Forget what you've been told about 4 year old boys.

The Montessori teacher stopped me on Monday to tell me about a conversation she had with the red head.

He told her " God gave me to my Mum as a special gift. I'm so glad cos she was just the Mum I wanted"

I of course nearly cried at that. Beautiful child.

After the school fair on the weekend he came home with his sister and presented me with this:

"Mum that's a love heart for you because we're in love"

Even the weeds look good

I haven't had time to do a lot of seed raising, planning or planting this spring, but luckily for the last six years I have established many of the herbs and fruit trees we need. Radishes, kales, beetroots, lettuces etc self seeded last autumn and are now providing us with tender salads along with the addition of a few choice self seeded weeds. I've also been indulging in some local olives and oil just to top them off.
( Just need to find a source of nice local feta to barter.)
It is interesting that Motherwort and nettle are thriving in my garden at the moment. My friend who is a herbalist once suggested to me that all the plants you need for your well being at any point in time will colonise your surroundings, this might also explain why I just cannot grow some herbs despite much persistence while others rampage out of control. The nettle is being taken as tea for the iron and vitamins, while the Motherwort is helpful for woman's cycles.

Other herbs and medicines also thriving are: Elderberry and elecampane, chickweed and calendula, comfrey and hop plant, lovage, marshmallow, borage and lemon balm. Listing those herbs makes me really think about all their properties as well and how I must "make hay while the sun shines" so to speak. The warm, windy weather is quite favourable for harvesting and drying them.

The weeds are also doing a good job of "supporting" some things I have planted. The broad beans for example don't need to be staked as they are being held upright by weeds.

The planting that I have been doing has involved planting 6 telegraph cucumbers in the tunnel house, a few, "Ahem!" F1 hybrid tomatoes in the glasshouse. Ox heart tomatoes curving round the corner of the garden path leading to the blueberries. Tomatoes and basil near the water tank. Sunflowers and Phacelia by the neighbours fence with spinach and hearting lettuces poked in the shady wet spots. The onions were a disaster, I think they were too little when I planted them out so only half have taken off. Peas look good, a few flowers showing. The red head has a very close eye on the strawberry patch after a lesson in why we don't pick the strawberry flowers for Mum, a few weeks ago.

One row of spuds in, one more trench dug and lined with comfrey.

Hope to get the Purple Cherokee tomatoes planted in the tunnel house this weekend as well as the cannelinni beans and gherkins outdoors. Have four zucchini in but have been a bit slow to plant the pumpkins and forgot to buy corn seed altogether. Will watch a friends experiment with saving corn seeds this summer with interest.

If any Kiwi's want motherwort roots, sunflower seeds or cannelinni seeds drop me a line.

I'll happily pop some in the post.

A Breath

Here goes, .............. a long deep breath before summer.


Pj needs new tap shoes and her term fees paid. Practice, practice, practice before the end of year concert.


Skatey will be off to school camp on his birthday. Trapping possums, eeling, orienteering, camp fire cooking and other adventures.

The school book and Country Fair. Fundraising for the solar heating on the new pool.


The teen will sit his exams and go on summer holiday early.

Grandpa will need help picking strawberries and peas at the farm.


I will sew for markets and events and grow a garden full of beautiful food.


Pj asked tonight " Mum when will we have raspberries and cream after dinner?"

Our future is uncertain here. But I can grow sprouts and herbs anywhere.

Mum gave me a plaque which I like:

"No matter what

No matter where

It's always home

If love is there."

Breathe

Time out

I've realised that techniques I learned for observing children at Playcentre, come automatically

now and help me with interpreting what my own children need. "Notice, Recognise, Respond" is the little phrase that runs though my head.

The other day I noticed one of my children seemed upset. Recently I have learned myself that a change of scene, especially a walk to get the blood pumping can really help put things in perspective. I had no trouble convincing the other three adventurers to come. A lovely walk to a lookout through the beech trees cliff side and over to the next beach for a play, where the first thing we saw was a perfect tree for climbing. Of course once skatey jumped out of it the others wanted to as well. This is probably why I end up at the hospital with kids with broken bones. Thankfully not this time. Off to the store for an ice block and a cheered up car load of kids on the way home.

Saved seed verses bought

It's interesting to note how my own saved strain of sunflower seeds compared to a packet of bought seed of the same variety. I've been saving my strain for about 6 years. This year I only had quite a small amount of saved seed to plant because I didn't do enough collecting in Autumn, so I bought a packet. I sowed one tray from the bought seed and one tray of my own seed on the same day in the same potting mix and raised them under identical conditions.

So there they are sitting next to each other, my seed on the right is growing bigger and healthier looking plants. I am very encouraged.

Just wanted to show this good recycling idea too. We buy old ironing boards from the recycling centre for $2 each. Because they fold down flat they are ideal as market tables in summer, with a cloth over them you'd never know. Then when they get to tatty for that I use them as potting tables around the garden and in the glasshouse.

My plant tags are cut up icecream containers or venetian blinds.

Spring Shift

It sneaks up. I don't mean mother nature's changes, I mean the energy levels and optimism I feel within myself, come spring. For about a month the garden has shown signs of spring. Though only in the last few days have I felt the energy I need to keep up with the season. Instead of lighting the fire and sitting near it to knit, I go straight outside to collect the eggs, open the glasshouse, check growth, frost and bugs. Washing dries the same day it is hung on the line and grass grows in a week.

Meanwhile....

We're in the middle of school holidays as well. This is what the teen has been doing. His homework folder is out but I'm fairly certain from the earphones, pocket knife and dreadful computer game case that NCEA English is not at the top of his priorities.

I've had to focus on a few things I'd rather not be doing, so my Mum took a few days off work to look after the children. I came home the other day to find they'd started making some puppets, an idea from a Living crafts magazine. It's so lovely to have a Mum who wants to do things with her Grandchildren, they adore her for this. So does the dog who walks around looking for her when she leaves.

I managed to put the finishing touches on a bag last night, I'm off to put it in the shop after a couple of very much appreciated purchases last week.

Creature creations

We've been inspired by the monster hats and t shirts we've seen on felt lately. I was fiddling around drawing some designs for leather purses and bootee patterns when the red head took an interest in what I was doing. He whipped off with my pen while I was cutting and produced for me some terrific designs with instructions "make me a t shirt Mum"

How could I possibly refuse? His designs had oodles more character than mine and he needs some new gear for the warmer weather especially since he had two shirts cut off him the other night to get his cast on.

The first of many to come I suspect, he proudly wore this one to Montessori today.

Not Again

Trampoline this time. The red head snapped both bones in his lower arm last night. Skatey had been helping him to flip!!!!!!! Red said "I cracked my bloody bones Mum"
Very brave at the hospital, worse break this time, but got it x rayed quicker.
I missed the Playcentre AGM which I had been looking forward to for awhile as it would have been my last one, having gone to most of them over the last 16 years.

C'mon let's go have a walk round the garden. It rained yesterday.

Heaps of buds getting ready to burst on the Nashi, one of my best performing espaliers. It's pollinated by neighbouring pears.

Yay the asparagus is up, might be having it for tea tomorrow night. I like it wrapped in Proscuttio or lightly steamed then in with my sushi. Better pull out those weeds, they'll take off in this weather.I'm excited about this little purple one. I grew these form seeds three years ago so I get to cut and taste some of these this year.
Have you been saving your egg shells all winter? They're doing the trick for me to keep the slugs

off my sweet peas.

I haven't got many seedlings going yet. The purple Cherokee tomatoes I saved have had a great strike, but of my Money makers only two came up so far. Had a good strike of the Alderman tall Peas. Waiting for sunflowers, peppers, cleome, phacelia, basil, zucchinis and cucumbers to come up. Protecting them all from frost in the glasshouse. Haven't even thought about getting the spuds in yet or kumara, but have popped in a few onions and carrots.
Kids are looking foward to strawberries, plums and raspberries, cherry tomatoes and corn too I imagine.

Friday at last

PJ and I bought some delicious local apples for this weekend's baking. She's been taking about baking again all week and how could I refuse after she worked so hard to achieve "high honours" in her tap dancing exam this week.
The red head stayed home most of the week with me after his eardrum burst on Tuesday night. It was just as well he hadn't gone to see the Parachute band with the other kids that night. His earache came on so quickly but his fever and pain depreciated equally as quickly once the ear burst. So now I add burst eardrum to my long list of parenting experience. Gotta love it!

Thanks for the kind comments and emails I received after my last post. The blog community have been a lifeline at times over the past few years. Please accept this as a personal Thank You.



I understand too that my less than " perfect" relationship status got me dropped off a few peoples favorites as well. Walk a mile in my shoes before you judge me is all I ask.