Photos for Emergency Rations and the technology to integrate them is beyond me.

Emergency Rations

I caught myself thinking this week that all of a sudden I had accidentally got 20 brussell sprout plants in the glasshouse. That's about 7 plants each for the three families that even want to eat them. I don't need a crystal ball to see a little consumer resistance looming as they appear again and again and again.

What struck me as odd, was that I only just seem to have noticed it when I did indeed plant the seed, and according to someone's law it struck particularly well, whereas the broccolli, which we all love, has been poorly represented. Not wanting to waste good plants, in they went, watered, fed and sprayed with "Success" which has seen to the white butterflies. It's the only spray on anything and is supposed to be organic but sure wipes out a lot of things. I don't trust it. Nevertheless, brassicas are a sorry lot if white butterfly is not dealt to. I'm gathering ideas on that one. One battle at a time.
Where was I?
Oh yes, I have been tending to them for weeks but now that the corn is picked and frozen, and the runnerbeans uprooted and out, then there are no other distractions and I sort of gasped, and counted them. Twenty.
Oh well. They're very good for you, and you, and you.

There are lots of runner beans drying as I write that just got away in the end. That old consumer resistance. Some years we are eating them by early January so that's four months of runner beans and they don't freeze particularly well. Enter plans B and C.
Firstly they make a great dried bean. Secondly these Emu beans, more what I call a french bean, freeze well. Grow these for freezing.

Here's Johnny podding them for me. If that looks like being very helpful (yes it is) he did also clean the windows for me today, but money changed hands. It was well worth it.
Now I've been bottling plums madly all week and still going. The basement is looking like some sort of Amish food cellar apart from the electric light overhead and the gentle hum of the freezer. I won't brag a tally until they are all done. Suffice to say, if there is an emergency, Marg has two pumpkins in her basement for the requisite 3 days food supply. (Hope the power is still on. )
We on the other hand, will dine on a surfeit of plums and all we need to do is prise off the lid. So both households are well equipped.
It does remind me of that book you used to read us Mum, 'Landslide'. The house is covered by a landslide and the children trapped inside. Hey ho there are hams hanging from the ceiling that keep starvation at bay. Now that's a good emergency plan.

And just to put a little reality check-in for anyone who might feel their garden is not performing. The sticks on the left with brown bits was a bay tree. Sorry Mama, that rather handsome rosemary of yours that came down from Chch; it doesn't like the cold/drought/neglect either. Then again who does.
Monday's poem out of the ODT this one by Susan Jones. What I like about it is that it's not beautiful, clever, profound or particularly meritous but it's still charming to me. Like your pottery receptacle Marg, for want of the right word, that hasn't been thrown out and we are all rather fond of.

The leaf takes leave

The leaf takes leave,
leaving the only home it
has known,
sails off
across swelling wind,
surfs waves of air.
Free
at last!
Exploring another world,
lifted by another gust,
twirls in
ecstasy,
dances in blue
air,
but,
suddenly,
drops,
falls
subsides
is lost
in the
pile of ageing gold
at gutter's edge.
Sweet freedom all too short.
Oh
that I had left earlier!

A Good Pudding

It's a dwarf cox's orange tree. Last year the apples got too heavy and a
branch broke off. This year, a few more fruits and the wood a little stronger. The apples tend to have little cracks around the stem which is enough of an imperfection that the boys don't want to take them to school. They have grown up in an age of visual perfection. Real perfection is these apples, tree ripened and absolutely delicious straight off the tree.

I pulled all the beetroot, no photo. Lacklustre as they were, they bottled up well. Beetroot are a good indicator of soil health and sure enough, they reflected it. At one end of the row they were huge but by the other end they had dwindled away to ping pong balls. The tops of a good beet are even nicer than silverbeet.

The plums are in and the crutches down. This is my best pear: I think it's a Bon Chretian. The other tree I suspect was planted as a pollinator. It delivers more fruit at the moment but they aren't as well suited to this climate. They don't mature enough before the really cold weather and seem to be the worse for it.

Just a reminder of whose house you are looking in. Managed to get some of the dishes stack into this shot. That's more like it. Corn chowder for tea, and yes, the wheel has turned full circle, there's the first leek of the year. I seem to remember that that's where I started.
When I announced the other week that we were having leftovers for tea, Johnny asked would there be pudding, 'because when we have a poor tea then we usually have a good pudding.'
Soup also ranks as a poor tea. Pudding is pending for the minute while I do this.

Won't be long everybody, just post a poem.

IN THE TEST OF TIME

Here lies the start and the finish. Wedderburn.
To bear witness will be the old tavern
of schist, mudbrick and rough thrown mortar.
Stalwart and steadfast.
Unhurried in nature, in the test ot time.

From far afield, from all walks, they are drawn,
to compare their skills and stategies and fortitude.
To benchmark their youthfulness, perhaps.
Those aging cyclists.
Hurried in nature, in the test of time.

The poet is Eion Mills who the newspaper tells us is a forest manager based in Milton.

Running to Win

It's alright, you can stop worrying. We got out of Milford the day before heavy rain washed out the road and trampers had to be helicoptered off the Routeburn track. And we had two glorious wet days where the side tramps were cancelled and we had to stay in the hut and play cards. Who could ask for anything more?
When we got home and up to my elbows in the sink on catch up, there was this terrible smell. I boiled the dishcloth and teatowels to no avail and was looking into the depths of the pot cupboard, perhaps there was a rotting dead mouse but no, mystery solved. Three jars of rotten tomatoes on the sill were getting a bit high. There's a layer of mould on the top you can just make out and the decomposition breaks down a coating around the seeds that inhibits germination. Next step rinse and count out onto squares of toilet paper, 5 by 5, 25 to a sheet. Come spring I will just cover the whole sheet with potting mix and so it begins again. Most of these are off to the Southern Seed Savers Network, (Otepoti Urban Organics). I need to build up a bit of seed credit.

Autumn has that strange synchronicity: you're both harvesting and preparing to plant again at the same time.

It's very dry, did I mention that our rainfall was 9 inches last year? I think that puts us on a par with desert, officially. Well I've been watering the strawberry runners to encourage them to root, and of course pinching out all but the first plant on each runner. Have double dug a bed with cow manure, for once they are established enough to move, and being forest dwellers at one time, they like pine needles. For both the offspring and the mother plant, the biggest factor in good production next year is thorough watering this autumn. I have noticed that this is also true for a lot of plants and here, it makes the difference between surviving the winter... or not.

Corn is finally ready and was worth the wait. It took about 25 days longer than the packet promised (115 days, not 90 which was probably optimistic). I put that down to growing into the dark side (fading light and heat) instead of into the height of summer. This is speculation not knowledge. I'm digressing because the photo below is not corn at all: florence fennel and I've cut it throught the middle to display the interior going up to seed. Seedlings sat in trays too long before being planted. This is a plant, like celery that likes a lot of water to be sweet and juicy; makes sense. Best way I've ever had it was sliced thinly, raw as a salad with smoked salmon. Short of such grand company, it's a good addition to coleslaw.

Final note. Here's Jude finishing the 2.5 km cross country run around the hills at Paerau. They have to stagger over 2 hay bales as they come up the final straight. There's no one else in the picture because he was so far in the lead, coming in first by a country mile. Running the race, it's a great metaphor for life. Run Jude, run.

Star of the Week

Johnny decided to do a project on bees for his homework this week. He got two books out of the library, one of them called 'Bees and Wasps'. I fail to see how the two are compatible at all. One makes honey, propolis, pollen and royal jelly amongst other things and fertilises plants. The other kills bees and steals their honey. It's not hard to pick the real friend.
O.K I better back down a bit. As always, nothing is so black and white. There are parasitic wasps that do great things to control white butterfly. Also the common wasp has a carniverous diet for many months which must take care of a few things. It develops a craving for sweetness late in the Summer. That's why they only spoil the picnic towards the end of the holidays.
Anyway, having twisted arms in the past to get a hand down at the apiary on the odd occasion, I was bowled over by the interest and aptitude. He is a boy of surprising talents. Well done Johnny.

Now this morning we had a frost and then by mid-morning there was snow on the Hawkdun ranges and Mt Ida. Temperatures have dropped with a thump. It's hard to believe that only the night before this last one it was so hot I had to sleep with my feet out of the blankets, where they were bitten by the cat who felt I was impinging on her territory.

These are dwarf butterbeans dangling on the wire like chooks, all hung out to dry. The seed went in on the 29th October, when I was making comprehensive notes in the gardening diary. Post Christmas and January draw a blank but it looks like we were eating them by February. That's about 90 days from seed to harvest. I left the rest for seed which is what we can see here.

Now the 2 plants one in from the left have no bun of fluff around their stalks which is the root ball. They had begun to wilt a bit and when I pulled them the stalks were nearly eaten clean through.

I've had bean plants suddenly wilt and die off in the past, especially dwarf beans and just thought it was something they were prone to; perhaps a fungal infection. I don't know why I never thought of the humble grass grub that I know so well. Sure enough, there was a plump one still in the ground. I think they must come in with the compost and they really like beans and lettuce. Nothing else seems to be affected so drastically.

From one small insect to another, whitefly on the courgettes. I had decided from the brown leaves, dried out to a crisp, that the plants didn't like too much full sun. Wrong. They love the heat but it's the whitefly that drains all their nutrients like a vampire. Kay Baxter (Koanga Gardens) says whitefly, at its root is a nutritional problem ie. 'there are some quite common, specific relationships between pests and diseases and certain soil imbalances'. In this case then, excess nitrates in the plant tissue and/or a molybedenum deficiency. Winter would be a good time to research this further and decide what it means for the gardener and what action is required.

It now being Autumn, let's put that aside and admire Bill. Every garden needs one. The sunflowers are inside because the summer was shaping up so lousy and I thought they'd die outside. Corn on the left will be ready in about 2 weeks. Corn outside has come to nought. It did turn out to be a lousy summer. Hopes are high for this crop here.

One of my neighbours has given me some interesting poppy seeds. A big blowsy orange one with the lovely round seed heads and a no less attractive one, en masse, the red Anzac poppy. The gardening magazines say to plant wildflowers in Autumn which may or may not work here but I'll sprinkle the seed about and see what happens. Flowers and colours have never been my forte so I'm actually better not to think too hard about it and just scatter. Could be famous last words...

The crutch of the matter

Those walking sticks in the basement have finally been put to good use; all four of them. The scene is somewhat reminiscent of a Salvador Dali painting except that here the props have a purpose: the branches are so heavy with plums they'd just about be touching the ground, or breaking. Perhaps I should have thinned them but last year there was no fruit and so I figure the tree owes me all that watering and care. When gardeners turn mean...

This is the prune tree and I managed to get the entire crop into one photo. The third plum is tucked up in the left hand corner. The photo doesn't do justice to the amazing purple that they are. The blossom and fruit are so beautiful that I'm not going to prune it at all so that it can be a showpeice in the front yard. The birds will be pleased to get all the fruit that we can't reach. I figure we can share.

Brace yourself for a sorry sight. Even with the best of intentions some things just don't get done. Basil and dill still in the seedling tray. Yip. Every day I water them but I'm past thinking must get those in. Now I silently apologise and prolong the agony with a good soak because that is easier than doing something about it. At this rate I'll be able to harvest the dill seed before it all goes to the compost heap. How cruel is that?

And finally because the Autumn clean up is actually hard slog, hoeing and digging and trundling away weeds and not nearly enough fun, here's my favourite cover crop: phacelia. The bees really love it and they've had a lean season.

I've been saving alot of seed. Lupin and phacelia for cover crops. All those beans that missed being picked, and collecting in tomatoes from the best plants to see if I can lift the calibre of next years crop. Oh yes, already thinking ahead to bigger and better but on the other hand enjoying all the bottling and freezing and squirrelling away of this year. Keeping busy.

Autumn clean up

I've already told Marg and Jen my great dramas of the week but as they are less than half of my readership, just, and because Mama is probably wondering what the fire engine sticker was doing on her letter this week...I'll boil my cabbages twice and mention the chimney fire. We were going away for the week-end and leaving all the boys home alone. Marg's words where still ringing in my ears 'so long as they don't burn the house down' when I noticed a stray spark and the chimney glowing red hot. I shut the fire right down and yelled and rang for help and then had time for that terrible moment of panic the house is burning down, what do I grab? In hindsight I thought of lots of things, paintings and photos probably but at the time, nothing. There was nothing I cared about more than being alive.

By this stage David had whacked the chimney with the rolling pin and seemed cheerful enough so my natural pragmatism won out and I decided to wait and see how things went before carting anything outside. Bill swept the chimney that afternoon.

Boys astounded us by having the house tidy when we got home and managing extremely well. I had a first glimpse of all that parenting donkey work paying off; the relentless coaching on dishes and washing and so on that never seems to really permeate as long as you are around, but it has. Hey ho.

Carrots are ready for thinning. Ground needs to be kept moist enough to wiggle them out without pulling off the tops, whoops, or leaving half the carrot in the ground. The triumph of these carrots is no carrot fly. It was David's idea, plant them right at the bottom of the property while the carrot flies weren't looking, and put them amongst the emergent peas. Apparently carrot flies fly close to the ground and won't hop over a barrier. It has certainly worked so far.

Anyway, I discovered the cure for gardening inertia in the form of a visiting Swiss student Tabeah who is eager to help and comes genetically equipped with a Swiss work ethic. Buoyed by the prospect of someone else to toil alongside I've leapt the first hurdle and begun the Autumn clean-up.

First beneficiary the yams. Discovered belatedly that they need earthing up like potatoes. Well there's nothing down under there yet and somehow the yams are supposed to miraculously appear after the frosts take out their tops. Here's hoping.

Still harping on about the cucumbers. Green shorts squarepants has taken fright and set fruit and earned a repreive. I'll grow this one again. It's very good eating and big enough for two.

I did say Autumn back there. It's suddenly dark in the mornings and colder at night. Rose, a farmer near here, who looks at the sky and knows where the clouds have come from, and what that means, says that the rats are gathering bones and the birds are already eating the Rowan berries. Translated that means it's going to be a long winter. Even I have noticed the first mouse strolling about the house and another rummaging in the compost bin, while Katie (the cat) seems oblivious to it.

Ate the first yellow tomato this week. I planted the seed at the very end of October last year, so that's 3 months 3 weeks, about 110 days till first fruit. Pinched out the growing tip early to get the crop home and hosed before the frosts begin in earnest, about a month away. Look at all that fruit yet to ripen; most seem to have a double truss on the second layer. It's hard to tell whether they have quite the same bite as a red tomato. Will have to make a pasta sauce and see if I can get past the colour.

On the occasion of a year since Dad died I'll give the last word to Shakespeare:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Or perhaps on a more macabre note:

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;