November has been a month of adjusting to very hot temperatures during the day as we move towards summer. We are starting our days early to get our summer seedlings in the ground before it gets too hot, not just for the plants but also for us. Full immersion in the stream is often required before lunch.
We notice how quickly our gardens dry up, which is mainly due to the fact that we are located on a sandbank. There’s a lot of thought put into drought resilience, both in our methods and choice of plants. As we plant more perennials it will be interesting to see if the the shade and root structure they provide alters how things grow and how our soils
hold moisture. There are two ceramic pots dug into the soil of the gardens that slowly release water into the soil. This is called an olla.
The gardens are looking lush and are thriving with the spring weather. We were gifted with a flush of beautiful oyster mushrooms. As we never know when they will come up, it is alway a great joy to harvest these. Our lovely chickens, Zena and Prue, are also enjoying the spring weather and have laid many eggs. They are happy free range chickens and like to keep their nests hidden, but when we do find them we’ve got eggs galore!
This month our Mara Tamaraki has been visited by the Piha Preschool children again, after a long break. They hung wonderful wire and bead decorations in the trees and gifted gorgeous Hungry Caterpillar mosaic tiles to the garden. Because of the Covid regulations they had to visit independently but there were lovely letters exchanged between us through our Mara Tamariki letterbox.
The kumara tipu we raised a few months ago in buckets with horse manure, straw and sand were finally ready to be planted. We prepared compost rich beds for them and planted their shoots individually, with their leaves towards the east, which is said to insure the best harvest.
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