Clevedon Markets

 I found the contact for all that magnificent peastraw at the Clevedon Markets. These are a really chill place to go to on a Sunday morning for a bit of down time. And a nice brunch - I usually have a venison sausage in a roll, a coffee, and some really delicious home made crumpets, hot and spread with honey from the honey stall man.

And if you are small enough, you can ride a pony, lead around by an enterprising teenager. Even the excellent coffee stall is totally manned (personned?) by students.

Or just chill in the sun listening to Paul TT the local entertainer. Although the week before there was a Scottish drumming band, pretty cool too, and a bit different.

Peastraw Bales - Gardener's Gold

So, in Rumpelstiltskin, the miller boasts that his daughter can spin straw into gold. Well, no need to here - the straw IS the gold. This is a trailer load of peastraw bales, just magic for a garden, and especially magic for one with a thick layer of clay spread all over. The straw will help with breaking down the clay, improve drainage, and add nitrogen to the soil. Might also produce a crop of peas next year, who knows!?

We managed to get all these bales down the back without a ramp or stairs, by tossing them over the neighbour's fence. They are quite sturdy, you can see how people make strawbale houses.

I spaced them out a bit round the section. I had calculated that they would cover the ground by about 60mm thick, but wasn't entirely sure I was measuring the right thing. Its looking about right though.  Then I couldn't resist, and had to open a few bales and spread them out. I do need to keep them away from the builders' works though, I thought that straw in your wheel barrow path could be annoying. Or maybe just the thing to keep the sticky clay down? But anyway, I refrained, so I've got at least half still to break open and spread. 

They are very easy and satisfying to spread - you cut the binding and they just flake off in chunks from the small end - very simple to manage. It was quite windy today and I thought they might blow all over the show, but it all seems to be in place still.

Strawbales are pretty hard to find in Auckland, especially at this excellent price. I found these marvellous people at the Clevedon markets, and now they have a website Peastraw

Plants for Shade

This little strip of garden is between the new (envisaged) paving and the back of the house. Because we have had to cut a bit lower than the existing ground level just here to keep the paving mostly level, I need to make this into a small planter to protect the house foundations. 

So...a planting opportunity! This is quite a tricky area as it gets absolutely no sun for 3 or 4 months over winter. But in summer it bakes in the later afternoon sun. I have tried growing things here off and on over the years, but not with much success, so what to plant?

Well, I thought I would try with something fairly hardy like lemon balm, which the bees will love too. Mint always works. I would love to grow bergamot, but I've tried before with little success. Fuscias would work I think, and they do survive for me. Fuscias would also be good along the big retaining wall. Other things that work in shade, which I might keep up my sleeve as Plan B are nasturtium which grows as a weed for me, leafy greens, and pansies.

Varroa Free Bees to save the world

Our world's food supplies rely heavily on bees for pollination. But they are increasingly under attack from various causes, creating colony collapse disorder. But here is good news of an amazing dude who has been working hard on bees in Niue since 1999. That's 16 years, so patience is often required when working with nature, as this guy must know.

Check out the article Creating a Global Bee Sanctuary.

DIY Retaining walls

The builders have arrived. Yippee! DIY is all well and good for many things, even hard and boring things like schlepping clay from here to there and then to over somewhere else. Even if it takes months. But for things like retaining walls, and big deep holes for the concrete footings, and nails and sawing and such, then it is time to pay a professional.

It was colder than the arctic today, but there were 2 burly men (women would have been good too) out from dawn to dusk (literally, as it was the shortest day last Sunday), heaving a big post hole holer around. Didn't look like something that I would have enjoyed doing and I am really pleased to be watching. Only.

Vintage Glass Bottles

Every where we dug on my backyard, we uncovered old bottles, and bits of glass, and broken crockery. Even some unbroken stuff. I've saved the best and planted them in front of the hebe hedge. Although I rather wish I had saved more, even broken crockery could look good. I think the digger managed to smash quite a bit though, some of the breaks look pretty recent.

This blue bottle, above, is a beautiful shade of glass. Some of the little bottles in the front are interesting shapes, maybe they were medicine bottles?  I think these are really vintage, not just slightly old. If they were there before the old retaining wall was built, that would make them more than 96 years old.

The little white object here above, is a candlestick holder I think. It has blue markings.

Another possibility is that they are from the drinking days of my house. For a number of years my house was a speakeasy, an illegal drinking house. This was back in the day when NZ had prohibition, so people had to sneak into houses for a drink. Or something like that. There was another speakeasy down the other end of my street, which had until recently, still got the barred grill over the front door. My house had a big bar, complete with coasters on the walls, in the lounge when I bought it.

And just for a really funny twist, my house was also owned by the Salvation Army for 40 years. Not for old men with drinking problems though, which would be very ironic, but for the Auckland commander.

Dawn

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."-  Marcus Aurelius