Summer has arrived and the festive season has started. It’s becoming a tradition to make flower wreaths at this time of the year. As there are so many dried grasses, bunny tails and flowers to be found it’s the perfect time to make decorations for Christmas. We use branches from the willow tree and pohuehue [muehlenbeckia vine] to form circles, which we then decorate with anything beautiful we can find, like nikau flowers, dried poppies, ferns and herbs.
Summer Solstice is celebrated by making flower crowns, river swims and harvesting our garlic. Planting garlic is really easy, and great to have as a companion plant in the garden as it deters many pests. A garlic clove is planted on the shortest day of the year and the bulb harvested on the longest, easy to remember!
Flowers like hibiscus, scabiosa, gladioli and violas are showing off. Nasturtiums have started to form their seeds, which we turn into a pickle, they taste a bit like capers.
The gardens have a hard time holding their moisture with the summer heat and worms are hard to be found. We notice that the areas where we added the most organic material and mulch are much happier.
A new exciting plant was introduced to the garden this month, peanuts! Our new wwoofer, Rose, has successfully grown seedlings from organic peanuts. Many years ago there was a Chinese gardener cultivating peanuts on this land, so we are excited to see if these plants will give us a good harvest.
Our beans stalks are reaching high into the skies and are starting to dangle down with the large amount of beans forming on them. This summer we have added flexible bamboo poles next to each bean seedling instead of making teepees. Once the bean wraps its way all around it, it will start to dangle down and it will be easier to harvest.
