Wednesday, January 4, 2012

For a little block, it sure seems like there's agriculture going on

Seven thirty and the sun's still hot and high over Mt Kaukau on the western hills. Have been pottering in the yard the last few days, and making trips to pick up lots of horse poo and hay. All free! How so, you ask. One of my brothers lives on acreage, hence hay making and horses. The hay baler is making new bales right now and they need to shift the unused old stuff out of the barn. We score. I bought bales last winter to make our compost bin, and they were $16 each, so we've saved a couple of hundred dollars.

Our tiddly orchard now has a lovely mulch all over, and the rest is going out the front, Italian style. Why have grass when you can grow food? We're mattocking in the manure and the hay. Then in will go spuds, pumpkins - they can spread and run while laying low in a high wind area.

Mish is making a berm out the front, running parallel to the road. For all our friends who ran to their dictionaries to look up 'gabion', here's another one for you. Our berm is taking shape with all sorts of prunings, inc. from the neighbour on our downside, some hay, and then soil over top which will filter through the spaces. We'll plant it up with natives - and voila, streetscaping. Our front is pretty ugly fugly, but not for long.

Bought ourselves a whizz bang whipper snipper. One that starts very easily, doesn't weigh a ton, and roars through the grass, easy as. Heaven. We don't have much grass left, just enough to justify a new toy. Hope those B's who nicked our Chinese-made whipper snipper from our Robertson shed got wrenched shoulders from its dead weight and its 'damned if I'm gonna start today' routine.

Away from the yard, Mish is discovering the joys of batch scanning documents. We have folders (and still more folders) of notes (boxes of 'em really), on horticulture, interior design, landscaping, artworks, that could be useful, stuff she likes, etc, that have been an albatross for toooooooo long. Their time has come. Scanned, indexed, shredded.
We'll have room for a heated indoor lap pool when the last box is gone. Woohoo!

One day...

4 comments:

  1. test comment from carol

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trying again....but with little hope of success!! I LOVE YOUR BLOG! What on earth is a berm?? will look it up! Merran xxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ok so now I can read and comment...how good is this! Well I must say...carol...those gingerbread men are one of a kind! but they do look delicious...the mince pies on the other hand are definitely headed for the bin! When you get back I will give you a pastry lesson that will have you, Mish and the family begging for more...I am not joking! One immediate thought is that you probably didnt prick the bottom of the pastry before putting in the mince? being puff it would have risen up pushing everything in its wake out of the way...btw you never use puff for mince pies..they need a really short shortcrust pastry...this I will teach you how to make..your attempt (hope thats not rude to say attempt) at creating a market garden at home is fabulous! you put me to shame...I am thinking of going home this weekend and immediately trying to construct some kind of vessel to put veggies in...oh by the way the herb garden you and Mish made me is absolutely gorgeous...the thyme is out of control (which I love) and although the sage died, I planted corriander and flat leaf parsley and they are doing really well, you cant really see the crate anymore...the strawberry plants have only produced a couple of very sad looking strawberries this year (both of which were polished off by a slug) I think due to the fact that we've had no summer, up until this past week that is! They look healthy enough but just not producing...no chance of making any homemade stawberry jam this year ha ha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oops forgot to say love Merran xx

    ReplyDelete