Child of the Planet

I’ve been making good use of my ‘power carving’ tools.... Continued carving my 'practice piece' Click here if you don't see the video above Cleaning out a stump Click here if you don't see the video above Carving a series of bowls into a plate... Click here if you don't see the video above

The bed has been sitting under a layer of mulch and horse manure. I flipped the wind shields around from the first bed where they have been protecting the tomatoes and zucchini. I’ve decided to plant in stages so just the middle of the bed was prepped. I scraped off the layer of mulch and planted snow peas, parsnips, carrots, Chinese cabbage, and spinach. Covered everything with a layer of free mulch. Video of the work Click here if you don't see the video above

Using a variety of Arbortech tools, I’ve used a slab of pohutukawa as a practise piece. Click here if you don't see the video above This slab is going to be a sculpture next to the driveway, down by the gate. I’ve started to remove the bark and clean it up. Click here if you don't see the video above

My plan for the winter is to move the windbreaks to the second garden, and install some fabric cloches. See  the-plan-for-summer  here. Lemons are kicking off another leaf growing period just before winter sets in. Weed tree finally gave up and fell over in the wind yesterday. Mulched it up.      Click here if you don't see the video above Guarding my peach tree

After a decent growing season, I had issues with leaving some of my garlic in the ground for a bit too long. Previous posts... dug-up-last-of-garlic-today started-harvesting-garlic-today I'm still happy with the results and looking forward to next winter when I lay down a new crop of cloves. This is my seed for next year This is to eat Video summary of the harvest Click here if you don't see the video above

… for polishing wood and cleaning up driftwood. I scored a chunk of wood from the Zero Waste Otaki ‘free bin’. A mate of a mate found this cool old metal bodied drill at a waste reclamation site. Screwed down a couple of bits of wood to support the body of the drill making sure that most of the vents are left unobstructed. Screwed a plate across the top using some tek screws. I’m using screws as I’m not sure how this thing will work and might need modification. Used a Forsterner bit to create a hole for the trigger ‘hold’ button. The whole unit can be clamped down when in use. Video of tool working... Click here if you don't see the video above

The few seedlings that survived are now thriving. I’m not going to prune them this year. There are so few that I’m going to let them go ‘au natural’. The Zucchini and cucumber are also ‘going nuts’.