Growing It

Family circumstances this year have left me feeling a little frustrated with where our gardening is at. I've had my garlic and tree onions ready to be planted for a couple of months now, and even prepped the beds properly. I was hoping to get a bit of a jump on cooling soil temperatures. Now, it's Winter Solstice already and the garlic are still sitting there unlikely to be planted any time soon. As much as the Solstice is about a return to light and longer (colder!) days, for me it will also be about letting go and rolling with what life throws at us.

Winter Wardrobe Wednesday

This was Outfit Number Two today. Outfit Number One was almost a rehash of last Wednesday, except I had a Schoolhouse Tunic over a Glassons top;-)

This was too rumpty to reveal in full glory. Max long sleeve tee, homemade yoga pants, gumboots. Yes, my gumboots DO match the kids ones;-)

And yes, that IS a nice spot to have a glass of wine while popping seeds into trays!

Winter Hope

It's that time of year. Slightly longer days. More sunshine. A little bit warmer. Spring gardening inspiration is bubbling away. The kids and I have started weeding a couple of the garden beds we have here.

Hubby's pruned A5's little apple tree and I've popped some new herbs around the base. M10 is planning her own mini-medieval style herb garden too.

I've started to sort through our "seed bank" and peruse catalogues. I missed planting the seeds by the moon calendar this month but we'll forge ahead.

I bought some seedlings for a bit of instant satisfaction.

We've put in a bit of prettiness at the front of the house. Allysum, lobelia, geranium, chamomile and lavender are there to keep the bees and Mummy happy too.

We've prepped our small plot at the Community Garden on our street. We discovered wee strawberry plants dotted around so we've popped them together so they're easier to protect from the birds. Some calendula has gone in there too. We still have our two larger allotment plots, and are deciding what to put in them.

So what's happening at your place?

Our Play Garden in Winter

Our little play garden has pretty much been lying fallow over winter. We'd meant to put a green compost crop in but time rolled on and it hasn't happened yet.

The rhubarb is doing well. It's in the first year so we haven't been able to harvest any yet.

We transplanted some of last seasons strawberries and have put another ten crowns in the same bed - all snuggled under a layer of peastraw as winter hasn't finished with us yet.

We're probably a bit late with our garlic but we always think it's worth a crack trying new things. We put some shallots in as well.

Hubby built me a weeny poly house for my seedlings out of bits and pieces we have lying around. He'll pop a shelf or two in there next.

In the meantime I've started my spring seedlings: broad beans, roquefort beans, sugar snap peas, purple broccoli, rainbow beets, spinach, thyme, sage, borage and allysum. I'd like to try capsicum and chilli in the "hot house" as we've never had any luck with them here.

We're going to put a quick mustard crop in the community allotment, then "The Three Sisters" - corn, beans and squash. The whole venture is a great learning curve about soil quality, crop rotation and what our local seasons support.

They're everywhere

We can't escape these little guys! The girls and I went to Craft 2.0 yesterday. (Thankfully it wasn't as manic as last time I went alone.) Of course this little guy had to come home with us for little brother.

My girls shot across the room like greased lightning as soon as they spotted the lady with all her gorgeous needle-felting. A wee addition to our autumn table with Mr Green Gnome.

Our resident teeny needle-felted gnome (or Jawa as I like to call him) bought himself some new tools for his gardening and underground work (thanks Nova).

Hubby harvested the final round of beets from our garden before every got pulled out. He blanched and froze it for our curries. Winter garden planning now underway.

Suburban Livestock Part Two

Along with our worms we also have a herd of yeasts and bacteria.

East India Pale Ale:
Ginger beer bug:
Water Kefir:
Here is a gratuitous shot of our recent harvest of purple broccoli. After all my concern over my brassicas the broccoli has finally come through for me. (My red cabbage remains doubtful.) This beast was easily twice the size of a supermarket head so we were able to share half with friends.

Suburban Livestock

When you're a Suburban Homesteader about all you have room for is a worm farm.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

We're challenged by Sharon Astyk's list of "Things you can do to get ready for Peak Oil, Climate Change and Difficult Times" in her Depletion and Abundance.

Firstly, we're trying to feel encouraged about the things that we are already doing. Here are a random selection of some of them that have been very achievable for our family, so maybe yours too:
* Plant a garden and grow some of your own food.
* Start walking and biking more.
* Start baking your own bread.
* Start a compost pile outdoors.
* If you don't have a lot of space but are trying to grow much of your own food, grow root crops like potatoes.
* Encourage your religious community to reconnect with the agrarian roots of your faith.
* Learn to preserve food.
* Teach kids how to ride a bike and about basic bike safety.
* Put up a clothesline! (Actually I consider it a patriotic duty for New Zealanders to do this!)
* Buy a hand-pushed lawn mower.
* Have you considered homeschooling? Why yes, Sharon, we have!
* Brew your own beer.
* Learn a skill that can be done in very low light conditions. Knitting, crocheting;-)
* Now is the time to convince your business, school, church, mosque, synagogue to add a garden on that empty lawn.

And our exciting new one!
* Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) if you don't garden, and learn to enjoy the bounty of a seasonal diet.

We are anticipating our first delivery on Thursday from the Simply Good Food CSA that we just joined. It feels right to "invest" in an alternative positive venture in these times of instability in the traditional financial sector. We know we are unable to grow ALL our own food in our small suburban back yard and our allotment at our community garden so this is another step towards food security.

Shower Caps and Apple Trees

I had a couple of pieces of pretty waterproof fabric in my stash that was designated for making nappy covers for new babies but I chose it for funky shower caps for the kids.

We bought an apple and a lime tree yesterday. Seems a bit odd to be planting long term fruit trees at a rental house but it feels good to put down positive roots that we or future tenants can enjoy. Hubby and kids also dug out the grass under my new herb garden box.

I finally finished the cowboy tote bags for A3 and his cuzzie. Thank you, again, Claire for your super embroidery machine. Nothing like a personalised bag for a 3 year old boy to keep his treasures in. Recognise the inner fabric, Judy? Yet another thing I've had sitting around in the stash unused for two years - thanks!!

Where we are at...

Our ever-increasing Peak Oil Prep library of books by my afternoon coffee armchair.

Pea Lab

Carrots

Garden'n'stuff

Grow With Me was finished in time for A1's Christmas pressie. I was hoping for a modelled photo but no joy yet. There was much enthusiasm so perhaps Aunty's knitting isn't considered so naff;-)
My teeny tiny play garden was looking most verdant.

Then on Boxing Day this happened. Ugh.

My beets'n'salad greens were most unhappy with the situation so we ended up pulling them out and making a giant vegie lasagne for New Year's Eve dinner with the Mc's. The hail storm made us consider the fragility of depending solely on crops for food and/or income.

Potatoes

We've had a lot of fun watching our Cliff's Kidneys spuds sprouting on our window sill the last few weeks. I've never grown spuds before and am feeling very mature and grown up about the whole thing. Our friends up the road are sprouting Jersey Benne spuds so we can swap crops.

I5 loves any excuse to get stuck in and help so she planted them into our patio potato bag.

I hope they're ready for Christmas, especially as I've told my mother I can't come to visit her as I need to look after my garden!

Read the Book

You know, sometimes you get such a great book that you have to quote huge chunks of it to your husband late into the night as he moans and grumbles trying to get to sleep? Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is one of those fantastic books.

Maybe it's because Barbara Kingsolver is dealing with themes that are really important to our family at the moment: our culture's dependence on oil; eating seasonally; supporting local food producers; aiming for self-sufficiency; good, healthy food.

Maybe it's because her name is Barbara and our favourite British comedy characters are Tom and Barbara (terms of endearment we use for each other) from The Good Life, which humourously deals with the self-sufficiency dream in the 1970's.

Maybe it's because she supports our current omnivorous lifestyle, allowing me to somewhat cast off my nagging meat-eaters guilt. How serendipitous to be reading the chapter "You can't run away on harvest day" when having a conversation with vegetarian and vegan friends! Barbara was a vegetarian for many years until alternative pasture-based and free-range meat sources became more widely available.

"I respect every diner who makes morally motivated choices about consumption. And I stand with nonviolence, as one of those extremist moms who doesn't let kids at her house pretend to shoot each other, ever, or make any game out of human murder. But I've come to different conclusions about lifestock. The ve-vangical pamphlets showing jam-packed chickens and sick downer-cows usually declare, as their first principle, that all meat is factory-farmed. That is false, and an affront to those of us who work to raise animals humanely, or who support such practices with our buying power. I don't want to cause any creature misery, so I won't knowingly eat anything that has stood belly deep in its own poop wishing it was dead until bam, one day it was."

"Most humans could well consume more vegetable foods, and less meat. But globally speaking, the vegetarian option is a luxury. The oft-cited energetic argument for vegetarianism, that it takes ten times as much land to make a pound of meat as a pound of grain, only applies to the kind of land where rain falls abundantly on rich topsoil. Many of the world's poor live in marginal lands that can't support plant-based agriculture. Those not blessed with the fruited plain and amber waves of grain must make do with woody tree pods, tough-leaved shrubs, or sparse grasses. Camels, reindeer, sheep, goats, cattle, and other ruminants are uniquely adapted to transform all those types of indigestible cellulose into edible milk and meat...countless other resourceful tribes would starve without their animals."

Our family eats vegetarian meals, interspersed with free-range chicken, organic lamb and "wild" goat and venison. We have stopped purchasing tinned fish and very rarely buy fresh tarakihi or gurnard (please check out the Best Fish Guide for buying information). Our next step is to practice our very small scale gardening, in the hope that, one day, we will own a wee piece of land.

Spring? What the?

Oh mild weather and sneaky spring bulbs! Don't think I don't know what you're up to. Lulling me into thinking spring is on it's way as you prepare to jolt me back to reality with a nasty cold snap! Well, I made it through July and now have August to survive.

This coming weekend is "preparing the garden for spring planting". Hiding under the polythene is our lovely compost. We love our compost. We're excited about compost. My own personal Gardener is even making an old fashioned wooden compost bin from recycled pallets. I'm hoping my King's Seeds catalogue arrives tomorrow so I can pour over it with a cuppa while Gardener and Gardenerettes till the estate.

(Notice the J12 inspired bird feeder that Gardener whacked up while we were out this morning.)

Family and Food

We enjoyed another, what I hope isn't the last, burst of Indian Summer today. My parents were visiting from out of town. A great excuse to get the family together around food out in the sun. There is something very special about breaking bread together, especially with those we don't see often enough.

Plus I always love an excuse to show off our beloved cloth nappies on the line.

My baby brother, with his baby...already walking at only 9.5 months! Yes, she does it unaided too.

My Dad with his youngest grandchild of seven. He was born to be a grandfather and it is always such a joy to see him with the kids even though they wear him out nowadays.

My budding gardener is always determined to dig about in my complete embarassment of a garden. Time to get some more soil and get cracking on a winter crop.