June 2016

We didn’t need it to be the first official day of winter on June 1^st to know that winter had begun.  It’s that electric blanket time of year.  There have been many frosty mornings with those glorious blue-sky days that I’m always harping on about.  There’s snow on the mountain tops, making the drive out of the valley even more scenic.  We’ve been blessed with rain too, sometimes lots of it, certainly enough to revive the paddocks.

 

There’s a particularly magical period of time, usually around 11/11:30am when the sun is warm enough to burn off the frost.  As the mist rises, it creates a kind of ethereal cloak over the land.  You could be forgiven for thinking that the place is smokily on fire.

The frost is beautiful too, even if it’s quite short-lived.  These autumnal beech tree leaves will be gone soon, so it’s very good of them to hang around long enough to model themselves photogenically draped in sparkly frost.  The citrus are still cosy under their frost cloth and are surviving the sub-zero night temperatures.  Alas the poor old pomegranate tree, that valiantly overcame its brush with frosty death last year by sending up new shoots, has been again hit by the frost this year.  Yes I know I was supposed to frost-protect it too, and I did, but only for a while.  I took the frost cloth off during a warm spell and forgot to put it back.  Plonker.  Will have to come up with a better plan.

The rain has brought out the water-loving birdlife.  Pukekos are a common site in the valley, and our neighbourhood weka has been cutely tap-tap-tapping on the window.  Ducks are abundant, especially these native shell ducks that turn up whenever there’s a worthy pond.  Their quacks often echo across the property, making a very pleasant change from the chainsaw whines that once were so common.

The chooks are making the most of their free-ranging opportunities. There’s chook-poo spread far and wide, and there are no longer any parts of the garden mulched with straw.  Their saving grace has been the lack of transgression into the vege garden thus far.  The young chick is now nearly as big as the others, but unfortunately for her, she’s the last in the pecking order.  She manages to get out of the run somehow – maybe she flies out because there are no obvious breaches – and is usually hanging around waiting to be fed on a morning.  She doesn’t cause any trouble so I feed her first before releasing the rest of the flock, to make sure she gets something before they put her in her place again. 

The vege garden beds that aren’t winter cropping are slowly being tucked up.  Slowly is the operative word here, as my weeding energy seems to be petering out.  It’d be good to get them all sorted, then I can focus on gardening elsewhere.  In my support, the shorter days make it difficult to get too stuck in, as does the damp, cloddy soil and the shady places which barely de-frost after chilly nights.  Karyn is soldiering on though.  Her bed is cleared and mulched, she’s cropped her first veges (beetroot) and has even helped out with pruning the currant bushes.  There’s more pruning to be done (pear trees, peachcot) and the raspberry bed in the horse arena needs considerable attention.  Better keep her sweet.  More honey?

Several seeds are saved ready for next year.  Some are veges (tomatoes and beans mostly) and there are flower seeds too.  The flowers in the garden were shaken to spread their seeds before they were tidied up, so hopefully there’ll be lots of happy self-sown seedlings next year.  The forget-me-not and poached egg plant seedlings are taking over.  So much for imagining that the frost would see them off.  Not sure what to do with them now – it seems heartless to uproot them when they’ve been such stalwarts. 

Dionysus is not yet really integrated into the herd.  He stays nearby Hera and Athena but doesn’t appear to be one of the gang.  It’s a bit sad really, as he’s still only a baby.  Leggy the ram is still coughing, but this doesn’t appear to be any worse, and he looks robust.  The ewes aren’t looking obviously pregnant, but experience tells us that we’ve been crap at gauging that before anyway.  We’ll just keep our fingers crossed as usual.

Natural phenomena continue to be delightful.  Evidence of our clean air is abundant in the form of lichen, draped over a number of trees.  The tree in the photo is in the garden, next to the pizza oven.   This coral fungus was one of a few growing on pine tree trunks – a fascinating structure which lasted for several days before being added to the worm farm.

Billy was 16 on June 17th – old enough to get his Learner driving licence which he did on the day.  Release from more than 20 years of taxi services for our off-spring is finally on the horizon, assuming that Billy embraces this opportunity for independence.  Sam is fitting in a few shifts in a local restaurant as a waiter, working around his studies.  We went there for a family meal when Lucas came down for the weekend.  We definitely didn’t order the praying mantis that came with Lucas’ salad, and he was most relieved that it wasn’t half a praying mantis.  Years ago in the UK Lucas kept mantises as pets.  They were exotic creatures there, so it was hilarious that one just showed up on his plate. 

My favourite writing hero recently passed away.  Gene Logsdon was author of ‘Holy Shit’ (the inspiration for my article ‘Holy Meconium’) and the blog site ‘The Contrary Farmer’, among numerous other publications.  His wise and profound words and thoughts were many.  One of my many favourite concepts of his was the term 'persnickety fecophobes'.  Check out his short story ‘The man who created paradise’.  
RIP Gene, and may your farming and life-wisdom continue to influence others. 

May 2016

The valley appears to be recovering from the major fire of last year.  The burned trunks have been taken down, along with many others that were in close proximity to the road or to properties.  The damage to the road has also been fixed, so all up it’s a safer route in and out of the valley.  The photo was taken from the school bus stop, and shows a cluster of trees that went up in flames, and some that were spared by the work of the fire-fighting crews. 

After our recent lack of success with artificial insemination, and the inherent difficulties in working out which one is on heat when you have just 2 cows, we bit the bullet and got a new (and very charming) steer calf.  Arthur chose his name - ‘Dionysus’ (God of Wine – very appropriate thanks Arthur!).   He’s tiny in comparison to Athena and Hera, but then they are quite robust beasts.  They haven’t been altogether friendly to him, which came as a surprise as previous introductions to the herd have been sweetly welcomed.  Perhaps they’re enjoying the post-Zeus era and aren’t keen on ‘cowtowing’ to another male.

The main flower garden is still colourful, with autumn colour adding to the overall palette. The gingko is in its beautiful buttery yellow glory, and the bottlebrush plant from Lucas has been flowering its little heart out.   I’ve been reluctant to tidy up the flowers too much, so that the bees can make the most of the remaining supplies.  Millions of Forget-me-not and Poached-egg plant seedlings have come up – it’ll be interesting to see what the cold weather does to them as the season progresses.  That’s a fine excuse for not getting round to weeding and mulching.  The sign, made by Peter and Billy, tells it as it is.

The end of the fruit is nigh, but it’s still possible to find the last remnants of figs, quince and raspberries.  There are even a few feijoa on the very young trees in the horse arena.  Our neighbours, Shona and Craig, have had a bumper feijoa crop, so a couple of buckets-full have kindly come our way in exchange for honey and pumpkins. 

The veges are also doing nicely, and we’re cropping the usual wintery suspects – carrots, brassicas, spinach, beetroot, onions and some baby leeks.  There are still a few tomatoes in Madame Cholet to be harvested, and some celery which will be chopped and frozen for soups.  The veges at the seedling stage are also growing up, including Karyn’s plantings, which are now beautifully weeded so are no longer lowering the tone of the vege garden.  My parsnips still haven’t shown up, though my carrot tops are bigger than hers! 

The main raspberry and boysenberry bed has been weeded, pruned back, next year’s shoots tied up, nourished with horse poo and mulched with clover straw.  It was quite a mammoth task involving multiple arm scratches and prickles in fingers, but by ‘eck it’s great to get it done, and it looks good.  Karyn provided the technical know-how and I did the donkey work.

Other keyhole beds in the vege garden have been similarly bedded down for winter.  I made a unanimous decision to get rid of the repeating onions (not their real name which eludes me) that I like the thought of but never use, and also the Jerusalem Artichokes.  They’ll come back next year of course, but only 3 or 4 will be allowed to grow - and not the 15-20 that popped up this year.  As the only member of the household who enjoys them, the smaller quantity will suffice.  Apparently the stems make good kindling, which I’ll try to remember next year - ideally before putting them on the compost.

The low hedges in the vege garden are ready for their end of season trim, as are the other teuchrium hedges around the property, and in need of its first clip, the burgeoning korokia hedge along what will be the new pig run.  Most of the horse arena beds are manured and mulched, hurray.  The feijoa and strawberry bed needs similar attention but the strawberries will have to die down a bit more before it’s safe to cover them.  Their autumn colour is stunning – something I’ve never really associated with strawberries before.  The blueberries and the persimmon tree have also been spectacular, as have several other trees.  Perhaps it’s just a particularly gorgeous autumn for leaves, or maybe the blue skies of this record-breakingly sunny autumn are providing the perfect backdrop for the reds and oranges.

The sheep are strolling around, doing their sheep thing.  They seem to be fine except for Leggy who has been heard coughing on a number of occasions.  We’ve never drenched the sheep, and their general good health over the last few years seems to have justified that choice.  So, sincerely hoping that we don’t end up with regrets (and without lambs) this year.  It’s too soon to assess if Leggy’s already done his job and impregnated the ewes, but it’d sure be a miserable winter without the pitter-patter of adorable, bouncing lambs.

It’s been a very cheesy few weeks.  The blue cheese that we made at Derryn’s a few weeks ago is fantastic.  Was fantastic.  Must have been the way I stirred the curd.  She got on a good old cheese-making roll, and I’ve been obliged to taste-test a range of cheeses including 2 blues, feta, camembert and Valençay.  They were well-matched with the zucchini and feijoa chutneys that were gifted in return for honey.  Must get round to some serious pizza making as the oven is back in action after the fire ban.

Our already much diminished fresh egg supplies have now totally dropped-off.  We were getting one beautiful huge egg most days, just enough for an occasional eggy-treat and for Yorkshire puddings with Sunday roasts.  Optimistically the hens are all moulting and normal service will resume in a few weeks.  Either that or they’re doing a sterling job of hiding eggs.  The chick looks to be a hen, so the current Cornelius can rest on his laurels for a while.

A familiar bluey haze along the man road could mean only one thing – sloes, and billions of them.  I couldn’t stop myself from picking way more than would be feasible to steep in alcohol.  Sloe picking usually involves a fairly moderate level of arm and finger gashing, but there were so many that it was possible to avoid the inch-long thorns by picking only those on the outside.  I’ve made as much sloe gin as I dare (in the interests of liver health and alcoholic reputation), but there are still a few kgs of sloes in the freezer for gifts (yes, that means you Hayley). 

There’s much speculation about what winter will be like, after many months of El Nino weather.  It’d have been a truly perfect summer if we’d been on holiday all the time.  We’ve had some rain, but the land still needs to be refreshed with more.  The first snow has fallen in the deep south, and the ski fields are beginning to open.  Winter’s knocking at the door; here’s hoping we can hang onto autumn for a little while longer. 

April 2016

The clocks have changed and evenings are all but gone.  We’re still getting glorious sunny days but the mornings and evenings can be a bit brisk, and there’s autumn colour in some of the trees.  The fire’s been lit for the first time, and the inaugural frost of the season (April 14^th) made for frozen spinach in the morning smoothie.  The grape vintage is in full flow so there’s a sense of busy-ness and the roads around Marlborough are clogged with vineyard vehicles. 

Lucas was home over Easter, and Karyn’s daughter, Emily was persuaded to come round and take a few family snaps.  They are to be used as a gift for Grandma and Grandpa Nick’s up-coming silver wedding anniversary which we cannot attend in person.  Emily managed to capture all of us beautifully, including Maggie.  Massive thanks Em, it was no mean feat to turn photo-phobic boys into models!

Only a few flowers remain now.  The cosmos are particularly enduring.  The ones in the photo are chocolate cosmos, which as their name suggests, actually smell of chocolate.  Every year I save the seeds of white cosmos flowers, but most of the seedlings are varying shades of pink.  The swan plant (aka the testicle plant) in the vege garden has flourished, but we haven't seen any monarch butterflies for whom it was planted.  The main flower bed has been weeded and is awaiting its thick layer of mulch in the form of clover straw.  I’ve got 30 bales ($6 each) which I’m hoping will be more than enough to cover most of the beds.  The raised beds in the horse arena were back-filled with clumps of weeds so need to have an organic matter boost.  The trees planted in them will be able to access good soil, but only when they’ve broken through the hard-core below.  That might take a while so a bit of extra nourishment won’t go amiss.  They’ll get horse poo topped with the clover straw and hopefully that’ll tuck them up well for winter. 

The citrus in those beds are now protected from the ravages of winter by frost cloth suspended from waratahs.  Hopefully it’ll hold out against the blustery nor’westers.  The citrus plants themselves are looking fine and healthy, if not a bit overwhelmed by the comfrey.  That should add extra nutrients to the soil and provide a bit more protection, at least until it dies back over winter. 

It turns out that the overgrown and non-producing raspberry bed in the horse arena is in fact productive after all.  A red glow, spotted by Karyn, led to the discovery of treasure in the form of autumn raspberries.  Large, sweet, juicy raspberries.  And there were more of this late-fruiting variety among the raspberries in the vege garden keyhole bed.  Other than quince, the fruit is pretty much over, so it was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

Karyn’s plot is in need of weeding, and is frankly, lowering the tone of the otherwise pristine vege garden.  That’s what I tell her anyway.  Her brassicas are doing well and she has surpassed herself with carrot germination, and even her parsnips are coming through – which is more than can be said for mine.  The pathways around the keyhole beds were created from weed-mat covered in wood chips, and this worked well for a while.  In the last few months the wood chips have broken down considerably, and in many places are really saw-dusty soil in which the weeds thrive.  Keeping the weeds at a manageable level has become a massive task, so I’m probably going to have to remove the wood chip, re-lay the weed-mat and add gravel.  Better start shovelling and saving.

Our friends Jill and George have been around a few times.  I first met Jill in Greymouth, and that's a long story.  George has a bit of a chainsaw obsession and they've recently moved from a lifestyle block in Invercargill, to a residential block in Renwick.  There isn't much call for 4 chainsaws on a residential section, so we've been the happy recipients of his skills. He's been working on the huge pine tree that was felled by the council because of its proximity to the power line.  Our medium-sized chainsaw wasn't up to the task.  There's plenty of wood, and it's great to share it like like this.

Peter has been monitoring the pond activity.  A few sweeps with the net revealed about 2 dozen tadpoles, all growing nicely though still without legs.  They were all in the trough pond, and we had been wondering why no fishy creatures seemed to want to inhabit the bath pond.  Plan D was to empty this pond, clean it and re-fill it, and it was gonna be a while before that reached the priority list.  Then Peter spotted some 5 inch whitebait and Billy remembered that they’d been added as small fry ages ago.  It’s likely that they’ve lunched and munched their way through the rest of the introduced pondlife.  Not the best outcome, but it is good to be spared from Plan D.

It’s still dry, but we have had some rain.  One day we even had puddles in the paddocks and I caught Hera and Aphrodite splashing around in them.  In the absence of high temperatures, the watering load has reduced significantly.  The citrus and olive trees usually get a weekly soaking, as do the winter vege crops.  They seem to be healthy and growing well so hopefully that’s enough. 

I managed to find good homes for most of the crab apples.  It just wasn’t possible to resist the urge to make crab apple jelly, but I did manage to keep it to a single-batch minimum.  Having biffed out several jars of previous-vintage jams, maybe I’m starting to get the hang of that moderation thing.  If only the same could be said for alcohol.  The various blackcurrant and plum concoctions now have sloe counterparts.  And there’ll be no avoiding Quince Vodka of course.  You can’t have too many winter-warmers.

The productivity of the property is ongoing and I feel extremely wealthy in terms of fresh produce.  I'm snacking on fresh figs, and have just harvested our first nut crop - chestnuts.  8 of them! Not much to write home about but at least the nuttery is getting going.  One chestnut tree and both walnuts have died, and it's a mystery as to why.  One of the walnuts has grown a shoot from below its graft.  I'm interested to see what grows so I'll wait and see for a while. 

Onions and pumpkins (crown and butternut) are ready to harvest, and now we've had frosts, the remaining tomatoes (hundreds of them) need to be picked. Pleasant tasks which will be done soon because they're pleasant. Jerusalem artichokes are probably ready too (they're flowering) but I haven't been brave enough to tackle them yet. Carrots, beetroot and brassicas are still going strong.  I'm looking forward to closing down the beds with the clover straw. Hopefully this'll provide a blanket for the soil critters as well as keeping the weeds down.

This is the best time of year for stunning sunrises.  The mist rolling down the hills and the sun gently burning it off.  It's truly delicious catching the early morning rays as they wake everything up.  The animal feeding round nowadays is just the chooks, and that's a great excuse to get outside and greet the day.  On a whim I decided to write the shopping list in French (actually pigeon-french because I couldn't remember much.  Billy added the last item. I think you can tell he didn't learn French at school.

March 2016

It still feels like summer, even though it’s actually been autumn since March 1st.  Daytime temperatures have remained mostly in the mid-late 20s, making gardening work challenging.  The best times to labour - early mornings and evenings – coincide with the sand-flies’ favourite times to graze.   Sunrises and sets are becoming increasingly spectacular as the season changes. 

The winter veges are planted out over 2 of the keyhole beds.  The other beds will be closed down with straw once they’ve done cropping.  One lucky bed is being rented out to Karyn, who doesn’t have space for a vege garden at home.  It means that the carrot-growing stakes have never been higher.  Of course, I’m in it to win it, and have a distinct advantage in terms of my direct access to the competition.  We’ve used different techniques to sow the seeds, and different varieties, so bring it on.  Let’s see who takes the crown.

Vegetables are cropping beautifully, and apples and pears are on tap.  There are 6 varieties of pear – x2 Nashi (on a double grafted tree), Conference, Packham and the 2 pear trees that arch the entrance to the vege garden (Red Bartlett and Doyenne de Comice – I think).  Now I come to say it, 6 varieties of pear seems a tad excessive – are we spoiled by having so many pears?  Hopefully as the years go by and the pear volume increases, they can be extensively shared.  The peacharines are just softening, and the other peach varieties are beginning to blush.   And there are lots of medlar fruit this year – must find out what to do with them.  Then there are the crab apples and quince.  It’s quite a lovely problem to deliberate over how best to distribute and preserve them.

Last year’s dried tobacco leaves have been put through the spaghetti attachment on the pasta maker, and now resemble real tobacco.  It smells heavenly.  The plan is to use it in the cold smoker, but that would require us to actually have a cold smoker.  So far we only have a ‘virtual’ cold smoker, a mind-image, but hopefully it’ll materialise one day.  This year’s tobacco is flowering, so the leaves have been cut and are currently hanging from the clothes dryer in the living room.  I’ve left one of the plants so I can collect seed for next year.  I’ll be growing it in the flower garden as it’s such a gorgeous plant.

The herb garden has received a much belated tidy up and is now (temporarily at least) weed-free.  Lemon balm, chamomile and winter savoury have been added.  Allegedly the latter reduces the farty side-effects of Jerusalem artichokes – I’ll put that to the test and report on the findings later.  Herbs have been cut (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme of course) and are drying alongside the tobacco.  Once they’re dry they’ll be blitzed into a batch of mixed herbs.

A small selection of sunflowers planted along the chook run are now massive heads of seeds.  They’re being gifted to the chooks, and the excess will be added to bulk out their commercial feed.  One of the hen mothers is back laying, but we haven’t got round to re-convening the whole flock yet.  Cornelius and his 2 current girls have access to the connected run, plus the luxury of a bit of free-ranging now that Peter’s not working night shifts anymore.  Cornelius’ cock-a-doodle-doo is rather penetrating and at close range is not altogether conducive to a good day’s sleep.

The flower garden is in need of a tidy up.  But despite the weeds and the dried out plants and seed heads, fresh flowers are still abundant and being visited by bees.  The dahlias are stunning this year, and it’s lovely to see them at their best this month when many others are winding down.  In the vege garden there’s a half barrel planted up with vibrant honeywort which I sowed from seed.  It’s bright orangey-yellow, showy and happy and will definitely feature in the garden in the future.  Another half barrel is full of cosmos.  It’s gorgeous too, but it’s totally overflowing the barrel and reducing the path access and the sprinkler range. I can’t bring myself to cut it down yet though.

I’ve finally felt strong enough to get back into the beehives.  One hive was healthy and busy but had not built up any more significant honey stores.  The other hive was full-to-bursting.  I took off the excess honey frames to free up hive space, so now have another 10 litres of premium honey to add to the original 24 litres of this season’s crop.  This honey’s every bit as delicious as its predecessor, making me a very proud beekeeper.  I hope the delectability of the honey reflects some of my bee-friendly planting.

I had nearly enough Broxwood Foxwelp cider apples to make a batch of Linda Hallinan’s cider.  Her recipe uses cooking apples, and happily there were plenty of Bramleys to make up the difference.  The cider uses wild yeasts only, and the 8 litres of apple juice was certainly delicious before being bottled and brewed.  I’ve named it ‘Shilke’s Shider’ in the hope that it’s alcoholic enough to live up to that name.  It’ll be ready for drinking in a few days.  Most of the remaining Bramley’s were made into apple pies.  Two recipes – one from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, and the other an olde English recipe – were baked and blind-tasted in an apple pie-off.  Sam and Billy preferred Hugh’s sweeter and slightly fancier version, whereas Peter and me voted for the more traditional pie.

Lucas came home for a weekend visit and swapped cars with Sam.  Sam upgraded to a Mazda Familia, considerably newer than the slightly vintage Toyota Starlet that Lucas ended up with.  Both are happy with their deals – Lucas is better off financially and is pretty happy with the retro look of the Starlet.  Sam gets a more up market beast to take him back and forth from his daily studies.  While he was here, Lucas taught Maggie how to take selfies.  Quite a quick learner.

 Billy’s taking ‘Hospitality’ this year, and term one is all about cakes, scones and pastry.  None of his school-made creations have managed to reach as far as home yet, and he’s totally sick of me setting him practical hospitality homework.  I think he’s on hospitality strike at the moment (apparently he’d rather do maths than bake scones), so I’m laying off him for a while.  I’m hoping that next term’s project will be hot dinners though.

I’m gradually getting some energy back.  It’s enough to go to work and do a little pottering around outside, but not quite enough to sustain me doing all the gardening that needs to be done.  Mind you, it’s not that I’ve ever got on top of all of the gardening anyway.  It’s been another month when I imagined there would be very little to write about.  Yet here I am, rambling away about the mundane progress of our life on the land.  And still, there is no greater contentment and happiness than being immersed outdoors on the land.