rural life

Asparagus!

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

100_3847The long winter wait is over! The first of the spring crops is here! We’ve been watching carefully for weeks now, hoping, waiting…

And yesterday the first asparagus pushed up through the mulch (and, yes, these are purple asparagus. We have green, too). Asparagus and artichokes are the two perennial vegetable crops that get us through the end-of-winter gap. They always show up just in the nick of time (just a few freezer-burned bags of summer veggies left). That they are delicious, gourmet foods is a special bonus to the spring season. While we wait on the early lettuces, spinach, broad beans, and other crops, we will gorge on asparagus and artichokes.

Asparagus has been eaten for at least 5000 years, and I can imagine that it was an even more welcome springtime sight in the days before our modern food system did away with the lean periods of the year for many of the world’s inhabitants. Full of nutrients, it would have served to bolster people’s health in spring, just like the spring herbs like dandelion.

We always have plenty of food, with the supermarket making up any deficiencies in our own production, but we still feel that lean season. We crave fresh greens and fresh green vegetables. We’re tired of potatoes and pumpkin. So when the asparagus comes on and the artichokes begin to put up flower buds, it’s a cause for celebration.

So happy spring to everyone!

Dust bowl

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment
hay5 sm

On a relatively clear day, we can see the Southern Alps.

Sustained winds of 63 kph (39 mph) today, with gusts to 150 kph (93 mph). That’s not unheard of here, but it is severe. Though it is warm and sunny, we are largely spending the day indoors—it’s just not very pleasant out there!

Today, we can barely make out the neighbour's hedge.

Today, we can barely make out the neighbour’s hedge.

I watered the garden well before the wind picked up, to give it the best possible chance to survive the day, and I added an extra tether to the greenhouse, lest it blow away entirely. So far, most everything seems to be holding up.

It’s really the dust that’s most bothersome. Visibility is poor—even the neighbour’s house looks vague and hazy. Indoors, a fine grit settles on everything. My mouth feels gritty, and I find myself wiping off the computer keyboard every few minutes. It’s nothing like the dust storm we had late last summer—the ground is relatively moist still—but it’s an impressive show, nonetheless.

Garden Update—2 October 2015

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_3813 smThe spring school holidays are always a crazy time in the garden. There’s so much work to be done, and the clock is ticking down the weeks to “plant out” day, when the whole garden is finally filled with vegetables.

I spent two days this week weeding the strawberries and re-establishing paths through the strawberry patch. The plants are blooming, and we should have our first berries in a month. The early potatoes are in the ground, as are the onions, spinach, lettuce, peas, beets and chard. I planted out parsley, celery, celeriac, cilantro, dill and fennel this morning, and seeded in my carrots. And the tomato and basil plants have graduated from my office to the unheated greenhouse.

100_3809 smMost importantly, today I planned out the garden tasks for the next six weeks. It’s the only way to ensure that I pace myself, getting everything done, without stressing about whether it will all be done in time. The schedule is always daunting, but having a plan makes it manageable.

Of course, the house is unlikely to get much cleaning in the next six weeks—that doesn’t make it onto the list at this time of year!

Garden Gloves

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_3697 smLess than two months.

That’s how long a pair of garden gloves lasts me in the warmer half of the year. I wear through the tips of the fingers. Once the finger tips are gone, they don’t do much good. I buy a new pair almost every time I’m in the gardening section at Bunnings, just because I know I’ll need one sooner rather than later.

I used to garden without gloves. When my kids were born, my mom bought me a pair, “So that you can garden, and just take the gloves off when you need clean hands to deal with the baby.”

Made sense, so I started wearing them.

I can’t remember if they helped at all with the baby, but they did help with my hands. Until I had gloves, I never realised that the itchy welts I seemed to always have on my fingers were a form of eczema caused by contact with plants (any plants, not just poison ivy; tomatoes are one of the worst). Once I started wearing gloves, those itchy welts all but disappeared.

Now I’ll hardly go into the garden without my gloves.

And since I wear through them so quickly, it’s probably a good thing. Think if I were wearing through my skin that fast!

Wisdom

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Not strong enough...

Not strong enough…

It was a mistake. I should have known better. But the day was going to be a busy one, and I’d already forgotten to unload the sack of grain from the car the day before.

But it was early in the morning. I hadn’t had breakfast yet and was feeling hungry and not terribly strong. My body hadn’t yet warmed up.

So when I hefted the 40 kg sack of goat feed into the shed, I lifted it poorly, relying too much on my back and too little on my arms and legs.

I will be sore for days…possibly weeks. The result of pushing too hard.

Two weeks ago I was determined to get my pea trellises up. Instead of asking for help, I tried to do it myself. The trellises aren’t heavy, but they are tall. To move them, I have to stretch as high as I can and walk on tiptoe. Of course, I dropped one, cracking one of the supports in half.

I get frustrated with the limitations of my own body—how short and weak I am, how quickly I tire. I know I shouldn’t. Compared with many women my age, I have the strength and stamina of a workhorse. And, of course, there is nothing I can do about my height. Still, my plans are always bigger than myself, and I am regularly frustrated by my weaknesses.

But frustration isn’t all bad. Having big dreams and pushing ourselves to achieve them is what helps us grow. I am stronger and more efficient in my work than I was ten years ago. In spite of age and a lot of grey hair, I can accomplish more in a day now than I could in the past.

But ten years ago, if I lifted a sack of grain poorly, I wouldn’t have paid so dearly for it—a minor twinge in the back, perhaps—not days of pain and stiffness. The body isn’t so resilient as it once was. Perhaps this is where wisdom is born.

When our bodies can no longer live up to our dreams, we learn to expect less, ask for help, work smarter.

I sure hope so…my back would appreciate a little more wisdom.

Vernal equinox

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_3776 smToday is one of my favourite days of the year—the day my side of the planet tips over into the sunshine!

I always try to mark the day with a little something special. It might be a cake decorated as a sun, or cupcakes covered in flowers. This year, it was big chocolate cookies half spread with white chocolate to represent the equal night and day of the equinox.

From now until the solstice always seems like such a rush, with planting, kidding, milking, and harvesting. But today I will simply enjoy the sunlight.

So regardless of whether you are experiencing the vernal or the autumnal equinox today, make it a great one, and enjoy whatever the season offers!

No Eggs

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments
Photo: Eric Weiss

Photo: Eric Weiss

All day, I dreamed of tofu meatballs with spaghetti. I drove home this afternoon thinking of them. As I did my afternoon chores, I picked the ingredients I needed. I watched the time—meatballs take a bit of extra preparation, and I’d have to start cooking dinner earlier than usual.

The time came, and I washed the vegetables and started to chop them.

And realised I didn’t have any eggs.

I couldn’t make meatballs without eggs—they’d never hold together.

It’s not a problem I usually have. I usually have more eggs than we can eat, and I have to come up with creative ways to use them.

But the chickens are on strike–my lovely hyline chickens that are supposed to lay for years…but only managed about 18 months before they were done. I thought, well, they’re just moulting…they’ll start laying again. Then I thought, well, it’s the middle of winter…they’ll start laying in spring. But, no, they are not going to lay again. They’ve retired already, much to my disappointment.

I have mostly had brown shavers before, and they are productive, but short-lived birds, and I was tired of “disposable” livestock. My attempts with heritage breeds died with the three expensive birds I bought years ago that came riddled with disease and died within weeks. So I was thrilled with the idea of the hylines—a ‘new’ breed with a longer lifespan than the shavers.

Ha. My last brown shaver laid eggs until she was 4 years old, but none of the hylines are still laying.

I have been trying to contact the local brown shaver breeder, but have had no luck, so I still don’t have a young flock on the way to point-of-lay.

And I still have no eggs.

I bagged the vegetables I had prepared and put them in the fridge. I went out to the garden and picked a different set of ingredients, and we had a lovely Indian charcharis instead.

And tomorrow I’m going to try calling another breeder. I may have to drive an hour to get my birds, but I need some new birds. Now.

Springtime pests

/ Robinne Weiss / 4 Comments
Netting covering newly-planted pea seedlings

Netting covering newly-planted pea seedlings

Pests are always a concern for me—rats and mice get into my animal feed, hedgehogs eat my cucumbers, brush-tailed possums strip the bark off trees, slugs devour the strawberries, aphids infest the lettuce—but springtime is the worst season for pests.

And English sparrows are perhaps the worst pest I deal with.

Sparrows are a problem year round. In autumn and winter, they roost in the sheds, covering everything with their droppings. They rummage through the compost pile, spreading kitchen scraps everywhere. In spring and summer, they nest in the gutters, causing rainwater to back up into the house instead of going down the drains. Or they nest the sheds, where they make an even bigger mess than they did roosting there all winter.

But the most annoying thing the sparrows do is eat seedlings. They sit in the trees and watch as I plant out my peas and lettuces, then descend upon the garden and gobble them up as soon as my back is turned. Nothing is safe from them until it is at least 30 cm tall.

Until a few years ago, the damage was minimal. The neighbour used to poison the sparrows, and their population was relatively small. Since he retired and sold his farm, however, the sparrow population has increased dramatically. The new owner doesn’t poison the birds…which I’m happy about on one hand, because it is not a humane death (I hated finding dying birds on the property–horrible to watch). On the other hand, the sparrow population has reached plague proportions.

Which means spring planting is an exercise in pest control.

Everything I plant has to be covered with bird netting for a few weeks or it is eaten to the ground. And once I remove the netting, I’m sure to lose some plants as the birds strip half the leaves within a day of the covers coming off.

I suppose I should take the Panamanian approach to planting—three seeds in each hole—one for me, one for God, and one for the pests.

Blooming Broad Beans

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_3703 smI walked past the garden on my way to the compost pile two days ago, and smelled what has become one of my favourite smells of spring.

It is sickly-sweet, and the first time I smelled it, I thought it was disgusting.

It is the smell of blooming broad beans. And I have grown to love it as a harbinger of spring.

My garden isn’t the only place smelling like an overwrought florist’s shop. Local farmers grow huge fields of broad beans, and the smell wafts into the open windows of the car as I drive by.

Unfortunately, the first blossoms are a tease. They attract primarily bumble bees in the very early weeks of spring. The bumble bees steal nectar by chewing through the base of the flower, and don’t actually pollinate the flower. I won’t get beans from these early flowers.

Later, once the honey bees are fully active, we’ll start seeing the first little beans begin to lengthen. Until then, we’ll have to make do with the smell.

Not your ordinary gym experience

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

DSC_0028 smI don’t exercise. When people ask, I say that the garden is my gym.

It’s true, because the garden provides exercise, but in reality the garden is nothing like a gym.

You go to the gym, and a 5 kg weight is always going to weigh 5 kg. The rowing machine provides smooth, consistent resistance. The treadmill is free of rocks and tripping hazards.

Things are less dependable in the garden. The hoe bounces unexpectedly off tough roots and buried rocks. You’ll be turning soft soil, getting into a nice rhythm when suddenly the soil fights back. Twitch roots grab the spading fork and wrench your back in ways you cannot describe to the physiotherapist. Each forkful of soil is different—live.

At the gym, you go for an hour, you do your routine, and you leave.

In the garden, you start at 7.30 am. You fill the wheelbarrow again and again, and still there is no end to the weeds. At noon you stop for lunch, and your body begs you not to go back to the garden. You go anyway, because there is still so much to do. You work more slowly. Garden work doesn’t encourage good exercise form, and you need to stop frequently to straighten your aching back.

By late afternoon, you feel you can’t possibly pull another weed. You look up from your labour and see that you’re nearly done with this bed. If you can just carry on for another 30 minutes…

You make the final raking of soil and sigh. You can rest now, as soon as you put your tools away and finish the other chores you’ve ignored in order to finish the day’s gardening.

Your back screams as you bend to pick up your tools. You slowly trudge from the garden…

And then an irrigation line breaks. Water gushes everywhere, and you want to weep as you rush to fix the problem, wrestling with wet, muddy pipes.

When you finally stagger inside, it is time to make dinner. You have been at the gym for nearly ten hours.