Wow! Isn’t it insane how this last month has just flown by? Sorry this is later than expected but we are on again for this weekend. I hope you’ve got all your leftover seeds or seedlings ready to swap? Maybe you have some tasty treats already coming out of your garden?

Don’t let your veges dry out this year! Drought-proof your vege garden!
This month, water maestro Ben Thompson will be answering all your questions and give a demonstration on how to make a rain bale on the cheap. Water storage is invaluable for the Kapiti garden. Make sure you’re ready with these great tips from Ben.

This will be the last Seedy Sunday for 2009. But we promise to return with more vim and vigour next January – same time, same location.

Seedy Sunday
November 15, 2pm
Paraparaumu Memorial Hall
Tutanekai St

Those talented cats over at Oatmeal have put together this fab graphic 15 (ish) Things Worth Knowing About Coffee.  So for a Friday treat, learn how the giddy world of coffee is related to dancing goats, bean belts, Islam, George Washington, American GIs and brain chemicals that wanna party.

Just in time for another cup of coffee!

(thanks _june for the tip-off)

Things I learnt about paeonies today:

• The peony rose will guzzle through water like no other cut flower. A vase with only five peony stems can drink up to one litre of water every day.
• In New Zealand, they’re only in season for about 10 weeks and that window of opportunity is here.
• This feathered rose needs a frost to grow so they are mainly grown in cooler climates. A cold frost will help set the buds in the ground, encourage stem strength, and even affects the colour quality of the peony.
• If you want your cut peonies to open sooner, put them in warm water or in an area that gets lots of sun. If you prefer your peonies to last the distance, keep them in cold water and place them in cooler areas.
• Originally from China, the peony has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese art as a symbol of riches and honour.
• For the Japanese, peonies are a common subject in male tattoos. Used in conjunction with other motifs, connoting elements of strength such as tigers and dragons, peonies became a masculine symbol associated with a ‘bad boy’ attitude.
• And the New Zealand Paeony Society has a new website with great peony cultivation information, upcoming events and links.

Plankton is the key to ocean life.  Phytoplankton convert energy from sunlight into food for tiny animals called zooplankton. These in turn become food for larger animals.

They also provide nearly half of the earth’s atmospheric oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When they die, they sink to the ocean floor where the carbon they took from the atmosphere is stored for thousands of years.

In spring, more light penetrates the surface waters and phytoplankton grow rapidly, reaching a peak in New Zealand around September and October.

Off the east coast of New Zealand, cold rivers of water that have branched off from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flow north past the South Island and converge with warmer waters flowing south past the North Island. The surface waters of this meeting place are New Zealand’s most biologically productive. This image of the area on October 25, 2009, from the MODIS sensor on NASA’s Aqua satellite shows the basis for that productivity: large blooms of plantlike organisms called phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton use chlorophyll and other pigments to absorb sunlight for photosynthesis, and when they grow in large numbers, they change the way the ocean surface reflects sunlight. Caught up in eddies and currents, the blooms create intricate patterns of blues and greens that spread across thousands of square kilometers of the sea surface.

Photo Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response/Jeff Schmaltz. Caption Credit: Rebecca Lindsey, NASA Earth Observatory.

To learn more about New Zealand’s plankton, visit Te Ara – the encyclopaedia of New Zealand

To me, seeds are mini miracles. When I hold them in my hand I get terribly excited by all that potential inside them. And eating something that grew from a little seed I planted and nurtured is simply incredible.

Some seeds themselves taste delicious and some just look beautiful – some are both. I have twenty varieties of different beans at home and no two look the same – spotted, speckled, stripey and squiggly in a range of colours, shapes and sizes.

If you’ve never dabbled in the wonders of seeds, beans are a great place to start. They’re keen beans, they grow fast. Satisfyingly so. They’re easy – soak them overnight in some warm water, then direct sow them into your garden keeping them moist. In seven days you should see them coming up. Be vigilant for slugs though!

Magic beans

Our modern beans are derived from plants that once grew wild in Central and South America. But we’ve been cultivating beans for ages and archaeologists have found traces of domesticated types that date back more than 7000 years. Heirloom gardeners have hundreds of varieties of bean to choose from. So I’m just going to focus on a few of my favourite shelled beans, all available in New Zealand, some of which have been available through Seedy Sunday.

Borlotto fire tongue –  My first main crop of beans this year will be these little Italian wonders. They’re bushy so don’t need to be staked. The pods look stunning when they’re growing and they taste delicious. I didn’t manage to dry any last year for winter reserves because we ate them all. This year, I’ve planted more, a lot more. You can buy them through Kings Seeds.

Selugia — These gorgeous little beans are almost black in colour with lots of brown speckles. They are said to have been brought to NZ by a serviceman returning from WW2. Really tasty, they can be eaten fresh or dried. They’re a tall variety with very heavy cropping. These beans are available through the Koanga Institute.

Bob’s bean — Another Koanga bean said to have returned in the socks of another returned soldier who had been hiding in the hills in Italy after having escaped from a POW camp. He couldn’t return home without these beans that had become a much loved part of his diet. You can eat them green when young or they can be dried. A tall variety with heavy crops.

Holy beans –  This heavy cropping, tall bean has been in NZ for a long time, with a wonderful story to go with it. According to legend, a French pastor hid his church treasures underground during WW1. In order to protect the treasures even better, he planted beans on top of them. When the beans were ripe for picking and being shelled the pastor discovered a monstrance on the beans. They are white and very round with the marking that looks to me like a little painted angel.

How much should I sow?

Lots. If you’re not going to eat them – give them away. Save some for seed and grow more next year or bring them to Seedy Sunday. If you are going to save beans for seed only grow one variety at once or stagger them so that only one type is flowering at once. You don’t want your beautiful heirloom varieties cross-pollinating. If you want advice or help with your heirloom beans, you can contact me at loveplantlife(at)gmail(dot)com

The Great Bean Hunt

The Central Tree Crops Research Trust has undertaken a project to find all the different varieties of heirloom beans growing in New Zealand. These old and quite often rare seeds will have superior nutritional properties when compared to modern hybrid varieties. These seeds are important for the medicinal health of current and future generations and need to be preserved. CTCRT want to find these varieties and save them and distribute them to the community.

If anyone in New Zealand has an old variety of bean that they would like to share (whether it be a climbing bean, a Runner, a dwarf or a Broad bean), please contact: Central Tree Crops Research Trust, PO Box 4088, Wanganui 4541 beanlovers(at)xtra(dot)co(dot)nz

So what’s this Seedy Sunday?

Seedy Sundays are getting local gardeners together to form a community of experienced and successful food growers. By building the capability of local gardeners, sharing resources and swapping seeds, we hope to become more self-reliant and better caretakers of our place on ‘Nature Coast’.

As well as guest speakers, Seedy Sunday facilitates the exchange of fruit, vegetables, grains, native plants and generally all useful plants. Seedy Sunday meetings happen on the third Sunday of each month at the Paraparaumu Memorial Hall, Tutanekai St. For more information please contact Anna at loveplantlife(at)gmail(dot)com

Article by Anna Butterfield. This article appears in the November issue of the Kapiti Coast District Council’s sustainability e-zine Ontoit.

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.

Rachel asked me how I knew how much of anything to plant. We were talking about how all the published advice we had both seen on the topic was, work out what you eat each week and start from there ie 2 lettuce per week, plant 2 every week.

But neither of us plan our meals with that much detail. I plan mine around what I have available or how I feel at a particular time. I’m a big foodie, I love food and working around these things is just the way I like to do it. Can’t think of anything worse than coming up with weekly meal plans. Screw it, I’m just not that organised, nor want to be.

My rule of thumb for planting amounts was taught to me by my parents and applies to any farming – plan for 30% stock loss.

30% has served me well. Punnet of 6 seedlings, I’m likely to lose a plant or two and/or have them some under-perform – be it by pestilence, disease, weather or forgetting about them (yeah, it does happen). If I plant just one bean seedling, chances are I won’t see anything off it. So, I plant 3 instead.

For seed sowing I add another 30%. I plant 30% more seed then I expect to grow. Some won’t germinate, some will be pricked out and some I will lose by natural attrition.

This isn’t a scientific formula but it has done me well over the years. How do you plan how much to grow in your garden? Do you plan everything in detail? Do you do complex maths equations based on dietary requirements? Let us know in the comments.

I ache. My hands, my arms, my legs, my torso, my ass, my toenails  – they all hurt. I have so much dirt encrusted in my hands and face,  it may be mistaken for a tan when I return to work tomorrow. If I make it that far. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch the last two nights and been put to bed by 9.30pm.  But I’ve managed to get a heap done.

Everything is looking amazing. The raised beds are teeming with plantlife.  Seeds, seedlings and sprouts adorn nearly every surface of the house. And best of all we have a new forest garden…but more on that when I get my strength back. Roast chicken dinner with friends should help. And tomorrow it’s back to work, slowly.

Cavolo nero, lettuce and purple sage all getting along really well

Globe artichokes mixed with verbenas, heliotrope & pretty blue flowers

A couple of square metres of barley growing in an old vegetable bed

Chives, rocket, marigolds, alyssum and carrots are living it up in the raised beds

Separate mesclun bed is about to give us the first crop - 2 more coming

I finally got the strawberries into their proper bed with some pyrethrum daisies

A lot of green leafy things are coming out of the main vege bed with garlic at the end

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.

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…