Book swapping and zen-ness

 

This weekend has been wet wet wet.  So no digging going on here.  Or even walking around the site, half the site sticks to your gumboots, and after a couple of steps you have half a ton of clay stuck to the bottom.  Its been lovely rain though.

 

So, in the interests of trying to live well, I tackled a tiny bit of the junk in the lounge in an effort to create a bit of calm and space.  Unfortunately, our inorganic collection of junk was last week, so this newly found rubbish will have to go in the rubbish bin and recycling bin. 

Although I have just discovered these wonderful boxes where you can put unwanted books (and who actually wants to read most books more than one time?) and others can come and take them home.  How cool is that?  They aren't very big, so I will have to visit a few times over the next few weeks, to get rid of all the books that were double layered on my shelves.  But I am feeling very pleased with myself to have discovered them.

 

 

More Autumn Flowers

 

 

I've started noticing what is actually flowering in my garden - all those plants (and there aren't many plants at all in my garden) that I must just be taking for granted, that have been there for so long I no longer appreciate them.

 

One of my favourites is rosemary.  A lovely winter cooking herb, with a nice lamb roast, or especially on roast veges, kumara and pumpkin.  But also lovely and fragrant in its own right, and those beautiful blue flowers!

 

 

I've picked some to put on my desk while I work.  I know the outside is not far away, but every little reminder of 'outside' helps, when your bottom feels like it has been glued to the chair for too long!

 

Winter Planting part one

 

 

 

 

It is going to be quite some time before I have the backyard 'proper' garden vegetable area done.  But I still want to have something growing over the winter.  So I have pressed the tiny area in the front of my house into service again.  I've got lettuces here (under the climbing stand that held the tomato plant).

 

 

 

And a little punnet of beetroot plants.  Had A LOT of seedlings in it, so that was a good bargain!

 

 

I got the seedlings from the Clevedon market, an all-round excellent place for a Sunday morning stroll.

 

I reckon I could squeeze another, say, packet of broadbeans, and maybe some more leafy things in this tiny strip.  Gardening in a small section does mean you are comfortable with close quarters for your plants.  No tidy rows here!

 

 

More autumn 'weeds'

 

 

 

 

Most plants flower in spring and summer, so in autumn there isn't all that much with colour.  Lots of dead seed heads and dying foliage but no actual flowers. 

 

But I have got 2 indestructible flowering plants on the go right now.  The red one is pineapple sage.  I first grew this from a cutting from a friend 25 years ago, and it has been transplanted all over the garden.  It does tend to get very bushy and quite large.  When my kids were little they liked to pick the flowers and suck the nectar at the base of the flower.  Can't say I have tried it though.  Its a herb, so can be used for a pineapple-y taste too.

 

 

And this one is a Japanese anemone.  Completely indestructible, even if you want to remove it, so needs to be introduced with care.  Very sweet and lovely flowers though (no, no scent), and makes a really good ground cover - in a tall kind of way.

 

Studies show simple things make you the most happy

 

 

No really!  They do.  Sometimes just doing the most relaxing and easy thing is the absolute best for a gorgeous and well-lived life. 

 

On Friday, after a week of work, I went to my friend's place for a chat and a debrief of our week.  She lit her little outdoor fireplace, and we sat on deck chairs with a rug each on our knees, and a drink in hand.  Her cats wandered around, maybe just a bit too close to the fire for comfort, but nothing obvious was singed.

 

That's it.  That was all the entertainment there was, but it was absolutely splendid, in a totally life-affirming way.  Would beat enlightenment any day, in my book.

 

Bees and Honey

 

This weekend, as a change of pace from only digging clay (although there was a considerable amount of that too), I helped a friend put honey into jars.

 

It was our first time, so we had to experiment a bit.  We ended up with a bain-marie of hot water and 2 small pots of honey melting over it.  The one at the front being stirred is nearly melted, and the one at the back is just getting going.  The honey needed to be strained to get rid of all the impurities (um, that would be bees legs and such :-/ ). We didn't want to heat the honey too much as I think heat destroys some of the essential goodnesses in raw honey.

 

 

We made quite a few pots of honey too - lovely dark, strong and healthy manuka honey.  When we had finished we gave the pots and utensils back to the bees for them to lick clean.  Assuming my friend's dog didn't get to them first.  And then had a sourdough and honey sandwich.  Of course!

 

 

So you want messy, in-tune-with-nature then?

 

My only operational garden at the moment is the tiny strip out the front of my house, between the house and the little hedge by the footpath.  In spring I planted it with everything I could squeeze in - 2 tomatoes, beans, sugar snap peas, capsicum, 2 types of basil, 2 types of thyme, radishes (didn't do at all well though), Lebanese cucumber, apple cucumber, lettuces.  Looked gorgeous for a while. Then everything grew, and it looked abundant and luscious..

 

 

 

Now it is autumn, and it looks .. well .. autumny. All the beans and peas have finished, the 'wild' stuff is taking over.  You can still see a couple of tomatoes.  Things are starting to die back.  And flower.  And go to seed.  So, this is how a garden looks, for real, in autumn.  Wouldn't win any House and Garden shows.  People on a garden tour would not be impressed.  If I had uppity neighbours (I don't, my neighbours are lovely) they would be leaning over the fence tutting.  I think that autumn messiness is all part of nature's cycles, part of setting seeds in the ground for next year.

 

 

One of the most prolific 'weeds' I have in my front garden is this pretty flower.  It arrived on its own probably 20 years ago, and has never left, reliably pops up every autumn.  It is a native NZ hibiscus, quite small and very lovely.  An excellent reason not to weed until it has finished flowering.