Christmas dinner

Our raised beds are not quite as productive now as they have been. I'm not sure exactly why but maybe because I didn't water the latest plantings like I did the first ones last January. 

Corn and tomato seedlings didn't grow (thought they're still alive) and the rocket bolted before I cropped it. The irrigation system should be on stream again soon though. 

In the meantime, we have enjoyed some Tom thumb lettuce, a motley selection of carrots, purple beans, broad beans and sugar snap peas. The leeks looked edible if skinny but remained woody even when cooked. Shame. 

If anyone knows why the garlic didn't grow at all, beyond putting up shoots, please let me know. I wonder if it's the same reason behind the poor performance of the garlic and the leek. 

Farewell Jasper

Four and a half years after arriving at our house, Jasper has left us. He has a lovely cosy hole now in amongst the native plantings and I've popped in a kowhai on top of him to mark the spot.

Good bye Jasper! We miss you!

The fruits of our labour

I'm just about managing to maintain progress with our raised beds and the demise of Jemima was a good push to plant some fruit trees this winter. We planted feijoa, fig, a dual-grafted apple (Monty's Surprise and my favourite, Granny Smiths), cherry, orange and mandarin. I strapped them to give them a bit of support in the high winds that howl around our place and even managed to feed them all too. 

The raised beds aren't terribly productive at the moment. Most of the salad has come to an end though the silverbeet is going strong. I ripped out all but two of the kale plants because they were covered in white fly and their grubs. The radishes were a great success but we've eaten them all now and the broccoli and cauliflower, in contrast, were a dead loss, too spindly and fast to bolt. Only a few of my carrots sprouted and the leeks will have to go another year before they're fat enough to eat. 

The herbs are fit and healthy but the garlic looks pretty thin. The fruit bushes (loganberry, blueberry, guava and blackcurrant) are coming back nicely after winter and the strawberries are taking hold - I was amazed to discover that they were carnivores when I opened up the strawberry food and discovered that it was blood and bone! 

In the last month, I've put in tomatoes, dwarf purple beans, corn and sugar snap peas which I bought at the local Ag Day plant stall but they've been slow to take off and I think they're a bit thirsty. We're in the middle of re-configuring our irrigation with a header tank to limit the burden on the pump and so the seedlings are suffering. The broad bean plants that I grew from seed rustle when they get a breeze through them. There are a few pods developing though so all is not lost. 

The potato plants look promising - though they're in need of earthing up - and we should have a decent crop in the New Year. And next in the queue are some capsicum seedlings that I picked up at our local garage sale - fingers crossed the irrigation system does the trick...

Caught red-handed

At the end of autumn, I planted some bulbs in these pots. The chickens decided that the pots were actually dust baths and have been scraping and scratching at them for a few months now. I kept re-planting the bulbs but eventually half the soil was scattered across the drive and the bulbs had disappeared - perhaps squirreled away by an enterprising mouse who'd been conspiring with the chickens.

Not having learnt my lesson, I planted some herbs in another pot, close by. I thought that plants would be less tempting than bare earth with soil underneath. I was wrong. I had no choice but to chicken proof my containers. The solution came in the form of gutter guard plastic sheeting with cable ties (to fasten it into a circle) and chopsticks (to anchor it in place in the pots). So far, so good - no incursions have taken place.

I've planted up some money plants in the green pots with sedum around the base (top left - click on the collage for a bigger image) and some land cress for salads too (bottom right). If those survive, I'll re-plant the mini herb garden too.

In a sudden burst of productivity, I also planted some sprouting chokos by the compost heap (top right) and some pelargoniums close to our recently pruned hydrangeas (bottom left) - more on the pruning soon! 

Rest In Peace Rooster!

The other sad news from our flock is that our rooster has suffered a freak (and fatal) accident. We were planning on moving him on after selling his brother at the end of last year. We don't want any further in-breeding in the flock and it's too hard dealing with chicks when the hens won't lay in the hutch anymore. He was a beautiful bird though so I was sure that we'd find a good home for him.

I was therefore really quite sad to flip over the empty fish bin that we use as the sheep's drinking trough and find him underneath. He must have sat on the downhill edge of the bin when it was empty and tipped it over the top of him. It would have been too heavy for him to shift and we wouldn't have heard his crows. I laid him to rest in the bush with the sheep as mourners.

The last sighting

One of our hens produced about 12 chicks at the start of this year. We didn't manage to catch them and so they were left to fend for themselves under the watchful eye of the mother hen. Sadly this was the last we saw of them all together.

The hawk had a feast and a neighbourhood cat was seen on the prowl as well. Two drowned in the water before I had chance to put rocks back in the trough and one got trapped in the chookateria. Disaster!

Just one chick remains and looks fighting fit and (thankfully) female. The frustrating thing is that we probably won't get any eggs from either of them now that they seem to have gone totally feral.

Mulch

And here's a chainsaw gang getting the remains of the tree all tidied away - it was gone by lunchtime. And now we have a huge pile of wood chips ready for the borders.

Timber!!!

 Here's the moment when the flametree was felled.

Fallen

We had a little bit of excitement in mid-February. I heard a gentle scraping or sliding noise and though that it was the peacocks on the roof again but J and my father had both noticed half of our flametree falling onto the drive as if in slow motion. Both of our vehicles were parked beneath the tree but remarkably it just slipped down the back of them, smashing only one tail light.

We'd only been talking about the tree at dinner the night before. A large branch had fallen from it previously and left it a little lopsided. We guessed that its days were numbered but we hadn't appreciated that it would succumb quite so soon!

There was no wind at all and it wasn't particularly humid so the leaves weren't full of water and overweight. There was a smell of rot coming from the cracked trunk though so perhaps it had just had enough. Because flametrees often split low down in the trunk, they're vulnerable to rot at the joint as water can settle there. The two sides of the trunk also grow apart, pushing the other side away until the two are no longer compatible.

Timber!

We escaped the recent tornado that hit Auckland but subsequent storms brought a couple of branches down on our macrocarpa and one of the coral trees. Time to call the tree surgeon, I think.

Mother Hen

We found out recently that this little grey hen was laying her eggs in the undergrowth underneath our bedroom window. She'd wait until we let her out in the morning and then make a dash for the back of the house.

But we tracked down her clutch of eggs eventually and ended up putting 20 eggs on the compost heap.

The next morning, I chased her up the hill, barely keeping up. She headed straight for the bushes where she'd been laying. I arrived just after her and then three roosters turned up. Poor old hen was confused by the lack of eggs, scratching around looking for them, and then embarrassed by all the attention. She wouldn't settle down and after a good hunt around, went wandering off to find another place to lay.

I left her alone and retreated to the house. She re-appeared under the bedroom window again and then spotted me on the balcony. I was astounded when she fluttered up to find out if I'd put the eggs up there! She eventually decided that the eggs weren't around.

And then got her revenge by laying in the middle of the border in front of the house. I had a good poke around later but she'd hidden her new egg well. I'll have to wait until there's enough of them to stand out in the undergrowth.

Mousetrap!

Shamefully, when the draughtsman came to visit last week, the garage mouse showed himself. And then as we watched TV on Friday night, the living room mouse appeared. Something had to be done! And so a humane trap was purchased from the farm shop and we set it with a little morsel of Vogel bread.

It worked a treat and we had our first prisoner within just a few hours. He was an acrobatic little beast, running round and round the trap.



We took him up to the road to release him and then re-set the trap.



This little creature, rather more subdued, was found this morning, cowering in the corner.



How many more to come?

Reality Bites

One thing we didn't have to deal with in Lancashire was mosquitoes. And since we returned home, we've been the meal of the day.

We have one major weapon in our armoury - an electrified plastic bat with which we zap bugs. We'd seen them in China, in the street bars of Yangshuo, but never expected that we'd be able to pick one up outside China.

But in NZ with the Accident Compensation Corporation looking after us, we can take all kinds of risks without government intervention and we found this zapper bat in our local DIY store.


Using the bat is a great sport - five points for a bluebottle, ten points for a mosquito, twenty points for a cockcroach...


But our best line of defence is our new mosquito net. Which James cunningly fixed to the joist above. And which gives me a terrible fright on the odd occasion when I wake up and attempt to leap out of bed.