May 2017

                                  

It’s the peak of autumn and there have been several opportunities to enjoy some psithurism, mostly in the form of raking up leaves.  The autumn colours at home and throughout the valley are stunning, as are the crisp mornings that give way to glorious sunshiny mornings.  As soon as the sun goes down at the end of the day the temperature plummets and we’re grateful for the penetrating heat from the wood burning stove.

The veg garden is still being bedded down for winter, and most areas are nicely tucked up.  Once the leaves from the step-over espalier apple trees have fallen, then that bed can be tidied up properly.  That’ll include pruning the apples, cutting out and tying in the raspberries, and then digging up the boysenberries and replacing them with 3 other berry fruit plants (berry crosses that produce large berries).  The boysenberries haven’t ever fruited really well, and they are very rampant and prickly, so I’m keen to try something else.  They’ll probably be a nightmare to remove. The fig tree bed also needs some final attention. There are carrots in there hidden amongst the weeds.  The fig tree itself has been severely pruned and re-balanced after it was wind-ravaged.  Fingers crossed that's what it needs.

I’d thought the fruit was over, but had totally discounted the humble feijoa.  There are 4 trees, one of which was originally on the property when we arrived, and then dug up and moved into the vege garden.  It’s the biggest of them all, though that’s not really very big at all.  There was a small crop last year, but this year it’s dripping with fruit, and the other 3 trees have also fruited.  I’ve dehydrated some and they work well as little pockets of tangy dried fruit.  Such a pleasure to have fresh fruit at this time of year, though they are a fruit that polarise people in terms of love/hate.  A bit like sprouts.  Or pumpkins.

There are still some hardy veg hanging in there, but we’re mostly down to the stalwart (and totally fabulous) carrots.  A patch of leeks are nearly ready to eat as baby leeks, and there are a few final brassicas left.  There are the stored pumpkins, onions and spuds too.  The remaining kale is getting a bit too robustly brassica-ish, even for my tastes.  The currants need some tidying and the asparagus has to be cut down and fertilised with generous dollops of horse poo.  Finally there needs to be a bit of raking the organic matter from the gravel paths around the beds and making a decision about how to deal with the pathway weeds. 

Karyn demanded a parsnip re-count, and it has to be conceded that I had considerably underestimated.  There are 6 parsnips in her bed, not 3.  Not exactly a panacea for world hunger, but I stand corrected.  She’s also growing some pretty impressive cauliflowers, broccoli and cabbage.  There, I said it.

The giant pumpkin weighed a whopping 25kgs.  It was great fun hacking it with a machete.  It was soft and quite edible, though not particularly flavoursome.  The pigs had a good feed of it, and there’s some in the freezer waiting for me to ‘tszuj’ it up into a soup or something.  I’m hoping the other pumpkins from the veg garden will be tastier.

Thyme, sage and fennel seedlings have been planted in the last raised bed in the horse arena.  They’re quite small and I’m hoping that it’s not a mistake to have planted them now.  The soil beneath them is still a composting work in progress and is quite woody in places at the top – a kind of upside-down hugelkultur bed.  That means they’re planted quite deeply and there’s a risk that they might be overwhelmed by the surface pea straw.  So far so good, but knowing me I’ll probably take my eye off the ball at the key moment. 

The gardens around the house are also being prepped for winter.  Most of them, including the herb garden, have now been weeded, horse-poo’ed and hay mulched.  A few hardy flowers are hanging in there, but most of the remaining colour is autumnal.  I’ve dug up, divided and re-planted a large patch of paeonies that were too close to the new hedge, and also planted some gifted iris bulbs.  Hopefully no perennials were weeded out, and hopefully there are plenty of annual seeds poised ready to pop up in spring. 

No chooks mean that the farm is eerily quieter than usual.  And now no pigs too - Bruce, the local home-kill man came for them.  Friends Carol and Karyn have one each, one will return to us from the butcher as hams, bacon, sausages and loins.  The last pig was initially stored in Bruce’s chiller, and then transferred to our dining room table where Peter honed his amateur butchery skills again.  One of the hams is now being brined (in a cool box on the front door step), and the other is salting to become prosciutto.  There are 2 shoulder joints soaking in a brine/cider (batch 3)/honey solution in the fridge, which will be sliced into bacon.  With Karyn’s help and plenty of innuendo-filled banter, several pounds of mince were fashioned into sausages and chorizo.  The joy of transferable skills!

There have been no more cider explosions, but it has become necessary to store the ginger beer outside.  As we were watching Coronation Street one night, there was a great big BOOF.  One of the ginger beer bottles had exploded and re-decorated the kitchen.  The top and base of the bottle was blown off, and ginger beer dripped from the ceiling, the walls and the benchtops.  Bugger.  Even despite a major clean up, it only takes to the sun to shine in a certain direction to reveal more sticky streaks all over the place.  That’s a pretty poor track record for my ferments this year, though it does confirm the power of wild yeasts.

Anzac Day was as poignant as ever.  We decided to go to the Blenheim ceremony so that we could watch Sam march and play with the Marlborough District Brass Band for the last time before he left home.  It was a gorgeous Marlborough Day (as it often is for Anzac) and Seymour Square was beautifully autumnal.  Sam left soon after, driving to Burnham (Christchurch) via the Lewis Pass.  It was a hideous drive for him as the Pass is well munted from all the extra traffic and the freight.  He did get there ok though and is now settled into the army barracks, getting straight on with recording a brass band CD, acquiring heaps of kit, and looking forward to playing at the British and Irish Lions rugby in July. 

We’re beginning to adjust to being down to 3 at home.  We didn’t see a great deal of Sam when he was here, but there’s still a Sam-sized hole in our lives.  Pass me the pipe and slippers. And the gin.