Really, it can't be february...

Summer is nearly over (though it is still hot!) and I have not posted for so long! I have no idea where January went! But back to earth today with the first day of school for my lovely Stel. She was so very brave and I hope desperately she is enjoying her day! It was a beautiful welcome for her, with the whole school waiting to greet the new students. There was a lovely Powhiri for the class one kids and their family, with songs and speeches. And then we were greeted one by one by each teacher and staff member which made it all seem so inviting. Her teacher is fresh and young and all I can hope is she enjoys every minute she is there :) If not, there is always homeschooling!!!
The garden is chugging away. Mostly providing pumpkins and tomatoes...and the now dreaded giant zucchini! I am waiting for a batch of zucchini coconut loafs to finish cooking, then I shall be making zucchini banana bread, before venturing onto zucchini orange chocolate loaf (which will use up about 2 of my 5 gigantic zucchs!!! They shall be heading for the freezer to be munched on during winter, when I shall be glad to see them :)
It is about now I am planning my winter veg, and I have prepped some of the soil for planting. It just gets so hot when I am ready to do work, I can't bear to go out in it! We are officially in a drought in our town...first in 100 odd years and we are brown! there is a sprinkler ban (for those who use one) and if the rain doesn't come we won't be able to use hoses soon!!!!! Madness!!
I have been trying to keep up with the 100ft diet. Half the food on our plates every night would be ours...lets hope I can post some pics soon :)

100 foot challenge

Who can resist....

I have been setting up my garden for a while now, and we have some produce ripening up. While my resolution for the year is to decrease my reliance on the supermarket, this challenge fits in with this nicely :) I completely agree with the notion that growing your own food is a revolution in itself. The challenge, set by the folks over at pathtofreedom.com, is to eat just one meal a week grown from your own garden. We do try to eat from our own garden everyday at the moment, sometimes a whole meal, mostly just the veges. But we can all do it. Take power, feed yourselves...it's not that hard and even the smallest garden can provide food.

Ho Ho Ho

Well another christmas passes, and we head for the end of the year. It has been a long time since I posted on here as we have been really busy! I had loads to prepare for the advent fair our school puts on. Then we had birthdays and chicken pox and last days at Kindy and Playcircle for the girls...christmas...and all that with a fair bit of gardening thrown into the mix! My lord the garden has really taken off. We have in about 60 ish tomatoes of various kinds, a couple of Zucchinis, gherkins, loads of beans, beetroot, lettuce, chard, carrots, broc, onions, and of course the ever moving sea of pumpkins! We have lifted out our spuds as we had them in early and they were ready. May try to put in a late crop...I have been fighting the birds this week for the christmas plums, which they love to peck and knock from the tree. It is a strange scenario, us being used to a later plum which seemed to just lazily hang its fruit out for weeks and weeks. This tree drops like a sudden shower of rain and there is a frantic battle, over the fortnight it drops, to get our fair share before they all rot on the ground. Anyways, I have stewed plenty and frozen them, plus made my usual 4 litres of plum sauce (which is the perfect amout to last until next season...we know by experience!) The apple tree has plenty of fruit growing on it, and we had a fair little crop of black raspberries this year. The other rasps are not fruiting as much but may be because they were transplanted during the year and might be better off from new growth next year.
So all in all we have had a busy old time. Big things to come next year, with school and kindy for girls, and me trying to get more out of the space we have in our yard! I hope to be more frequent at posting, and will try to diarise our progress...even if I may be the only one who uses the information, its good to keep a record :)

photo essay

This is how my 6 year old sees things around the house...

spring

So spring is happening right now all over the place! All my fruit trees have been flowering and greening up a little. I have been clearing beds and digging in compost in the past week or so. Also have got pots on the go, sprinkled with seeds such as mesclun, lettuces, basil and cocktail tomatoes. We have been germinating seeds, and trying to be patient. I find this time of year difficult...like doing prep for painting, I hate to have to wait! At least the weather is warming up and we no longer need fires and heaters :) And once I find batteries for my camera I can post the photos.

Dirt under the nails

You certainly know when it is spring as all of a sudden there is constant dirt under your fingernails! I do own a pair of gardening gloves, yet it just seems easier to get my hands dirty than actually go hunt them out from the shed. Today was beautiful and sunny, so I managed to spend a little time in the garden...after spending the morning walking about 3 hours to the markets, through town and back again! So I finally put in a few beetroot seeds, some rainbow chard/silverbeet and dug out an annoyingly placed agapanthus (which looked easier than it was!) I have also spent this evening putting seeds into makeshift seedraising trays (aka egg cartons, unrecyclable plastic tubs etc..) so come the equinox I will be all ready to go! Roll on summer!
And right now I am off to sit with the girls and watch some old films we rented from the best DVD/video store in town, Auteur House...you gotta love a video store set out by director, especially when you are an ex film student :) Singin' in the Rain will certainly make for light entertainment in comparison to the peak oil docos we have been watching of late!

Such a nice surprise

I am so excited...this is what I found this morning!

One of our artichokes has started to flower :)

Colours...

I just thought I would share some of the colours in our garden...it might not be spring yet but you can always find some colour if you look hard enough :)

Waiting.....

I am now just waiting to get stuck into my garden....and waiting is so hard! I have been shifting grass this afternoon, to dig out a garden around the edges of our back lawn. It seems to be such a slow process but we are getting there. And I have thrown in some seeds, just because I am keen to get started. So I planted some marigolds, silverbeet/chard, calendula and nasturtiums so far. I figure they will take a few weeks to germinate and the fear of a late frost SHOULD be over by then. I have bought all me seeds for the vege garden, and planned it all so once we dig out the compost bins and get it all prepped it will be all go! I just found some pics of one of my vege beds at the beginning of summer last year, and it seemed so small ...by the end of summer it was NUTS! I just can't wait for it all to begin again!!!

planning in progress

So for some reason I have not made it to this point before now...busy, kinda. I have been filling in for my boss for a week (reminding myself why I don't want to work full time :) The weather, mixed with work, means the garden is looking very sorry for itself. But that should change next week (weather permitting!)I have mapped my beds out, I will be ordering my seeds for spring and getting things underway. Big plans...watch this space :)

midwinter gardening

Can it really have been nearly 3 weeks! No excuses really. We have had school hols, and crap weather...I blame that :)

I finally got into the garden this morning. It is more weeds than anything else, but I have started clearing them, so at least I can see the spaces I have got to plant in (when I can plant again). This is the hard part of gardening, waiting for that warmer weather so you can get planting again. I have been compiling lists of seed I HAVE to have. Haven't bought them yet, but don't know how much longer I can wait ;) At least I can get some seeds in trays in a month or so, and get the whole thing rolling. I keep daydreaming about lovely ripe tomatoes...

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We did start digging around the edge of our back lawn so we can plant more around the edges of our section. It gets a lot of sun back there and really the fence wold be ideal for growing things up. Big plans on paper, just getting time and the right weather is the problem. I would love to not have lawn at all, but I am currently outvoted on that idea. And the kids need a space to run around like mad things! So I shall make do with the edges at the moment :)

Books and birds

It has been a little while since my last post, but you get that really. I have been busy painting our lounge and 'master' bedroom ,and the weather has been fairly miserable, so I haven't been all that motivated to do much...until yesterday. Yesterday I had a burst of creativity and I finished a doll I was reworking. I shall be finishing the little jersey I am knitting tonight, and then I will have three dolls to hand over for the school fair (which happens at the end of the year...).

I also just received one of the cookbooks I ordered few weeks ago. I have been vegetarian for more years than I haven't, but lately I have been trying to incorporate more vegan meals into our lives. So I ordered myself a copy of Vive Le Vegan in the hope I will be more inspired. It is one of those books often blogged about, and I am keen to work my way through a few recipes(particularly the cookies...my lord they sound so good). The other book I am still waiting for is Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World...the name sounds impressive enough, and the pics I have seen on various blogs look divine, so I cannot wait to get hold of a copy! I am a bit behind the times as I found it hard to get way over here...and that is saying something since I actually look after the Books page for the local daily paper and know most of the publishers who distribute here...but it is on its way now and I am excited :)

The garden is looking a little sad. My last cauliflowers were ruined in the rain we have been having (I am not god with waste...). The weeds are growing better than they should aswell. I need to get out there and do a good few hours of weeding (between frosts and rainstorms). The birds are happy though, as I have left a few apples on the tree for them all to enjoy. I love watching them all dancing about the tree, especially the Wax Eyes. They are like little green sparrows with white rings around their eyes. My camera is out of juice so I found this pic to show how cute they are :)Right... Best be off to clean up as my mother will be down for the day tomorrow....

Winter Solstice

It is the shortest day here, and I would put my garlic in if I could make it out to the garden ! Winter is here and quite frankly the garlic will be a week late by the looks of the weather forecast! It is also the middle of Matariki celebrations (Maori New Year)...which has become more and more popular over the last few years. Matariki is the Maori name for the Pleiades star cluster also known as The Seven Sisters. The celebrations are to mark the end of the harvest and the beginning of new planting. Matariki literally means the ‘eyes of god’ (mata ariki) or ‘little eyes’ (mata riki). Some say that when Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother were separated by their offspring, the god of the winds, Tāwhirimātea, became angry, tearing out his eyes and hurling them into the heavens. Others say Matariki is the mother surrounded by her six daughters, Tupu-ā-nuku, Tupu-ā-rangi, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi and Ururangi. One account explains that Matariki and her daughters appear to assist the sun, Te Rā, whose winter journey from the north has left him weakened. I just love that more people are rediscovering rituals which centre on the earth, the sun, the seasons, the cycle of life and the pull of the moon.

On a cold and frosty morning

It was very cold this morning, and still is even though the sun is shining! My hands are still sore from the cold! The garden was frozen when I got out of bed, but is slowly defrosting now. It has been a whirlwind of a weekend...on Friday we found out friends were pregnant, and that another friend finally lost his fight with cancer. So the mood was somewhat melancholic. We also went to see the Dali Lama speak yesterday. I am amazed by the man's aura and presence. He was insightful, funny and wise. But at the same time he let his listeners be aware that he is just the same as us, a human being, with flaws. I could listen to him for days...

It has been a while...

Have not posted for a while. Guess I have been feeling like I've not got much to write about, and have my doubts as to whether anyone is actually reading this. Oh well, my purpose for starting this was to be inspired and I shall persevere to find inspiration.

Craftwise I am currently reworking a doll, dressing another and I am supposed to be cutting and sewing rabbits...but all I want to do is trawl the internet for inspiration.I have stalled slightly on my knitting too...

It has been cold and dank here, and so the garden is looking a little sad. Winter is the time for Mother Earth to rest so can't be too ungrateful for what she still provides for us. We still have parsnips and carrots in the ground, caulis, collard, kale, kohlrabi, celery, beets, rhubarb and leeks. And our oranges are ripening nicely on the trees, so we will be fine for eating for a while yet.

And my gorgeous gals still amaze me. They can be such hard work but are so damn cute!

the dirt

I have been able to spend some time in the garden this weekend, finally! We have two large vege patches and I have been trying to grow most of the vegetables we need. I hate supermarket shopping, so this is a way to spend less time there. Plus I love eating fresh spray free veges and fruit, so this is the best way I can do it! We also have fruit trees littered around the garden. We inherited an old apple, an early plum, an orange, a tangelo and a lemon tree when we moved here last September. We brought some trees from our last house, as the kids had bought them with christmas money from my 88 year old nana. So we also have two pear trees, a braeburn, two olive trees, a blood orange, a pink grapefruit, a clementine, two feijoas, a limequat, raspberries, blackberries and a blackcurrant bush. All of which are pretty small, but when they mature we should not have to buy much fruit either! I love the idea of being self sufficient, well as much as possible, but it is a long slow process to get to the point where you no longer need to buy all fresh produce...and sometimes I get impatient! Especially while drooling over the PathwaytoFreedom.com ....one day....