Midwinter harvest

I managed to grab 20 minutes in the garden today to tend to my vegetables which seem to be thriving on neglect. 

The salad leaves are a little overgrown but they're the most wonderful colours. 

I filled my trug with ingredients for the next few nights - celery, spring onions, bok choy, oregano, marjoram, chillis, cos lettuce and beetroot. I've finally worked out that I can just break off what I need from the celery and spring onions rather than bringing a whole head or clump. The beetroots are a bit small and there's not many of them but they're growing moss so I picked half for a casserole. The leaves are still in good nick so I can use those as salad. Jasper got some of the cos leaves that were battered in the storms. 

The cawliflowers are still tiny but I should be able to use some broccoli next week - fried with butter, garlic and some of the chillis from the garden. The chilli plant seems to be re-growing from the main stem and coping with the frost but unfortunately my tarragon has all gone. 

My cultivated garlic cloves have sprouted and the broad beans look strong. I thinned the radishes and kept the thinnings to give away on our local trade and swap page or else eat as micro greens tonight. The carrots have been slow to germinate so need a few more weeks to establish themselves before I thin those too. 

Over in the compost heap, a new choko vine has taken off - the pukekos will be delighted! And I think there's a pumpkin vine next to it with tiny fruit already appearing. I need to work out how to protect them as they seem to be rotting in the damp and cold. Fingers crossed that some survive at least... 

One step backwards...

We had one of the worst storms on record for forty years a fortnight ago. Amazingly the only damage was to my globe artichoke. It had already grown to giant proportions so it was a bit of a setback for my vegetable patch. 

Interestingly, the damaged leaves seemed to be even more under attack from aphids (or similar) than when the plant was thriving. I've stripped those leaves off now and hope the plant revives itself. 

The pumpkin growing in my old compost heap is looking very healthy in comparison. It's still quite small but there are flowers already. There's a new choko plant growing alongside it too. 

In the native bed, I was delighted to find that my two dwarf kowhai are in good health and both of them have their first flowers. None of the native grasses survived the summer but some of the other ground cover plants have new leaves. 

Inside, I've been busy pickling red cabbage. 

We've been enjoying bok choi and winter salad too. Our first cos lettuce is in the fridge ready for a salad tomorrow night. Winter growing is off to a good start. 

Time for a tidy up

There were still a few flowers on my dwarf bean plants but not so many leaves so I decided that their time was up. I harvested the last of the beans and dumped the plants with a lot of yellowed kale leaves on the compost heap. 

The red cabbage was up next. There were three cabbages remaining and my strategy of leaving them in the ground until we needed them hadn't really worked. They were rotting from the outside in and home to quite a few slugs and snails. I salvaged over 2 kg though and that's more than enough for making pickled red cabbage. 

I gathered some windfall grapefruit for curd and silver beet, herbs and chillis for a soup. There were a few leaves leftover for a treat for Jasper too. 

I now have one quarter of a bed cleared and ready for turning over. I'll plant garlic at the solstice and then think about what new crops to start. 

Full moon

First light

Firewood

First Frost

It's been a funny winter so far. Very wet to start with - when the drought ended - then some long dry spells. Some days it's been warm enough to sit outside for lunch - and plenty warm enough to work outside in short sleeves. And then we've had cold snaps too - including our first frosty windscreens since we moved here 4 years ago. Needless to say, we were underprepared and had to clear the ice with a credit card!

First fruit

Here are the first three fruit from our Bearrs lime tree (next to some shop-bought oranges). The skins were a bit tough - no good for zest - perhaps because I'd left them to ripen for too long. But they were beautifully juicy and gave a delicious tang to the (gluten free) lime and golden raisin loaf that I made for our gardening group (the recipe is here - I just swapped golden raisins for coconut).

Thank you, Katie & Brendon!

Winter sky

The Preening Process

 Here's our chief peacock delicately preening his emerging tail feathers.

The Peacock's New Feathers

The neighbour's peafowl have moulted over the last few months. We didn't gather up too many stunning tail feathers but we got quite a lot of nice peahen feathers which went towards making Easter cards.

This weekend, I noticed that the dominant peacock is developing new tail feathers. He sat on the rail of our deck and preened them with great care.

Interestingly, the feathers seem to be perfectly formed but not yet fully-sized. It may be that they need to grow more or it may be that the bird is still immature. The colours aren't quite ready yet either - copper-coloured rather than the expected blue/green.

I had been wondering how peacock feathers developed - or any patterned or shaped feathers for that matter. Sadly, I'm none the wiser as even the internet doesn't seem to know.

Check back tomorrow for a video of the preening process.

Goodbye winter!

Website 4

Deadwood

Midwinter Christmas 3

I've been busy making more mini-wreaths for our Christmas tree. I had intended to make a full-size wreath for the front door with all these shells but they were too heavy for the wire and pulled it out of shape so I changed tack.

Next I'm pondering using a wicker wreath, some smaller shells and a glue gun to create a wreath for the front door. Watch this space!

Winter Coat

It feels like we've had a relatively mild winter bar a week-long cold snap in mid-August. But that hasn't stopped Jasper developing a lovely thick winter coat. No doubt he'll start shedding it soon as the spring warms up.

Woodpile

We might not have a woodburner yet but we have started work on our woodpile with a generous contribution from Allan's unwanted China doll trees.

Red Sky in the Morning