It’s all happening….

We were not quite prepared for the gardens surprises today. As soon as my back  was well enough I went down to the garden.

Head down, tail up, I spent my time trying to get on top of the rampaging weeds I took notice here and there.

But obviously not enough to be prepared for the gardens abundance today.

You know how it is with life. Sometimes you wake up and almost immediately your to-do list starts scrolling through your mind. Other days you wake up to the sunrise, hold your breath in awe of the day, and start your day hand in hand with life….. definitely the preferred option!

Today it was the latter, thankfully.

And look what I found in return!……

The rhubarb is plentiful and pleading to be picked…..

Beekeeping

Beekeeping (apiculture, from apis, Latin for bee), is maintenance of a colony of bees, usualky in a man-made box that contains a hive. People keep bees for honey production, as well as the production of beeswax and other by-products, such as pollen (which is a remedy for allergies), and royal jelly.

Bees are also integral to agriculture that requires pollination, as bees pollinate plants while collecting nectar (which they use as food). To this end, the relative instability of bee colonies worldwide (generally referred to as “Colony Collapse Disorder”), has been distressing, as global agriculture is very dependent on the health and abilities of bees to pollinate commercial crops.

Beetroot curry & how grand is the humble beet?!

You may suppose that with all this lying around I’ve been doing I’d be ahead on these wee messages…..

Two weeks on my back & what do I have to show for it?
1 half finished song

… And that’s it!

I didn’t read any books, though browsed through some old gardening favourites.

I didn’t watch any movies, though watched a couple of the ‘Human Planet’ series… Brilliant!

All in all I just lay there !

Oh things floated around & in and out my head but I’m pretty dang sure you don’t want to know about that!

I did, however, get treated to some lovely food & with just a little harassment ( & a raid on the good women’s cookbooks ) I can offer them to you by way of appeasement for the total lack of anything else tangible!

Rainwater Catchment

Water is an incredibly important resource. Without ready access to it, we die. Water, theoretically, is a renewable resource, at least, before the specter of climate change became discernible. With some simple design, we can harvest the water we get in the form of rain to reuse. We can use in irrigating plants, or, in emergency situations, we may purify it to drink.

Rainwater catchment is sometimes used with home-scale wetlands, in order to maximize the total amount of water one’s property can store. It’s an incredibly easy practice to get into and one with great potential to adapt into more complicated systems, as you see fit.

Let’s take a look at some simple rainwater catchment systems.

Good Quality Eggs

by Grace McCaughey

The very best quality egg you can possibly have is one that is collected from a spotlessly clean nest box within an hour of being laid by a healthy, well cared for hen. This egg will be perfectly clean, still warm, have a lovely strong even shell, will be a good shape with one slightly pointed end, and be an attractive colour.

When broken out into a pan, the yolk will be exactly in the centre of a compact layer of thick white. It will cover less than the size of a small saucer. When hard boiled, the yolk will not be visible through the white, there will be no discoloration around the yolk and it will have a pleasant clean fresh-egg smell. And of course these fresh eggs will taste delicious. Many people will have tried one straight from the chook.

Time to Order Seeds!

So here I am laid up in bed; which is better than the cold floor I lay on yesterday afternoon till I braved the crawl to here!

It took a while to get over the shock of being bought up so short, I do not take to my bed easily; which brings from those who know me a chorus of “well this will stop you”… & of course it has.

I have lay a-bed while the watering system in the garden was finished (thanks to Taron & Graham there will be no lugging buckets this year… luxury!)

Down to earth gardening bee

So it’s not quite September yet, but though some might think ‘man rules the earth’, it seems quite obvious that the earth thinks for itself regardless of what the more arrogant of it’s residents believe … the up shot is, it may be mid August but spring has most definitely sprung!

The rocket is wild in the garden, taking up far more space than is reasonable, the rhubarb is lush and green…. (I heard back from some that the rhubarb plants we sold are doing very well, hope it’s the same for all of you )… The garlic is happy ( as long as I keep weeding), as is the beetroot, the leeks are ready and there are new babies to plant out….. Oh there’s more & it’s endless! … And in the middle of it all the bulbs are spreading sunshine and the other flowers are on their way.

So why did I wake up with a feeling of panic in the wee hours?

Feed the Town Organic Dahl

I love working in the shop.

I love all the different people that come in, and all that their differences teach me.

All their various wisdoms.

There are the people who have found a whole philosophy to eat by in the ‘Nourishing Traditions’ book.

Others, on a totally different course, with the raw food philosophy.

There are those with cancer, bless their journey, and those who find their bodies refusing to eat ‘just anything’… Their talk full of the huge learning they are experiencing.

Their are the older people, the ‘wise ones’ my daughter used to call them, who come because they remember what good food tastes like, have learned over the years that it pays to respect their body (& the earth), and enjoy again the service they remember from their childhoods.

Then there are those who have met life in all it’s purity and wonder in their newborn babies, and full of the beauty of it would preserve it as best they can….

Ready for Spring yet?

It’s getting to that point in the season where even a biting frost & the chilliest morning brings only joy as long as there’s an arch of blue sky overhead & the prospect of a sunny day…

Ready for spring yet? The signs are there that it’s on it’s way and I’ve always thought that one of the pleasures of living in this climate is that particular feeling of hope mingled with joyful expectation that the promise of spring brings.

While I’m aware of all this it also sends we gardeners a scurrying to complete our winter tasks . High on my ‘be quick’ list is the planting of trees and pruning….

Fruit trees take so long to establish, grow and produce, and they are such a ‘ feature’ in the garden ( whatever size) that there is some pressure to get them in the window that winter allows.