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Sunday, 22 June 2008
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1:40:11 PM 
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Sunday, 15 June 2008
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Moon is my neighbour's goat. She regularly breaks her chain and comes to visit me. She showed up late last night but then disappeared into the darkness determined to spend the night free. This morning she was right where I last saw her, on my front doorstep nibbling at my grapevine. Shortly after this photo she invited herself inside and strolled right through my front door, to see if there was anything edible on my couch. Understandably Kaycee did not approve and a stand-off ensued, between my little, heroic dog and a horned goat, about ten times her size. I decided it was time Moon was escorted home, but once she realised what I was trying to do, she took off and stayed at arms length, baaaing at me gently as if to say "please don't send me home".
I've just got her back onto her chain after about an hour of regaining her confidence with a cabbage.
11:33:01 AM
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Monday, 4 February 2008
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Tonights selection from the garden on its way to the kitchen for dinner.
7:41:27 PM
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Thursday, 3 January 2008
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Covering the blackcurrant bushes in the garden to protect them from the birds has paid off. I picked 1.8kg of ripe blackcurrants yesterday. Today I made jam for the first time. 
I'm ready. 1.8kg of home grown blackcurrants. 2kg of sugar and 900ml of water on the boil. Jars warming on top of the toast 'n grill. Time to jam.
Add the fruit. I've just poured the blackcurrants into the boiling sugar and water. Doesn't look much like jam yet.
After 4 minutes on the boil and now it's looking like blackcurrant jam (only a couple of minutes to go). Next step is to cool quickly by sitting the pan in a sink full of cold water.
Now I know why Mum's so-called jam-pan had a spout. Blackcurrant jam doesn't pour every well. I made a nice mess but got most of the jam in the jars. You spell blackcurrent blackcurrant with an 'A' by the way.
6 litres of home-grown blackcurrant jam cooling on the porch. One top didn't quite seal right. Dam. I'll have to eat that jar right away.
10:09:23 PM
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Sunday, 16 December 2007
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9:03:03 PM
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Monday, 3 December 2007
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The garlic I planted in late winter is coming along nicely. I've planted it closer together than recommended just to see if it makes any real difference to the harvest.
These are Kamokamo, or Maori Squash. They are like a zuchini but rounder. My neighbour gave me these plants so I thought I'd give them a go on the spot of ground where my compost bin stood last season. They seem to like it so far.
I have around 45 sweetcorn plants growing in both the front and the back gardens this year. I love fresh sweetcorn!
A 'little beaut' lettuce plant. This variety is one you can pick the outer leaves anytime, but it also produces a small heart.
This year the black currents are all mine. I've constructed this bird-proof enclosure around them to ensure I'm first to the bounty. Sorry birds but I am making a bird feeder by the back door to make up for it. I need to make another such enclosure for the raspberries which look like they will be doing very this year.
The potatoes-in-tires idea worked well last season. This year I'm experimenting to see if the third tire is worth the effort. The plants begin flowering just as the second tire is being topped off, so my bet is it's not worth filling the third/top tire after that point. The harvest will tell.
One of about 12 tomatoe plants I've planted here and there.
Beans. A long-keeping heritage variety the name of which escapes me for the moment.
Two generations of lettuce. The ones in the foreground should be ready in a few weeks, while the seedlings in the background (under the bird-proof enclosure) have just been planted out.
8:12:40 PM
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Saturday, 1 December 2007
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This shot was taken with a pole cam. I duct-taped the top of a lightweight tripod onto a 10 foot tuna pole. I then attached a little digital camera, set the timer for a 15 second delay and swung it out over my garden while standing on my roof. Click-through to the photo on flickr to see all the notes showing all the things I have planted.
I have I few more shots I took while playing around the house with this idea this afternoon. It makes for some fun photos.I'll upload more soon. 
9:00:14 PM
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Saturday, 17 November 2007
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1:04:45 PM
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Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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8:00:15 PM
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Saturday, 13 October 2007
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This is the year. When I began gardening here a few years back there were no established vegetable plots to speak of. None of the ground was really ready for any kind of intensive food growing. The area in the back yard where I started out used to be used for car parking (I only found this out later) so the ground was very hard packed and mostly clay. For several seasons now I have been adding organic matter like pea-straw, shredded paper, wood and bark chips, worm-castings, and home-brewed compost to try and build it up (rather than dig-down and adding chemicals). The area now has about a foot of very good rich topsoil and it is crawling with helpful worms and other critters. With the addition of blood & bone at the start of this season I think it is set to go off this summer. The organic approach certainly takes a little more patience and time than the popular alternative of using chemicals, but it just feels right to me. The soil is where it all begins and the whole idea is to promote as much life and diversity in your soil as possible. The more popular industrial approach is the opposite. Pour on the poisons to kill of everything except the one crop you are growing. It reduces the soil to little more than a sponge to hold the fossil fuel based food we pour on. Take away the fossil fuel and you have a desert. A pest (as they are called in the chemical approach) is not something to wage a chemical war with. If you have a slug problem, instead of looking at it as too many slugs, maybe it is not enough ducks (they love eating slugs, as do some frogs). Or maybe it's a problem with aphids. instead of spraying a poison on the very plants you are planning to eat, you could plant marigolds which will attract ladybirds, which love eating black-fly aphids. Nature has the solutions and it is all about achieving a balance; something that happens naturally given enough time. I already have a well established crop of garlic and silver-beet (they don't mind the frosts up here), and in the last few weeks I have planted potatoes, beans, hearting-cabbage, Chinese cabbage, bottle gourds, grey pumpkins, hearting-lettuce, beef-steak tomatoes, and sweet-corn (lots and lots of sweetcorn; I love the stuff). My black currents and raspberries are getting completely covered in with bird netting this year. Last year they produced but the birds got the goodness first. This year they are mine. I want to make jam. One last thing before I get back out in the sunshine to do more planting... There is a Blackbird hanging around my garden this year. Nothing unusual, they are around every year and they love digging for worms in the top soil. This Blackbird is different though. I've seen him every day for the last few months and have been trying to get a photo, but with no luck so far. How do I know its the same bird? He has one pure white tail feather. I'm taking this as a good omen...
10:14:28 AM
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© Copyright
2008
Murray Neill
.
Last update:
22/06/2008; 1:43:30 p.m.
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