Yay! Himself and I drove to the Bay of Islands and took a nano-break in our Northern backyard so to speak and joined the few visitors brave enough to visit our country at this time of the year. Three nights and four days! We stayed in Paihia. No matter the wet and wintery weather, we played the tourist and imbibed our nation’s heritage and cuisine. Of course, we checked out the cafes. We drove to a local vineyard near Kerikeri. We discovered a wonderfully crisp dry Sauvignon Blanc 2006 and a fruity Pinot Noir Rose. That made the trip worthwhile.  

In 1819 Samuel Marsden introduced winegrowing to New Zealand with the planting of over 100 different varieties of vine in Kerikeri, Northland.

“New Zealand promises to be very favourable to the vine as far as I can judge at present of the nature of the soil and climate”

he wrote. Nearly two hundred years later, the New Zealand wine industry is at an all time high, and is especially praised for it’s Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.\

It’s fascinating to read the historically familiar names on the tombstones of the earliest settlers in the cemetery behind St Paul’s Anglican Church in Paihia, the first church to be built in New Zealand, quote:

I actually forgot to take photos - I guess a case of being blase about familiar sights and taken-for-granted scenery. Anyway, we spent much of our time near the waterfront.

In June, I boasted about the warmer than usual night-time temperatures. I was intent on getting as much planted and established as quickly as possible - including an early potato crop. Squelchy soils in the paddocks caused by stormy squalls later grabbed my attention. There was no need to cover plants with frost cloth.  The early potatoes were planted in a sunny sheltered situation. The raised bed, made of lots of compost and well rotted organic material,  drains well. Early this week, all of the early potato plants’ shoots had just emerged above their warm blanket of mulch. 

On Tuesday this week, Himself and I had our attention diverted  with a stint of caring for grandkids overnight and all day Wednesday. Busy as, we missed the weather forecast and of course we never gave it a thought to put a frost-cover over the plants. The first frost (albeit  a light one) of winter happened on Tuesday night. It dissipated quite quickly next day before mid-morning. At first glance, the larger potato leaves are affected - but I looked more closely and noticed the very small leaves at mulch level seem to be OK. They may have been somewhat sheltered and the soil was not frozen. Tonight, there’s an extra layer - of straw - over the plants. So, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping the damage isn’t too bad.

Another thing I noticed was that a few heritage potatoes that had self-seeded in a weed-like manner seem to have resisted the frost.  I re-read my gardening books about recovering frost affected potatoes. Each mentions mulching and mounding. On reflection, I’m not sure what I learned or my options were. (1) Leave Himself in solo charge of the grandkids? (2) Turn TV on and watch the weather while we give the kids their bottles? Work in the garden later - by torchlight if necessary. (3) Every night, think, ‘frost’. (4) Let self-seeded potatoes have their way in the garden. (5) Gardening moral - an ounce of prevention is better than a cure.

The basic tenet of my gardening actions is to care for the soil. I so appreciate the value of the living organisms that function sight unseen beneath the ground. I suppose it’s a biological partnership that we enter into when we garden. Worms recycle humus and produce vermicast as they dig and delve beneath our feet. That’s why I try to tread lightly - and when, like we do here, keep a few animals for grazing purposes, it gets difficult at times to walk with a light footprint. I seek to grow healthy soil and to establish gardens with minimal input. 

In Permaculture Ethics in Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay (pg. 3. 1995), wrote

Care of the earth means care of all living and nonliving things: soils, species and their varieties, atmosphere, forests, micro-habitats, animals, and waters. it implies harmless and rehabilitative activities, active conservation, ethical and frugal use of resources, and “right livelihood” (working for useful and beneficial systems.

I am concerned about the long-term consequences of hoof pugging by our animals. We don’t have a large herd in the commercial sense (that’s another and broader-issue). I have to think of sustainable solutions for our place. Do we use the tractor to plough the soil? The machinery would further compact the soil and cut up the micro-animal life beneath the ground. I prefer (idealistically some might say) to do my best to grow soil with the biomass we have naturally to hand. We rotate our animals away from wet paddocks and fence off stream-banks to minimise erosion. On the up side, our cattle provide manure that attracts the worms that transform it into vermicast. Trees or branches that are felled during stormy weather are a recyclable source of bio-degradable matter. But then chainsaws and chipper machinery uses fuel energy. And so it it goes weighing up the pros and cons.

I guess at this point, I use my energy where it produces fresh food. I’ll let my photos do the rest of the talking.

A few nights ago at 2.00 a.m. we woke to an almighty thunderous bang. Our first thought was that lightning had struck our roof. A sub-antarctic weather pattern had swept up the country during the night. Multiple lightning strikes lit the sky that night - including a spectacular show of fork lightning. I pulled the duvet over my head - couldn’t be bothered worrying at that time of the night.

There were no floods this time - we recorded about 15 to 16 mm of rain. But the stormy squalls have created squelchy soil conditions. Our problem is to keep the animals off the grass. Heavy animals do real damage to the grass as their hooves sink into the water-logged clay soil. We’d anticipated heavy rain and Himself shifted our cattle the previous day to a sheltered paddock should it rain heavily. We have a hard stand-off area that was once historically a minor rural farm road that runs between our polyhouse and the totara trees. It’s a great windbreak and shelter from the cold rain for the animals.  Even still, the pugging is visible in the paddocks and our concern is the compaction of the soil.  

The blustery westerly wintery fronts continue. Today is the first opportunity I’ve had to get a good look at the vegetable garden after the stormy weather.  However, there’s always something to cheer about and to enjoy. The cyclamen and daffodils are rewarding. I’m relieved to see vegies I planted in May are growing as they should. At least the day and night temperatures are still conducive to growth. Snow doesn’t happen in our region - but we can get a light frost in our valley.

I am always concerned about the life of soil under my gumboots.  I’ve been reading Gaia’s Garden; a guide to home-scale permaculture by Toby Hemenway (2000). Ponder this:

An acre of good pasture may support a horse of two, say about a half-ton of aboveground animals. But living in the soil of that acre may be 2 tons of worms and another 2 tons of bacteria, fungi, and soil animals such as millipedes and mites.  

The health of the myriad of animal life is one heap of responsibility. At present my soil is rich with earthworms. They and all the other mites need humus to feed on in order to rebuild the soil. If we’re to have animals on our lifestyle block then we have to keep the micro live-stock well nourished with humus.

Well, I’ve been getting dirt under my fingernails. Tonight, I rushed home from work and changed into my alter-ego suit of gumboots and old gardening clothes that I keep just for this purpose. Himself says I’m never to complain ever again about his favourite perfectly good for-another-twenty-years pair of trousers.  What is it about Kiwi blokes and their clothes? It’d be OK if this bloke wore them to garden in!

The weather has cooperated big time - we’re having unusually benevolent night-time temperatures so I haven’t had to worry about covering things with the frost cloth. But that doesn’t mean cold nights aren’t going to happen here in Northland. I’m intent on getting as much planted and established as quickly as possible.  That includes red onions, spring onions, chives and brassicas. It’s Matariki here down-under and the solstice is in a few days so the garlic is in (it’s traditional to plant on the shortest day and harvest on the longest day).

I changed my blog header photo to reflect the early winter scene at our place. I enjoy the sculptural spectacle of the bare branches. There’s always something to marvel at - be it the silky spider webs or the last of the gaudy coloured autumn leaves.  Today, a few days since that photo was taken, the first Magnolia (Star Wars) blooms have burst into their full crimson glory. I’ll post a show-off photo later on. Oh - and the Paper-white and Earlicheer daffodils have made an early appearance! I love going out each day and discovering the excitement of new growth. Such energy in my garden.   

The cattle pictured in the paddocks are very happy to get bedding hay at nights now as the grass growth has slowed. They’ll be sent to the local cattle sale in about a week. We don’t keep heavy animals over winter because they pug the soil which in turn affects the grass growth.

I don’t know what’s happened to my Platial NZ map - it’s disappeared. The joys of learning how to manage a blog.   

Since I returned home, I’ve been busy in the garden - with some manual help from number two son and his sons. Two-year-old pea-picking, ‘tato inspector who featured in some of my posts last year is a ‘big boy’ now aged three and his baby brother is now 18 months old with a another sibling expected in August - how time flies. I’ll just have to get more garden trowels and forks for these budding gardeners. At least Daddy gets fit giving wheel-barrow rides. And I got to re-plant the spring onions and red cabbages that three-year-old triumphantly declared to be ‘weeds’.

 Vegetables and fruit are quite expensive to buy at present. And the stuff fresh-picked from the garden seems so much tastier. I’m pushing my luck and trying to get some vegetables growing for our winter months. I’ve never started this late in the season before. I can’t believe it’s almost a year ago I wrote about Matariki  (Pleiades) re-appearing in our southern skies to herald a new growing season. It’s time to celebrate the Maori New Year again. As I mentioned in my last post, weedy growth was rampant in my absence. See my before and after photos.

In the interest of getting a head start, I cheated this time and bought the mini-variety seedlings of cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. I read they mature quicker - so I’m crossing my fingers that is so.  The temperatures are not too bad - the coldest we experienced the other night was about 4 degrees C. The garden beds are reasonbly sheltered from prevailing winds and have a north-south alignment so get full sun. I have raised beds and and compost so here’s hoping we don’t get an early frost.

Friend at work has put in a very early crop of potatoes. I’ve got some seed Cliff Kidney potatoes chitted and will plant them and see how we go. I’ll put frost cloth over at nights as needed. 

We’re enjoying the last of our tamarillo fruits. It’s a rewarding fruit - raw or cooked. Loaded with Vitamin C and makes a wonderful fruit crumble for dessert or sauce to accompany pork. Such an easy plant to grow - never know whether to call it a tree or not. Bigger problem is the rats and possums that also love the fruit. Must the be the healthiest pests around!

Next on the action list is to sow Broad Beans or a green crop for over-winter. Then the strawberry beds need attention and feeding. Then there’s the roses to prune. And I really should deal seriously to the pests. On reflection, think I’ll add a To Do - snuggle up in front of the fire, glass of wine in hand and read the new season’s gardening catalogues.

So much has happened in three months since I last wrote. I’ve been away from work and my home and Himself while caring for my mother in her home in the Waikato. She died at the end of April - sad yet a relief. I’m glad I was there for her throughout. She endured with quiet dignity. I guess in the presence of death we learn much about the capacity of the human spirit, natural elements and life. Not expected to live beyond March, Mum lingered into April to greet a new-born great-granddaughter. A neighbourhood cat came calling every day and was quite the purrrfect visitor. Mum and I called her Daisy. The day before Mum died, this cat hopped onto Mum’s bed, curled up against Mum’s hip within patting reach and went to sleep. Such a comfort. The day after the funeral, my brothers, sister and I watched as a flock of white geese flew low and directly overhead in V formation, honked and headed north. An unusual event - we have never seen such birds over Mum’s hometown.  

Well, I’m back - back to work today. My fears about coping when I returned to work are really groundless. The boss has been compassionate and supportive. Colleagues understood. This morning, I flipped through the pile of mail on my desk and left stuff unopened. I wilted at the prospect of going through hundreds of emails and used the delete button on global messages to whole staff.  I re-charged my work mobile phone. It’s like I’ve been in another world as I didn’t have time to use these technologies. Instead, I used a different keyboard and played the piano for Mum - something I haven’t done for decades - amazed I could still read the music. She was an entertainer and loved hearing the sounds - even though I apologised for my poor timing and stumbling as my fingers struggled to remember the keys. But I was really too busy with care-giving and using bedside technologies. Hospice provides phenomenal support in the home.      

Now, on the home front, there’s been so much rampant growth in my garden in my absence. I’ve missed a whole season of apples - himself valiantly picked and peeled, and froze apple pulp. My  trees are showing off their autumn colours. Pumpkins are matured hidden in the grass. Main crop potatoes are still in the ground waiting to be harvested. While the Waikato region endured a 100-year drought, Northland had ideal growing conditions. Waikato dairy farmers paid mega-dollars for cattle-feed and grazing off their farms in Northland and elsewhere.

I’ve been staggered by the numbers of readers and their responses to my blog especially as I’ve not written for three months. It’s an incentive to get going again. Catch up with you soon.   

This evening we watched several Pukeko grazing on carrot weed roots in our paddocks, using use their strong red beaks to gouge the roots from the soil. We’ve taken special interest in one little family. Himself put up an electric fence around the nesting area to stop our inquisitive cattle from nosing amongst the grass that hides the nest.

I dared to snap a couple of photos of the nest before the mother bird hurried back. I counted four chicks and two unhatched eggs. There were originally eleven eggs. I guess a rat or stoat must have taken some eggs. I beat a retreat so she could tend to feeding her chicks.

This season, these birds have decimated the sweet corn crop in my vegetable garden. They efficiently stripped the husks and pecked the kernels from the cobs. Pukeko can be regarded with either irritation or amusement - depends on the situation. We have have observed Pukeko raid the nests of other birds. We’ve also watched noisy ground-aerial battles between Pukeko and the hawks that circle before attempting to swoop on the fledgling chicks. Screeching aggressive stubborn birds.  But, on the other hand, Pukeko are often fondly viewed as character birds and feature in New Zealand stories or songs, design media and more recently, in advertisements.   Enjoy these Youtube snippets filmed by other people showing Pukeko in different situations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8QJWdC650&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkbO2cMILE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRCc4hJO40A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvaafbahDU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8e6MUyJddI&feature=related

Sometimes I think I must seem to go on about trees being planted and trees being felled. Trees are the ultimate plant. In my previous post, I quoted Al Gore: ”… the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on Earth”.  Planting any tree is an action that forges a deep connection between human emotion and the well-being of ecological environment.

The significance of growing a tree has its roots in the mists of time. In this country, we have a taonga - a treasure, a living legacy. Tane Mahuta is a giant kauri tree growing in Northland’s Waipoua Forest and is considered to be more than 1,200 years old. Imagine. In its lifetime what has occurred on this earth. And it still stands, silent and statuesque.  According to Maori mythology Tane is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tane was the child that tore his parent’s parental embrace and once done set about clothing his mother in the forest we have here today. All living creatures of the forest are regarded as Tane’s children. We need to know this story. We need to be reminded of a dimension of life that is greater than ourselves. We need to understand the importance of what we do now and the impact it has in the future.

I’ve just read a moving post written by in21 who beautifully  describes the impact of her father’s concern for the future. 

http://in2l.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/legacy-of-a-parent/

Quote: … he told me his goal was to plant a tree at every house he ever lived that would outlast his time in that place.  He had a notion of leaving behind a living legacy. I have re-visited the houses where I grew up and there are beautiful trees in each lawn - a 40+ year old red maple in one place, evergreens and a gorgeous crabapple at the other.  His most recent home has had its challenges with pear trees that break apart.  But he is still working on leaving his legacy behind, even as he enters his late 70’s. I had to tell him that his legacy would continue through my efforts and I fully expect through the efforts of my children. 

A flick through my posts and I see I’ve mentioned planting trees in relation to feeding the birds, shady spot for sitting under, remembering births of grandkids, fruit, firewood, shelter, carbon sink and visual appeal. Trees give so much.