Generosity: The other part of the how much to plant equation

I always hear about people so sick of zucchini at that certain time of year.  Stories about sneaking it into muffins and scrambling to find as many uses as possible until they’re thoroughly sick of the sight of it. Then they do the same thing later with something else – silverbeet for example. Sound familiar?

What I can’t work out is why they simply don’t give it away. Or at least trade it for something else. 90% of New Zealand’s vegetables get bought at supermarkets – they can’t tell me everyone they know has a glut of zucchinis. If that’s the truth, they need to get out and meet more people.

So my big piece of advice is grow what you can. If it’s more than you can eat then give it away. Be generous – people will love you for it. Leave big bouquets of salad leaves on people’s doorsteps. Send herb clippings to your neighbour. Take your broccoli seedlings to work. Give your left over lemons to the food bank. Take your spare beans to Seedy Sunday. Trade some of those zucchinis for some new potatoes with the gardener down the road.

I do all these things regularly and I want to do them more. I love it. It makes me feel great. It makes me feel part of my community and it stops me from feeling isolated or sad. People love it and I feel like a better person. It’s a win win win situation.

Don’t be scared of planting too much – just don’t let your extras go to waste.

Edible landscaping

A big yay for whoever planted the roadside verge in Plimmerton, near Wellington. They’ve done a fantastic job with big, colourful Swiss chard, calendula and parsley. It looks amazing and completely edible. There is the issue of a highway right next to it so I don’t know if you would actually want to eat anything out of that garden. But if this was located somewhere else, it would be a fantastic resource for the community.

I love edible plants in landscaping.

Five things that have annoyed the snot out of me lately

1 – Can it just stop raining already? We’re one month into spring and it feels like it’s rained more than the entire winter.

2 – Allergies. My nose is so red that I look like I’ve been bingeing on whiskey all winter. I’m sniveling like a terribly snively thing and pseudo-ephedrine is now one of the most controlled substances in New Zealand.

3 – National minister Gerry Brownlee is fronting an agenda to allow mining New Zealand’s conservation lands. How are more people not more upset about this? New Zealand’s green image is about to go completely undermined! They are aware that one of our major earners is tourism, right?

4 – National minister Steven Joyce has this completely divide and conquer campaign trying to get an expressway built through Kapiti and has completely torn a community apart. It’s unsustainable, it’s unrealistic and it’s unethical – putting the interests of the transport industry before all else.

5 – I continue to rage against agapanthus. Ugly, snail-ridden blights on the landscape.

There… that should do me for awhile. Now back to the pretty things…

Nuts

Yesterday, we lost a dear friend. Today, we adopted a macadamia. A hard old nut with soft and buttery centre that has a bit of a gammy ankle.

We’ve called him Alphonse and he lives at the bottom of our garden.

RIP AK Goss xx

We will miss you terribly.

Link lovage

Handy little chart of how to store your fruit and vegetables.

Amazing things you can do with 500,000 dahlias.

There are new White House kitchen garden videos.

Edible Geography has a day out with mushrooms grown in an old railway tunnel.

Victory gardens in bomb craters?

Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire now on TV

Wellington’s gone all planty

Well, I guess it is spring.

One of the things I love about this city is how green it is. Not the city city but the hills surrounding it – houses peaking out from amongst the trees, it looks incredible. Love it. And then there’s the Karori Wildlife  Sanctuary and Otari Wilton Bush that are incredible conservation areas just 10 minutes from the city centre.

Anyway, the point of all this was to let you know about DOC’s Conservation Week, the Wellington Spring Festival including the tulip displays at the Botanic Gardens. Wellington Botanic Society are exploring the mysteries of lancewood at their September talk (despite two years of trying, I haven’t made it to a single event of there’s…I will keep trying).

And don’t forget Seedy Sunday in Kapiti on September 20. A chance to swap your seeds, plants and produce and learn a little about gardening and about your local community. Brooklyn Transition Towns also have a seed swap that day.

Seedy Sunday – Kapiti – August 16

Yep, it’s that time again and we have Grant Lyon speaking about nutrient density in commercial and organic food and how to get those nutrients into your soil. He will be talking about Brix levels and refractometers and ways to get the best vegetables out of our gardens. I’ve found a bit of a basic introduction to brix here.

I hope you all have your seeds, plants or produce ready to go for the swap table. This has been such a huge success, with everybody eager to see what other people are growing and take home something different.

We’ve had a lot of press in the last month – appearing in the Kapiti Observer, the NZ Gardener mail-out and a lovely article by Hannah Zwartz in the Dom Post.  So I’m expecting a great event this Sunday. Hope to see you there!

Permaculture Design Certificate with Bill Mollison & Geoff Lawton

September 21 is my birthday. It’s also the start of a 2 week PDC course with two of the godfathers of permaculture – Bill Mollison & Geoff Lawton. Which would mean 2 weeks in Melbourne around my birthday. Can I combine all these elements? It would be dreamy. But then so would this one in Jordan…  Oh decisions I wish I could make if only I had some extra coin. Dear Universe, please provide – I promise I shall do good with it!

Food Prices Rocket

This just in from Stuff.co.nz:

Food prices rocketed by 2.8 percent last month – the biggest increase in 20 years.

Figures from Statistics New Zealand show that food prices have soared by 8.4 percent in the 12 months to June.

SNZ said that all five of the food subgroups it measures increased in June. The most significant upward contribution came from a 15 percent rise in fruit and vegetables.

Government Statistician Geoff Bascand said that cold weather had hampered growing conditions.

Within this group there were stratospheric increases in the price of lettuce (up 122.8 percent) and tomatoes (66.7 percent higher).

There’s no time like the present to start growing your own food! Come along to Seedy Sunday at the Kapiti Community Centre this Sunday, at 2pm to learn how. Get support and inspiration for your gardening. Remember to bring something for the swap table.  Mark Howell from Te Ra school will be talking about compost and explaining planting by the moon.

Jane Poynter – Biosphere 2: Ecophillia

I, like anyone else who has heard of it, am a massive fan of TED. To actually hear some of the world’s most inspirational, influential and downright clever people speak about topics for which they have a deep passion is simply phenomenal.

The next stage of TED evolution has begun with TEDx – a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. So expect a lot more content coming on any topic you may be interested in.

In this TEDx Talk, Jane Poynter tells the story of BioSphere2 and her experiences in relating to the ecosystem afterwards. Giving you a real sense of the connectivity of all things, this is a must-see for anyone interested in the natural world.

Thanks to Paul Reynolds for the heads up!

Flowers make life so much better

Flowers make me very happy and I’m very grateful to my colleagues who are a lovely bunch, for this lovely bunch. LPLL has been a little stagnant lately as I’ve been in recovery. But lying on my back in a hospital bed has started a whole lot of thought processes which will hopefully soon manifest into a whole raft of quality content and real-world planty projects.

I’m starting to come right so you’ll be hearing more and more from me over the next couple of weeks. But it may still take a little time to get fully up to speed – please keep checking your RSS.

x Anna

Ecological Lawn Care

The good doctor over at The Phytophactor has provided some very sound and reasoned advice on the care and upkeep of your lawn – or lack there of…

My particular favourite is:

Lesson 5: The plant diversity of your lawn and gardens is directly correlated with your IQ. This goes without saying, and it explains why lawn monoculturalists are so difficult to teach.

Prep’d and ready to go

I feel so gosh darn urban homesteady today. It’s been a beautiful day and I’ve spent it pottering around getting stuff done.

Off in search of a new oven this morning – depressing. It seems $2500 seems to be the going rate for a new oven that doesn’t appear to be made out of plastic. Most look like they would melt if we turned them on. I make my own bread and pizza – I need decent, heavy-duty cookware. So we’ll have to come up with plan B on that one.

Spent the rest of the day kicking it in the sun collecting more marigold seeds and gathering dill to be prepared for drying. Had a meeting to prep for the next Seedy Sunday and then began my kitchen prep for the week. I’ve made yoghurt, started some fenugreek sprouts and a rocket farm on some paper towels and a lid. Even made one for the neighbours – I’ll get them gardening eventually! Finished the day off  by cooking a big casserole in the crockpot.

So the theory is, I should be all ready set go for a busy week ahead – work, Seedy Sunday promotion, blogging and some proofreading -but I can relax knowing my kitchen is in order, even if the oven isn’t.

Welcome to the weekend

Alright, I’m prep’ed and ready go. The very first Seedy Sunday happens this very weekend. Apart from the horror of having to get up and talk in front of a group of people and the few technical difficulties we are having with the videos, I’m surprisingly calm.

So a quick list of what I’m taking for the swap table: Shoofly seeds (said to scare off white moth), Marigold seeds (the ones best for nematode control), Pumpkin Jack-be-little (they’re so cute!), Jerusalem artichokes for planting, and some organic produce – lettuce, oregano etc.

Nervous but incredibly excited about the possibilities! I’m really hoping this will be a positive step in building a community of people who share, care and promote gardening and healthy eating. If you are near Kapiti drop on by.

SHAG’d

I’m exhausted, having spent the day at the Kapiti Sustainable Home and Garden (SHAG) show promoting the heck out of Transition Towns and Seedy Sunday. It’s been a beautiful day. But now I’m a little sunburnt, a little weary, with feet a little sore. Just enough energy left to pour a well-earned wine.

Thrilled to bits about response to Seedy Sunday! Lots of very keen gardeners, a supportive mayor and great reception from other local ‘eco’ groups. Everyone I talked with really liked the idea of getting together and sharing questions and experience about local conditions, pests and practicalities. Yay – getting excited! April 19 – here we come!

How to grow your own fresh air – TED Talk 2009

Presents for NZ Plant Lovers: Grow Your Own Mushrooms Kit

Always looking for new and novel ways to garden and eat, I’m thrilled to have found these great kits fromMushroom Gourmet. Complete with really good instructions and everything you need to be growing these little blighters. I’ll let you know in about 2 weeks just how fabulous this kit is. Yum, I can’t wait! I’m super excited at being able to cross something else off my weekly shopping list.

Grow Your Own Mushrooms Kit

Presents for NZ Plant Lovers: Plant Heritage New Zealand

One of my botany heroes is Tony Foster. He’s been studying, caring for, guiding through and teaching about the New Zealand bush for over 30 years. I’m sure that this long-awaited book will be brimming with the same kind of quality content and beautiful images that his Bushman’s Friend blog and native plants site has already delivered. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Tony Foster’s Plant Heritage New Zealand

Presents for NZ Plant Lovers

It’s the time of year for list-making – lists for Christmas, lists for 2008, lists for 2009, lists, lists, lists. And of course it’s time for gifts, gifts, gifts. So my natural inclination has been to combine the two and get all festive. We’ll be looking at one a day in an attempt to solve those pre-Christmas shopping blues. So if you’re stuck for Christmas present ideas, there are some fantastic gift ideas coming up for the gardener or plant-lover in your life. Hope you love them as much as we do.

Meri kirihimete,

The LovePlantLife team xx

Have you undervalued plantlife lately?

If there was ever any doubt as to how flippin’ cool plants are – you need to watch this video. Part botany recruitment video, it’s a great overview of the study and history of botany. There are also fantastic examples of just how useful plants are.  Botany Without Borders via Bushman’s Friend