Diggin Deep... Dirt Flyin! Seed sowing begins...

Im delighted by the weather.
However as I write, it has changed drastically, the wind is blowing furiously out there and Im picking there will be rain to follow. But today was gorgeous... Oh wait, Ive sent Mr 12 out to check. No - no wet stuff, very cold though, and bright skies...It has to clear up quick cos the past couple of days have been awesome.

Blue Borage

Heading back into the garden has meant weeding ensued everywhere. Ive dug, weeded and shovelled, composted, weeded some more, and been covered from head to foot with goodness knows what - and I loved it :)
I can barely walk for sore muscles, of course, but its done.

Starting off... 

The final dose of horse poo has gone into the compost, the raggle-taggle ends of the spent tansy, echinacea (*Magnus*), stevia, borage costmary and anise hyssop are cut back, and Ive seen the first Spring bulbs burst into flower. Theyre brave. Im sure there will be a back-lash of cold stuff still to come, say mid September - lots of wet weather - is that Spring showers maybe?

Last year we had a couple of drops of snow about then too, didnt we? I cant remember exactly, but I know once I mention the seeds Ive sprinkled, the weather will hone in...

The lettuces will grow through the year and this year I have lots -  I have a mix of  Ice King, Canasta, Frilled Cos, Buttercrunch and Danyelle - oh and a red one - Red Flame.
I cant wait for the mesculun to spring up again. Missy cant wait for the new carrot seeds to arrive. Ive dug out all of our last years varieties (St Valery, Nutri Red and Paris Ball), and the onions (Purplette, Borettana and a bunching onion) will follow tomorrow.

*Pams Choice*



Ive found so many precious little sprigs of this and that throughout the garden. 

I sprinkled foxglove seed last year - *Pams Choice* and they have only now made themselves known. Theres red opium poppies self-sown everywhere, but thats hardly surprising given the number we had last year and they have a lot of seed per head, the bumblebees love them! and Im delighted that the Echinacea has successfully split into five parts, so I will encourage the honey bees everywhere with some pretty pink shows. I would like to add more blue borage to that, some orange and yellow calendulas that self seed, red french marigold for companion gardening, and ... oh so many other plants. I want drifts of colour this year. I worked on the vegetable garden last year, this year Im encouraging the flowers for bees, but also for picking.

Calendula - Pot Marigold

Berry Berry Nice... Oranges & lemons...
Lots of strawberries have self-sown, jumping from clump to clump as they do. Im quite fond of them, as there doesnt seem to be a lot to weed around them. We have some nodules on the sticks that are rumoured to be black currant bushes so I think thats great news...
We have three of those, and four blue berries. A couple of red currants and a zillion boysenberries and raspberries... Im cutting back some of the canes, so I can hand them on to others to enjoy and we can avoid looking like a bramble farm. The boysenberries take no prisoners. I keep reminding myself its the berries I want, so I have to bear with the scratches,  and boy they do scratch!

Hazelnut trees with buds!

I think the most astonishing thing Ive seen, is under cover, the mandarin fruits have coloured up, making a pretty show. We got 12 off one, and have about another 7 to come off another tree. Theyre rather small, but taste ok. Success :) The oranges are still small, and rather hard, and Im going to remove them so the goodness can go back into the plants. The lemons have got through the winter so far, so good, and Im pleased to say, theyre fruiting well. I have seen flowers on two of them. Yahoo!

Have a whole new pile of firewood to chop. Im sure thats what I have children for, no?
Oddly enough, theyre all busy when I mention firewood, so Im getting a man in to do it *evil grin*.
He may or may not know about it yet. Ok, so he will know once he reads this.

Leeks

Ive had a big crop of swedes this year, although I wasnt sure what it was that I was growing. Im not sure Im going to be so successful giving them away, as noone likes them. To some, theyre cattle fodder, to others, they have bad memories of how they were given swedes as a child - usually the method of cooking them was what was awful. Its a shame, the humble swede is a good base for stew or soup. Handy to have IF YOU LIKE THEM, not so easy to give away if you dont :)
The lesson there is - Grow what you will use. Got that. Tick!


Well thats about it from me for now...
Im going to go out and see if I can find my washing. Im picking it will be about three blocks away now with that wind.

Love to You
E Butterfly
XXXXXXX

The History of Carrots
- The carrot museum... Yes, theres a museum :)

QUICK POST - A LINK about the secret food code conspiracy

Just thought you might like this to read...
More about the THE SECRET FOOD CODE CONSPIRACY -
If we cannot trust in our Government to make good decisions for us, WHO will make them?
WE MUST NOT LET THIS BILL BE PASSED.

FOOD BILL - Dont let this one past or be passed!!

What a grey day. Cant believe its Friday already though?
We have been up since the Sparrows got up this morning. Its pleasant enough out there, and its watering day!
I think we all went to bed and crashed with exhaustion. We had a very long, rocky aftershock just before bed time, so the little guy (big 11yr old guy) slept nearby. It was a rude shock for us both, and insulted us by being just a 4.3 or something *small* but it just kept going, and was quite noisy. A good sleep was had by all though, eventually!
Ive been sorting out my seeds, and what to keep, what not to. The thing is, what do you do with seeds you no longer require? There seems to be nowhere you can give them to... I have visions of sweeping along the riverside, seeds pouring from my hands, but Im picking they ll know soon enough,. most of my surplus are lettuce, capsicums and pumpkins. The area could do with lots of these things growing freely, there are plenty of people who need food. I have asked at food banks, but apparently people want canned foods and perishables, not good healthy seeds that could give them so much more...

I was plodding through an exercise yesterday with my 11 yr old son.

Heres what we worked out...

ONE average sized pumpkin plant can grow an average of 3 or 4 pumpkins ...

One pumpkin makes pumpkin soup for an average of 3-4 people, which may stretch to say, averagely (get it?) two meals, per person?

That ONE pumpkin, holds within its skin, an average of maybe 150-200 seeds.
You dont use the seeds for the soup.
Save the seeds.

You can hull them, and make pumpkin seeds that you can then roast to snack on - full of nutrition
ORYou can dry them, and plant them.

That 150-200 seeds can feed a lot of people!!!! Or, they can feed livestock! Or you can harvest and onsell, or give away, or use for Halloween...Or sell seed...

Arent pumpkins awesome?

The same applies to most vegetables.

Their inner goodness is more than what you eat, it is what you can do to help feed yourself and others with what lies inside!

This is why it is important we stop the Government and other large businesses in NZ from taking away our rights, our freedom as Market Gardeners, Small Garden Business Operators, and Home Gardeners who may sell what they grow, and save seeds to finance their own Vegetable and Fruit Gardens - and have done for years, it is a way of life!.

THIS FOOD BILL has the potential to Stop us being able to maintain and supplement our food supply, and help others.

We simply cannot allow this to happen

GET IN QUICK because this bill WILL be passed if we do not make a statement and register our disapproval and non compliance to this bill!

HERE - READ FOR YOURSELF - THE FOOD BILL

And the Government cant believe the public backlash? - ARTICLE HERE

So - What can we do? START HERE - Petition

Questions and Answers on the Food Safety Website - READ HERE

OOOOBY says TIME FOR ACTION - READ HERE, Join this Gardening Community!

“Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the subjects of it.

The history of liberty is a history of limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.”
–Woodrow Wilson

FAMILY INTEGRITY WEBSITE has something to say about it HERE

___________________________________

MY SOAP BOX or rather, My thoughts on this ----

In a world where the reality is that sometimes, we must live by our wits, our intelligence and our clever cunning because noone else will do things for us, noone else will pay our way, or give us solutions, in a world where Money is King, Big Business Rules, Possessions are Important and Brands and Labels seem to define Us -  we simply cannot afford to lose the right to grow our own food.
For some of us - The Battlers, The Ones who Just Get Along,  the Living Simply folk, who live close to, or within poverty, we need to be able to feed our families this way.
If you dont know how to garden, but you want to learn,  please ask. Keep asking!
There are plenty of people who will show you the way.
As I have stated, I have seeds Im willing - nay, KEEN to give away, I have learnt how to Garden and Im prepared to show people how - ASK me :)

If you dont live in Christchurch, we can email and I can send seeds to you. ASK!
THERE ARE COMMUNITY GARDENS IN CHRISTCHURCH!For a small donation of your time, you can taste the benefits!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

HERES ONE -
New Brighton Community Gardens
136 Shaw Ave New Brighton Christchurch 8083  - WEBSITE NEEDS UPDATING but here it isand Im investigating news of another community garden in Linwood, behind the temporary Library building on Linwood Avenue...

NEW BRIGHTON NEWS -  The Market has reopened!


Well, now the rain has set in. I do not have to water, and the plants will be loving it!
Sometimes my blog starts as one thing, and it finishes as another and today is a classic example.
Im no activist. I simply recognize that we need our voices to be heard, for shame if we lose a fundemental right that other countries have - growing food at home. No, I hear you - Im being extreme. But honestly - do YOU want to read 800-odd  pages of legislation, understand it all completely, and do so in less than a month? ANYTHING that is 800 pages in length is not insignificant, therefore it needs a sturdy reaction.
Why was this kept quiet? ... There was an election to run. They seemingly didnt want it well-known that this bill was even being contemplated.
Actions are better than words.
Id march and show my opposition to this. It stands in the way of my lifestyle. My health, my welfare. I use my food to live...
Id march! Would you? Put yourself out there and show people you care.

Ok, signing off now.

Time to go and ground myself with some housework :)

Love, Light and Happy Gardening!
E BUTTERFLY
XXXXXXXXX

Gardening - Keeping Food Growing Legal...

Those who know me...really know me, know that Im not a political person. But Im loyal, and what I love, I love intensely... And this week I was shown an article about legislation that could change Gardening in NZ forever, thanks to large corporations and big business who want *more than their fair share*.... I dont like the world we are becoming - without empathy and compassion, and things being *reasonably fair*, we become less than what we should be, and our lives become small and narrow.
We SHOULD help each other - care for the welfare of one another, and if we dont, what are we becoming and why are we here?... I digress... here it is...
Here it is, the Food Bill that is being talked about on almost every NZ Gardening Forum I subscribe to!
LINK
It scares me to think that this could come to affect us all - from seed banks, florists, markets, smaller growers, organic growers, private gardeners who swap seeds and produce, bartering, trading, selling from the gate, and so much more restrictions and registrations that cost, to be placed upon Gardeners and small gardening businesses - typical of our government controlling the smaller businesses so that Big Business line their pockets - politicians and businessmen alike... the ones who toil and tend their own gardens may lose basic control of that which they grow... Fair? Of course not - but typical of the negative, aggressive and ego-driven, materialistic world that ours is shaping up to be.

Threads like this one HERE and HERE show the fear and stress that these things bring about. This makes it easier to see why these things are passed and agreed upon without intervention - the little people prove to be easy to defeat and have a lot less to bargain with than big business...

Articles like THIS about losing the right to save seed makes me cringe. Im a newbie to the whole gardening world, and I love that I have the freedom to grow what I like where I can... We have to be able to produce food to share - if not, the poor die out, and the richer become even more so.

The silly thing is - SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has to grow the food... PICK ME :-)
 
And an update from Sue Kedgeley - HERE

THOUGHTS to end...
Is this a bill that was to be passed through parliament whilst our country congratulates itself on winning the Rugby World Cup?
Or was the timing just coincidental.
Dont believe it - nothing to do with beaucracy is coincidental. Well well, Gardeners - gather and discuss, and  as we go to the polls soon -
we need to vote to save our lifestyle and our food!


Im unhappy about this, and I hope that this bill will be thrown out. Im sure I will write about this again, and it leaves a terrible taste in my mouth... or is that the cold coffee I have at the bottom of my cup? :)

Contemplative In Christchurch,
Love to You,
E BUTTERFLY