Child of the Planet

This week I opened the ‘test jar’ of piccalilliI I had made earlier in the year ( click here to read… ) The recipe said to leave for a couple months to fully develop the flavour and I sort of forgot about it. Discovered the jar in the back of the fridge while doing a clean out. It was soooo good! One gets so conditioned in to believing that store bought is better and, then you find a  recipe  and try t make it yourself and it turns out to be amazing. The flavours sparkled on my tongue. The raw zucchini still had a really nice crunch to it despite sitting for months in the high acid sauce. I grew the mustard seed, the zucs were fresh out of the garden, and the apple cider vinegar is a locally produced organic product.

Recycled the bits of the stone wall that I removed to plant the bamboo ( click here to read about it ) and built a dry stacked wall border for the asparagus pile which is started to shift under the weight. Excavated a second hole between two apple trees and filling it full of green waste. In ten years it’ll be good soil. Tucking in the apples trees with a blanket of seaweed manure, and wood chip.

The long suffering apple trees down at the bottom of the back yard have blossoms. Rosemary manuka, and lavender are also flowering and the pomegranate I planted in the summer is also a bit confused. The regular rains have returned and everything is fat and dripping with moisture. I wasn't able to process the maturing cucumbers fast enough so the last of the crop will go in the compost. Also happy to see that the bamboo survived the courier and both plants are pushing out fresh leaves.

I've been processing veg since January and the front gardens production is beginning to slow. I'm still getting capsicums appearing and I’m finding it hard to find space in the freezer. There are jars of pickles stored in a cupboard The freezer is full of spag bol and the last of the tomatoes are being concentrated down into paste. The zucchinis are still appearing so I'm still freezing bags of curry and vegetable stew. Next year I’ll have to explore more non-freezing options.

We said 'goodbye' to daylight savings here in Aotearoa and I’m continuing with the Autumn jobs. One of which is getting the fire wood ‘sorted’ for winter. I have a wood fired range and that provides me with lots of raw ‘ex-tree’ material I burn untreated wood in the stove, and spread the ash on the garden. The asparagus patch I’m developing is currently getting the lion's share. This is my jury rigged lecky chainsaw sharpening jig My other tools include a splitting axe and brace that I knocked up out of pallet wood. I’ve designed it so I can cut lengths that neatly fill up the firebox in the stove.    The wood shed is full of sectioned lengths, banksia and pine cones. Ok winter, do your worst! Happy Easter folks.