled instead on amazing wizards.  Voldemort is totally black, Dumbledore has a wide saddle, and Snape a narrower saddle.  They're 10-week old chunky critters and it's lovely to hear their dulcet tones as they go about trashing the run.

Billy has left home once more, this time into the creature comforts of the delightful Lazy Mazy (who, unbelievably, he plans to re-name! Outrageous.)  She’s now parked up at Outward Bound, awaiting a power source extension.  He’ll be coming home on his days off, but otherwise will be stylishly accommodated in the caravan.  Both Lucas and Sam (with Molly) came home for a weekend, so we were all together as a family again, if only briefly.  Enough time, apparently, to be subjected to Monopoly, which Molly won resoundingly.  Christmas requests and plans were made, and a shocking realisation that the Christmas cake didn't exist yet.  Usually, it's baked around Easter and packed full of brandy.  The ingredients were duly rounded up and this year's cake is indulgently marinading in a decent volume of brandy, awaiting its decoration with marzipan and icing in the theme of 'China'.   The request is for a traditional turkey dinner this year, which hasn't been done since our first NZ Christmas when it was 28 degrees and no-one was hungry.  After 13 years maybe it's worth another try, if only for nostalgia.  We're really looking forward to a visit from Auntie Sally in early/mid-December, so starting to think about what activities we can line up for her.  Hmmm, maybe egg-roulette??

We're still on alert for a final frost (known here as the Muller Frost - named after the bloke who noticed that there was always one more frost after you were sure they were over), but otherwise are contentedly adjusting to the balmier temperatures of spring.  It's a truly beautiful time of year to be living so close to nature, a blessing indeed.