Matariki is our traditional, Maori New Year... So happy new year to you all :O)









Kohai already in flower


Its close to our shortest day which I guess is as good a day as any for the Southern Hemisphere to have a new year.


Little Pied Shag






Wellington From Across the Harbour


Traditionally you plant Garlic on the shortest day and harvest on the longest, but this year we planted about 6 weeks earlier.. To get a head start... Its perfectly acceptable and with our gardens poor sunlight through the winter I'm hoping we can also harvest a little earlier too... Rather than harvesting  late December its been more late Jan/Feb before the Garlics ready ..Which then is bad timing for the next plantings ....Oh to have more space ......


Chinese trainer plane  







Winters Rose






Its also a good time to start planning the vegetable borders for Spring and Summer.. Its also a good time to reflect on the previous seasons harvest ...What grew well, what didn't ..The Crops and the Flops ..Perhaps an entry in itself to look back on

Red Teal







Female Sparrow







Tree Warbler







Silver Eye





This winter the weathers been far too mild ...But its given the opportunity to get into the flower garden and look at that too .. Plants to move, plants to let go, plants to get... I'm keen to start towards a more cottage garden look...But to be honest after the past 2-3 years of neglect any look will be great...

And then of course there's the back garden the chooks now have ....I want to turn that into a green area with low growing shrubs that will provide an area for them to wander around when McD lets them out but will also look good and break up the hard lines of the chicken runs ... . We've a few more trees to cut down too to allow more light on the area....


I've had a couple of maybes that then fell through on the Job hunt... Frustrating but there you go ... Meanwhile despite the threat of redundancy I'm just getting busier...Theres some talk of me taking on yet another role ... One I'm keen to get into ... But there's a lot of humming and aaahing and politics around it all ....

I'd rather be gardening ......


Henny 










Fry







Chip














        
The 3rd Maddest Chicken Woman North Island New Zealand :O)

For which I blame my sister ......:O)

Its been a Record breaking  summer.. Longest, hottest, driest..and so on .... Towards the end a "drought' was declared and then the total water bans... The garden wilted but survived and not long after the rains came....And now its wet wet wet ......

Pictures using my very very old Iphone so a little blurry and poor quality ..... :O/




The tomatoes despite being continually having their roots dug around and exposed by a hungry blackbird family that dug through mulch and soil for the wriggly worms  produced a bumper crop....All heritage tomatoes ...Some, have been  Our gardens record breakers at 683 grams being the largest and a whole heap (small mountain) tomatoes over the 500gram weight...



The yellow one suffered the drought effects.....

Of course a small mountain of Tomatoes means we have had some work to do ... McD made Chutneys of varying types..She's done very well and the Jars we've shared have been much praised.....


Of Course that didn't make a particularly big dent in the mountain ...So we've been stewing them and making sauces and Ratatouille and the like for freezing.... McD took bags of them into her work and they were gone as soon as they arrived along with yellow courgettes and rapicante.... Homegrown heirlooms just taste better...Just look a little ugly at times :O)

This year we grew a decent crop of Egg Plants ....Wish I'd looked after them a bit more now ....  

   
 








The Spagetti melon was a self sown plant from the compost ...They are such rampant growers and even now nearing May (November northern hemisphere) its growing strong and not a hint of mildew on it .........













       
 






 Picked after the rains - It sucked up water so quickly its skin ripped....







Ugly but tasty :O)





Wellington Airport