April 2020

This is my 'return-to-haven' view of our home that is always such a sight for sore eyes after returning from a shift - especially welcoming in these Covid-times.  It's been an unusual month for everyone, but hope is at last on the global horizon, even if we're not that close yet.  Mount Riley stands proud in the background, as if it's reminding us that the world keeps turning even if its human occupants are in a kind of parallel universe.  NZ will move from level 4 lockdown to level 3 on 28th April, and will stay there for at least 2 weeks.  At work it probably won't look much different from level 4, but final decisions have yet to be made.  In maternity one of the single biggest concerns is visitor restriction.  Many women are simply going home within hours of birthing, and most seem to be hanging onto their babies and just staying pregnant. 

Meanwhile life on the farmlet has kept us happily occupied.  Peter's extra time off work has allowed him to tackle tasks that had been quite a long way down the priority list.  Him and Billy have collected vast volumes of acorns for the grateful pigs, and made significant progress on the wetland crack-willow.  They've discovered previously hidden plants, like these gorgeous reeds.  Once the plant nurseries are open for business, we'll get a few more native plants/trees and try to get them established before the dastardly willow takes over again.  If only we could train the wild rabbits to eat the willow.  The enormous rabbit-hole entrance in the picture leads into the wetland, so they do have easy access.   

The orchard is nearly finished with its autumn bounty.  The apples, pears and quince are all done, just the medlars and persimmons left to ripen.  The sheep have been moved back in to clear the weedy grass.  It doesn't look too wild in there though, and that's not really down to our tender loving care.  We have mowed and tidied up in there occasionally, but finally we are reaping the benefits of tree maturity.  Just some organic matter around the treelines (probably horse poo) and a decent Derryn-prune should be enough to winter it down.  

The monumental challenge of tidying up the Gin Palace has finally happened, and this has contributed to the vaguely organised feel of the vege garden.  The green manure in the vege gardens is coming away beautifully, and not too patchy either, except for where the carrots, beetroot and purple-sprouting are still cropping. There is a bit of weeding to be done in the blueberry and peachcot beds and some pathway weeding (or organic weed spraying), but otherwise it's actually looking quite tidy out there. The half-barrels are decaying fast now, and will be replaced by some bought corrugated iron raised beds.  The plan is to transfer the peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm from the horse arena, and transplant the existing nettles and common mint into them.  These are all delightful and delicious herbs, but invasive and in need of better management than they've been used to.  

The soil for the new beds will come from the original pallet compost heaps, that have decayed beyond the point of functionality.  They were the first garden structure to be built, so they absolutely don't owe us anything.  The compost has been dug out onto some old tarps, and some of it painstakingly sieved to use in next year's seedling compost.  The seiving process is not for the faint-hearted - hard on the back and shoulders, and absolutely not to be attempted in the absence of a seriously robust bra!  Peter has retrieved some big, solid plastic pallets from the haybarn that will make the base, and the final result will have to wait until next month's blog.      

The horse arena beds have even received attention. They were quite low on the list, but despite working extra hours I seem to have more spare time on my hands than usual at this time of year.  Maybe that's related to less socialising, and more making-the-most of Billy's willingness and energy.  Also cheating with the biggest task has hugely reduced the workload.  Cheating in the form of commercial weedspray.  Eeeek.  I chopped down and then weedsprayed the peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm beds.  These would have been impossible to eradicate by manual weeding, and were duly sprayed one evening by the light of the moon.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one dose will do the trick, and am distracting myself from the chemical horror by the prospect of setting up some proper irrigation and planting some experimental beds of grains there next year.  Before spraying I dug out several plants from each bed and re-planted them in large pots.  They can eventually transfer to the new raised iron beds.

The flower and herb gardens around the house are now all cleared and pea-strawed, and the outdoor colours are now less flowery and more autumnal.  It's been a stunning autumn - mostly blue-sky days and chilly nights, but with occasional rain to nourish the land.  The tulip tree has nearly shed its stunning huge leaves, and most other deciduous plants are in the process.  As always, the mornings are particularly ethereal, as the sunlight begins to penetrate through the early mist.  It's so good to be home on these days.

The native bed at the side of the house is also blanketed in peastraw, and the plants, including the glorious horopito in the photo, are looking great.  Billy constructed the new pathway edging from rocks on the driveway after I'd cleared away the scruffy old woven low fence.  It's been great to finally get round to these kind of little jobs.

The woodlot has 10 more trees - 4 peachcots, 5 oaks and a carob - all grown from seed.  Some have been planted in new spots, and the rest have replaced those that were lost, like the eucalypts.  There are some delightful honey-traded pinenut tree seedlings (thanks Jenn) that can go in next year when they're bigger.  We've also planted heaps of acorns, including the competition acorns.  Peter, Billy and me have 6 acorns each in a planter on the deck, all lovingly selected from our acorn hauls.  We put them in the freezer for a few days in an attempt to simulate winter - time will tell if this actually makes a difference.

The autumn harvest is being processed, and this is a very enjoyable time-waster.  We gave Billy the task of gathering the sweet chestnuts, and wish we had a sound recording of the shrieks that came when he shook the tree to get the prickly-shelled nuts down.  To his credit he completed the job, and we got a gorgeous crop of our own chestnuts for the first time.  I'd originally planted 2 chestnut trees that were pollinators for each other, but one died.  I've been wondering if that would mean no nuts from the remaining tree, but it doesn't seem to be the case.  There were lots of small, flat nuts within the shells, but still plenty of full-sized, juicy nuts among them.  Perhaps a pollinator would improve this quantity, but no real need to pump up the volume for our (my) needs.  

Whilst he was hacking back some of the forestry broom, Peter brought back some wild rosehips.  I found a UK website called 'eatweeds' that showed how to avoid the long drawn-out method of cutting them in half to scrape out the itchy hairs.  They were topped and tailed and dehydrated whole, and then blitzed just enough in a food processor to break open the hard hips.  Seiving out the pesky hairs was easy, leaving the hip shells and seeds good-to-go.  A very satisfying process and a decent batch of rosehip tea.

The young Granny Smith apple tree by the sleepout seems to have recovered from being blown over by the wind, and has produced a good crop.  These apples are so tangy and delicious when dried, they don't last long.  Two dozen apples pretty much disappeared in a puff, eh Billy?  The fig tree has also recovered from being blown over, twice, and produced a bumper crop.  This year I've had a bash at drying them too.  They were cut in half and it took hours of dehydration.  They don't look or taste like the juicy whole figs you can buy, but they are still perfectly snackable.

The 6kg of elderberries that were in the freezer has been magically made into wine.  The fruit spent 2 weeks in a barrel, bubbling away vigorously (not unlike an old man farting) and has now been strained into a large demi-john.  It already tastes pretty darn good already, so here's hoping that it makes a tipple akin to the famous and fabulous 2018 vintage.  I've bottled the remaining pear wine but this is disappointing.  I should have bottled it all ages ago. The quality is diminished to the extent that some is now pear wine vinegar.  I'll bottle the feijoa wine today, in the hope that it hasn't undergone a similar fate.  I've spotted a recipe for beetroot wine that I can't ignore, and will also make more mead out of this year's honey.  These will have to wait until retail re-opens as we're out of wine yeast. 

Damson gin is steeping away, hidden at the back of the pantry.  When I can get some gin, I'm going to have a bash at Feijoa Gin - in the interests of experimentation, obviously.  The delightfully-named 'Feijoacello' recipe that I found uses 4 cups of sugar in 700 mls of gin.  I'll be using considerably less sugar, but I'm cautiously optimistic that the end result will be fantastic.  Maybe it'd work with vodka too...  

The Aztec corn was harvested and is definitely a must-grow crop of the future.  Those cobs are absolutely stunning - multi-coloured rows of shiny pearly grains.  The husks have been pulled back and used to hang the cobs to dry.  I've tried my darnedest to get my head around the bewildering difference between cornflour, corn flour, corn meal, grits and polenta. I'm thinking I'll just dry and grind them and then decide what to call it.  Hopefully I won't actually need a grain mill to do the grinding, that some other kitchen implement might work.  Otherwise I'll try and beg, steal or borrow a device to do the job.  Spending hundreds of dollars on a grain mill for two dozen ears of corn is probably not cost-effective, though maybe it's a future investment...  

The new loves of my life - gourds - are now suspended in various ways for their 6-month drying time.  I've been drooling over the images of gourd craft on the internet, inspired by the possiblity of creating of numerous bird houses, lamp shades and bowls.  Decorative pyrography is a new concept that I'm drawn to, though in the interests of safety, I should probably leave that to Peter's creative talents.  He's having a play with last year's (what I now know as) pathetically tiny gourds, using his Dremel and acrylic paints.   

The driveway is still awaiting its evolution into an attractive welcoming zone.  When our neighbour Craig is released from lockdown and has time on his hands, he'll come over to help dig out the old hedging and dead tree stumps.  He can access a small digger that should lighten the load.  There's no real hurry though, and it'll probably be easier as a winter job.  We'll have to find a new zone for the mushrooms when it's done - they've been happily thriving in that damp, dark corner of the property that we'll eventually open out. 

Karyn's dedication to the roses has been severly tried these last few weeks.  The threat of chainsaw pruning action even made her consider breaking lockdown to prevent that potential catastrophe.  She allowed me to do some cutting back of the longest, drapiest branches of the red rose bush/weed so that the peastraw could go down, but otherwise she'll deal with them whenever she can legitimately get out here.  Her absence means no photos, and I'm aware that this leaves an arse-sized gap in this blog.  Looking forward to having you back in the garden Karyn!

Lots of outdoors time clearly results in a monster blog.  Sorry about that.  I'll sign off finally and get back out there - might as well get my garden therapy and 'make hay' while the autumn sun shines.  I'm optimistic that New Zealand will be a better Covid-19 place by the end of next month, and hopeful that's the case for the rest of the world too.  Best Autumn wishes in the meantime!