May

We had a belated mothers day tea party this year. The first Sunday in level 2 meant that my three sisters could join us so we postponed mothers day by a week. The theme of ‘Indian summer’ seemed appropriate as autumn has been lovely and mum likes the exotic look of Indian decorations and the taste of Persian influenced food with its saffron, rosewater, and spice.

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The Ohoka Market got back up and running for the last 2 Fridays of May. I had 2 days booked from before the lock down and as I miss the market I thought I’d attend for those 2 days. I had a great response from shoppers and it was so good to see people out and about again. I’ve decided not to continue through Winter but I will be back in Spring.

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We haven't done a lot of gardening this month as we finally started clearing the trimmings from the roadside trees. I say trimmings but some of the logs were 15m long and half a metre thick. We are now sorted for fire wood for quite some time. It was a bit of an eyesore for guests who came for tea or to pick up their cakes but we really wanted to wait until we had had some rain as everything was tinder dry and one spark from the chainsaw could have sent the whole lot up in flames. You can never be too careful. We had quite a serious paddock fire a few years back caused by the blades of a hay cutter hitting a stone. The grass went up in seconds and within minutes it was heading towards the neighbour’s woodlot. We lost quite a few shelter trees despite our best efforts with hoses and buckets. The fire department turned up in the nick of time and caught it just before it reached the pine forest. We had quite a scare I have to say.

We may not have done much gardening but I did manage to transplant some things to the mound in the '100 metre wood' We had some tough ferns and some hostas in pots, some agave babies which I separated from larger plants, I bought some bargain cyclamen plants, and raided Daniela's overgrown garden for bergenia and a few other bits and bobs including some nice rocks she didn't want. The ferns and hostas went under the shade of the trees but I planted the agaves by the temple on the north facing side of the bank where even the grass found it too hot and dry to thrive. No problem for tough desert agaves though. The cottage garden had rather too many bright red gladioli so I dug up half and planted them in the background against the side of the temple. I had a couple of euphorbia and a couple of rosemary cuttings so I threw them in too for good measure. All plants that like full sun and light soils. It will be interesting to see next summer if my ‘nail soup’ approach has worked. It doesn’t look like much at the moment but as always, patience is the key.

They say once you have Jerusalem artichokes you always have Jerusalem artichokes. I shifted them last year to a new raised bed in the corner of l’orto and they are still popping up in their old spot… grrrr It’s time to harvest them again, just dig them all up, keep the good ones, and plant the little ones back for next year. They are like weeds so no need to be delicate. They make great soup or puree but I also like them roasted.

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Alex fitted some flood lights to the back of the house to light the kitchen gardens... I think they look better at night!

Dad found time to put the chainsaw down and make feijoa jam. With feijoas from a friend however, because for some reason our 4 feijoa bushes haven't fruited since we moved them out of the courtyard and into the service yard. They obviously got the pip (excuse the pun) about being relegated. They need good feeding and water so maybe they have been a bit neglected. We’ll see if we can change that next season.

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Last month I shared some photos of the sky ceiling I painted about 15 years ago ~ which I hadn't quite gotten around to finishing. Well, we had a water leak. Despite cutting holes in all the surrounding rooms eventually the plumber had to cut right through the blue. By the time it's plastered over there will be quite a large bald spot, so hope I can match the colours up to blend it in... :, (

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Meanwhile back in the kitchen…

As soon as we moved into level 3 I had orders for cakes.