A Year Outdoors

You have got to be kidding me…

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-12-16-15-35-55It frosted Saturday morning. Yeah. It was 30C Friday afternoon, and by Saturday morning it was 2C. It was back up to 30 degrees by Saturday afternoon, and today we went to the pool.

I didn’t even think to check the garden Saturday morning. It never frosts this late in the year. That’s the seasonal equivalent of frost on June 16th, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere. Even in St. Paul, Minnesota, it never frosted that late. It was a rude surprise when I went out to the garden in the afternoon to pick some vegetables and found the pumpkins and beans blackened.

The plants will survive—it was a light frost and the growing tips of the plants weren’t hit—but it will knock the pumpkins back significantly. They were already behind, because the first planting didn’t germinate, and these plants were my second try at them this year. A frost this late might be the difference between mature pumpkins when the first autumn frost hits or pumpkins that still need a few weeks of growth to reach the right stage for storage.

Unfortunately, the only thing to do at this point is shrug and be thankful the other frost-tender crops weren’t damaged…after the obligatory grumpy farmer complaints are through.

I’d Rather Be Weeding

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dandelion-smWhen I tell people we grow almost all our own vegetables, I get a lot of comments like, “Wow! That’s impressive!”

I shrug—I think if they really knew, they wouldn’t be impressed.

Truth is, I think I grow so many vegetables because I’m just not cut out for the modern world.

I drove into town today for groceries and to finish (do) my Christmas shopping. I had already put the job off for several days while I found other, more important things to do in the garden. Then I timed my arrival in town with the opening of the shops, so the crowds would be less. I came armed with multiple lists—a list of destinations, and a list of items to be purchased at each location. I ticked them off, one by one, feeling the stress level mount as the morning wore on.

Noon came and went, and I was still working through my lists. The crowds grew. I got stuck in traffic. I didn’t stop for anything to eat or drink, lest the whole trip take longer.

I finally made it home just before 2 pm, exhausted, irritable, and completely stressed.

A little lunch and an hour of hard physical labour in the garden restored me.

Growing our food means I don’t have to go for groceries as frequently. I don’t have to deal with parking, stores, financial transactions, deciding what to buy of the endless array of products on the shelf. Sure, it may take four months to get a tomato, but at least I don’t have to go to the store to get it.

Takahē PDA

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2016-12-11-11-49-22On a family trip to Wellington this weekend, we visited Zealandia, a predator-fenced wildlife sanctuary. A number of endangered native birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects have been introduced to the sanctuary, and many have done well there. Among the birds we saw were kākā, saddlebacks, and kākāriki. But my favourites of the day were a pair of geriatric takahē. Takahē are beautifully coloured, stocky birds about the size of a large chicken. They were thought extinct until 1948 when they were rediscovered in a remote area of the Murchison Mountains. In spite of protected habitat and a captive breeding programme, takahē remain critically endangered, with a population of around 300.

This pair were once part of the captive breeding programme, but at over 20 years old, they are no longer able to produce viable eggs. They were transferred to Zealandia to live out their retirement where they can be ambassadors for their species. They were certainly doing their job this weekend.

When we were there, the takahē were hanging out in a grassy clearing, feeding leisurely and basking in the sun. As we watched, the male walked over to join the female and groom her—a cute public display of affection. They talked to each other quietly as they fed, and completely ignored the half-dozen people standing around watching. They looked content and relaxed—just like a retired couple should.

I hope this unique bird can hold on, and flourish once again, if only in predator-free sanctuaries and offshore islands. It would be sad to lose it…again.

Christmas-lite

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2016-11-30-17-31-25-smIt’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Strawberries, gooseberries, black currants, red currants, cherries, and peas—ah! The signs of Christmas! They’re red and green, just like those in the Northern Hemisphere, but the greens are brighter than pine tree green, and the reds more succulent than holly berries.

They are just as festive as the colours up north, though in a different way. While you look inward, gathering around the hearth on long dark evenings, we look outward, sitting with friends on the beach on long summer days. You dream of white snow, we dream of white sand. You have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads, we have visions of fresh strawberries dancing in ours. While you sing ‘let it snow’, we sing ‘let us go’ (to the beach).

Now and again I miss the cosy dark of Christmas in the north. And every year, I wish summer gardening, Christmas, and the end of the school year didn’t happen simultaneously. But I’ve grown to appreciate the summer Christmas. I appreciate not having to plan Christmas dinner, but letting it spring from whatever is abundant in the garden. I appreciate being able to sit outside on the porch in the sun after gifts have been opened. I appreciate the barefoot, short-sleeved, nature of Christmas here.

It’s like Christmas-lite.

This Old House: Gifts from the Past

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2016-12-09-10-46-51Most of the time, I think it would be wonderful to have a brand new house on a property that’s never had a house on it. To not be fighting a hundred and thirty years of other’s landscaping decisions and poor house maintenance would be a delight.

But then, sometimes the property’s history is a bonus.

When we moved in over eleven years ago, most of the property was overgrown with weeds. Even the garden beds around the house were choked with grass and yarrow. We slowly hacked away at the jungle, finding many surprises along the way—beautiful old roses, dahlias, peonies, daffodils, and a host of other flowers hidden away in the weeds. We transplanted the floundering plants to new, weed-free garden beds as we re-landscaped the property.

We thought we had discovered all the lost plants, but strange things have shown up over the years.

Several years after we had cleared and replanted the area between the house and the hedge, a day lily sprang up there. We had never seen a day lily on the property before. The following year, a winter-flowering iris popped its head up there, too. Again, a flower we haven’t seen anywhere before.

Other flowers have since appeared in unexpected places, long after the areas had been re-landscaped—mostly bulbs, as though the bulb sat dormant for years until conditions were better. Either that or they’ve been growing, not flowering, and somehow escaping my notice.

Either way, they’re like gifts from past gardeners.

Watching My Babies Grow

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment
Recently hatched mantids--can you see them both?

Recently hatched mantids–can you see them both?

All winter I kept an eye on the eggs.

Now the preying mantids have all hatched, and I can’t help but watch them grow and develop.

They don’t tend to wander far, so it’s easy to keep tabs on them. Sometimes it takes a few minutes of staring before I see one, but then they start popping out at me until I’ve counted dozens of them.

I’m happy to report that they appear to be doing well. I’m sure that some are looking fat and sassy because they’ve eaten their brothers and sisters, but that’s the way it goes in the mantid world. Live by the raptorial front legs, die by the raptorial front legs.

This one is a bit older and easier to see.

This one is a bit older and easier to see.

Sometimes I wonder at myself, that I can watch this year after year, and still be excited as each new egg case hatches. I hope I never lose that wonder and joy.

A Rose

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R Weiss roses Christchuch Botanic Gardens

R Weiss
roses
Christchuch Botanic Gardens

A rose, by any other name
Would still have thorns and be a pain.

Black spot, chafers, aphids, too,
Spider mites and powdery mildew.

Japanese beetles, leafcutter bees
It’s rife with pests and disease.

So go ahead, forget the rose
Plant a flower with fewer foes.

Sunflower, Daisy, there’s really a passel
Of flowers easy to grow without hassle.

No pruning, no spraying, no disease or thorns
For none of these things a gardener mourns.

Or better yet, just live with the weeds
They grow by themselves, and spread their own seeds.

Dandelion, yarrow, catsear and cress
All grow on their own and let the gardener rest.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

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2016-12-03-09-23-41-hdr

Clean pots drying in the sun.

Well, I’m not sure about the godliness, but cleanliness is important when it comes to growing plants.

I finally got round to washing the pots from all my vegetable seedlings today. They had been stacked just outside the shed door, waiting—calling out to me every time I went in or out of the shed. I managed to ignore them for several weeks.

It’s tempting to just put away the empty pots after planting out. It’s such a busy time of year, and washing pots is tedious. But I’ve learned that it must be done. If I don’t wash the pots, next year my seedlings will be plagued with disease. They’ll grow poorly, or die outright.

In truth, I don’t know that for a fact. I haven’t studied it scientifically, but in my experience, I have bad seedling growth if I plant in dirty pots. So I wash.

The pots don’t need to be perfectly clean—I swish them out with a brush in a bucket of water, then dry them in the sun. It’s actually probably the UV radiation that kills any pathogens, not so much the cleaning. But whatever it is, it works. A little extra care now, and next year’s crops will get off to a good start.

What’s the price of a weed?

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-11-08-16-14-49This is an important question at our house, with lots of weeds and two teens looking to make some extra money.

I decided to take a mathematical approach to this question.

Crop loss and control costs for weeds in New Zealand are estimated to be about $1.2 billion per year. Add another $1.3 billion for biodiversity losses, and the total bill for weeds comes to $2.5 billion per year.

So what should I be spending on weeds? Let’s do a few calculations.

New Zealand has a land area of 268,021 km2. That’s 26,802,100 hectares.

Our property is 0.6 hectares.

So our property is 0.00000002 of the land area of New Zealand.

Multiplying New Zealand’s total weed bill of $2.5 billion by 0.00000002, I should be paying about $50 a year to control weeds on my property.

My husband set the price of a 20 litre bucket of weeds at $2 (and I agreed to pay triple price for each bucket of pure thistles—hazard pay and all). That $50 is only going to pay for 25 buckets of weeds (or only 8 buckets of thistles).

Darn. I’m seriously being over-charged for weed control…

Crane Flies

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2016-11-29-07-27-59The crane flies are the largest family of flies in the world. There are over 15,000 species worldwide, with 1600 species in North America and 600 species in New Zealand.

The Māori name, matua waeroa, means ‘king mosquito’. You could be forgiven for thinking crane flies are giant mosquitoes—their body shape is similar. But crane flies cannot bite. The adults of many species don’t eat at all, and those that do sip nectar.

Crane fly larvae are sometimes called leatherjackets, because their exoskeletons are thick and leathery. They are aquatic or live in wet soil or rotting vegetation. Most feed on dead plants, though there are a few predators among the aquatic larvae.

When we moved to Crazy Corner Farm, and I turned the vegetable garden for the first time, I found the wet end of the garden teeming with crane fly larvae. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Every shovelful of earth came up with at least ten larvae. It was truly impressive, and the chickens loved me for the handfuls of larvae I tossed to them that year. The larvae must not like cultivation, though, because I don’t find them in the vegetable garden anymore.

I find crane flies endearing—awkward and gangly, they remind me of teenage boys who’ve just gone through a growth spurt and aren’t quite comfortable with their larger dimensions. The analogy might not be so far off. Crane fly larvae are legless and live in confined spaces. When they become adults, they suddenly have six impossibly long legs, and are airborne. It must be terribly confusing.

I spotted this beauty on my office door this morning, sitting on the glass with the white curtain behind it. I couldn’t resist photographing it.