An end and a new beginning

We have started our packing. As I wander through the garden I think about all the things I will miss about it.
I will miss the all year round fruit, veg and flowers. It seems no matter when we show up here there is always something to harvest and some thing in bloom.
I'll miss the outdoor shower in the garden that we use in preference to the indoor shower.
I'll miss the chooks and their eggs, and the fish we catch so easily from the river.
I'll miss the sound of the morepork owl at night, the wakeup call of the magpies in the morning and the raspy growl of the possums and the song of the tui and bellbirds.
I'll miss this perfect climate that means I can always go out into the garden to work, harvest or enjoy.
I will not miss the non stop growth of weeds-go away for a week and come back to a hayfield. I'll definitely not miss the kikuyu grass- it grows meters every week,invades the gardens and takes over. It does make a nice lawn though.
I'll not miss the ants that take over the house, or the quail that seem to have found that my garden is the perfect restaurant for them and proceed to eat and dig their way through the crops before I do.

I'll definitely miss the vases of flowers I can produce any time of the year.

I'll miss the huge range of veges I can grow here all year round.

I'll miss the rose from my mums garden. It blooms constantly and has the most divine perfume.

The exciting news is that we have bought a property on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. This is a small island at the north end of Vancouver Island. We tell people to drive to the ends of the earth and take a ferry.
It is on a 1/3 of an acre across the road from the sea so lots of opportunities to garden. There will be lots to learn about this new climate, but I am looking forward to the challenge and in my mind have already started planting.

Hot Chilli Sauce

We have mountains of chillies. The chillies we grow here seem to be reliably perennial. We have had these plants on the go now for 3 yrs. This year they produced a huge crop.
We have enough dried chilli so it was time to try something new.
After assessing what ingredients we had available we decided to make a batch of sambal or chilli sauce.

Our chilli plants are huge-almost 8 ft tall and loaded with fruit.

The finished sambal.

 The recipe:

It was very hot, but yummy. We tried a tsp in a stir fry and that was about perfect. We are thinking that with a dsp of curry powder in it, it would make a great curry paste.
Also I am thinking that a tsp in cream cheese may make a delicious dip.
I think we will be making more of this and taking it with us when we leave NZ.

Going to seed

At this time of the season- end of summer here in New Zealand there is often a feeling of things coming to an end as the veges and the flowers in the garden come to the end of their life and start going to seed.
However in that end is a new beginning. Seed for the next  year or season.
In my garden lots of the veg are making seed. Some of it will be collected and saved and some will be allowed to drop in the garden and come up wherever and whenever the opportunity is to its liking.

The seed in this summer squash will probably be ready to harvest in a few weeks as soon as the outer skin becomes hard.
Left in the garden it may even self seed next summer.

The basil seed will need to be saved until it warms up again next summer. In a few weeks as the seed matures I can start collecting it.

 I don't bother to save the seed from the calendula. It is happy to drop the seed and start to produce seedlings no matter the season. There always seem to be calendula flowers in odd corners and on the paths.

This pea is ready to drop its seed on the ground and will probably sprout and grow quite happily all winter. If the birds don't discover the seeds first that is.

 Beans on the other hand will need to be saved as they mature and dry on the vine. They can be saved and eaten as dried beans over the winter. It is just a matter of not eating all the seed and saving some to start again next spring.

The amaranth is looking beautiful right now. In a few weeks I'll harvest it and use the seeds in my bread. Some of the seed will be saved for next year.

With the recent heat and dry spell most of my lettuce has gone to seed. Some of it can be harvested in a few weeks, but the plants can also be left in the garden and they will happily self seed around the garden providing baby lettuce over the winter months and into the next spring.

This parsley will also self seed and provide a perpetual parsley patch in the garden with little or no work.

This year I won't be saving so much of the seed as we are leaving New Zealand, but I will leave the seeding plants in the garden to provide the new owners with a variety of self sown veges and flowers.

Summers end

Summer is not over yet but the signs are there that it is slowly coming to an end.
The days are shorter, and the veges in the garden have slowed down. This weekend we got our first decent rain in 2 weeks.
Though the fridge is still over flowing with zucchini's, cucumbers and beans, and the fruit bowl is full of tomatoes.
The lettuce are starting to go to seed- even the ones sown late in the season-probably due to the relentless heat and lack of water. The amaranth are looking glorious as their flower heads mature and the Chinese cabbage are heading up nicely.
The early apples have made way for the mid season apples. The green grapes have all but finished but the purple grapes are in the process of ripening. The last wave of peaches-Black Boy and Golden Queen are ripening as are the figs. I ate the first of the kiwi fruit that fell on the ground though the rest have a ways to go before ripening.
Most of my flowers seem to have given up though the cosmos that were planted late are starting to flower as are the marigolds and Japanese anemones.
The flowers that are really coming into their own, add great colour in the garden and make great cut flowers are the zinnias and naked lady lilies.

Garden inspired art

As we head into late summer, the days are starting to shorten. The changes can be felt in the air. it is still hot and dry but the light is softer and the heat not as intense.
The chooks seem to be feeling it as well. They seem to be taking turns taking the day off. We are getting less eggs, which isn't such a bad thing as I was having trouble finding uses for the 4 a day I was getting.
The end of summer fruit is coming into its own. The heady aroma of ripening grapes sweeps me away whenever I walk out on the deck . For some reason the possums and birds have left these alone. I guess there are enough ripening on the rest of the property that they are not bothered to brave getting close to the house.
Yesterday the first fig got eaten. it didn't have the soft over ripe sweetness that I love, but it was certainly an indication that that wasn't far off.
It seems strange not to have to organize the garden and produce for the future. Not to harvest the dried beans to eat, not to make jam from the lovely peaches or plums and not to save seeds for next season.
But instead I have taken inspiration from the garden to try and capture a few moments of the beauty that surrounds me here.

Leaving Paradise

OMG it looks like we may be leaving New Zealand.
We've had an idea recently that we are just too spread out in the world. Trying to live in Canada, Thailand and New Zealand was starting to be too much like work. (Ya think?)
So a week or so ago we mentioned to a neighbor that we were thinking....thinking mind you....of selling our house here. Two hours later the daughter of another neighbor was falling in love with the house and wanted to buy it. Sooo it looks like we have a deal and some time in the next 3 months we are out of here.
We certainly have mixed feelings about it all. Yes we are ready to move on to the next adventure, but we have created a beautiful place here, doing all the work ourselves, and will be leaving a little of our heart behind.

Summer surfeit

Mid summer and my vege garden is finally coming into its own. After a late start I now find myself struggling to find enough space in the fridge or enough friends to give the excess to.
Lots of beans, cucs, zuchs, pac choi and tomatoes.
Then there are all the eggs that the girls I have for the summer, are producing. There are only 4 of them, but they rarely go a day without each laying an egg.

The perennial peppers are laden and they are all turning a lovely shade of yellow. The bushes are 8' tall and covered in what seems like hundreds of beautiful golden orbs of culinary fire.

The blueberries have been ripening steadily over the last few weeks.

We are just finishing the last of the avocados - a harvest that has been going on for about 2 months now.

Lots of jam in the works as the plums and peaches start ripening up.

I use my standard jam recipe of 1kg of fruit to 750 gms sugar. Boil gently til it starts to thicken- usually about an hour. I add the juice of 1 or 2 lemons to the peach jam as it needs the extra pectin to thicken up. The plums are fine alone if they are harvested just before fully ripe.

It has been a perfect summer. Lots of warm days, with enough rain that I only need to water occasionally. The calendar says we are coming to the end of the season, but I know we'll have a couple more months of great weather here in New Zealand, and I'll be getting lots more from the garden over that time.