All The Fun of the (Plant) Fair

I wasn’t going to write about this, it’s very inconsequential in the big scheme of things, but then figured, oftentimes the fun/ great things we remember in our lives seem to be the smaller events and happenings rather than the huge extravagant things.

And, it’ll let me lead nicely into an update on the Hugelkultur garden – seems perfect.

When Does a Trip Become a ‘Trip’

A few weekends ago I saw some signs up for a Plant Fair at a nearby school. It’s spring, time for planting, and… bonus, it’s was being held at my old primary school and I hadn’t been back there for years. The trip was on! It couldn’t quite be called a ‘road trip’, we only live about 15k away from Paekakariki, the small town I grew up in but, as we are learning, trips and adventures don’t need to take us far from home base.

I Remember When…

Walking the path around the back of the school, it seemed nothing had changed from when I was a barefoot kid making forts, playing hide and seek, building ‘stuff’ and getting dirty and dishevelled in the trees and bushes beside us. That small walk brought back heaps of memories.

I love that this school still has the same feel/ flavour to me as it did 40 and more years ago. Sure it’s had some changes and upgrades (the covered deck running outside the classrooms is a great addition), but it’s not all sterile and perfect looking, you can see that kids here would be comfortable to be kids, barefoot if they feel like it, getting dirty, playing games out the back in the undergrowth and trees, making forts maybe, and growing veges…

All That Growing

When we saw what the kids at this school have worked on, grown and produced, we were blown away: there were composting bins, a worm farm, weta homes, full vegetable beds, large greenhouses, and tons of healthy vegetable and fruit seedlings of all sorts, as well as native plants, flowers and herbs.  There was an experiment in soil types, personal gardens for different uses (one to feed a pupil’s rabbit “please don’t pick”), insect twig houses, outside chairs and furniture built and painted by the pupils. This is real hands on education going on.

We grabbed a cardboard box from the huge pile (just past the line of kids holding wheelbarrows ‘at the ready’ to carry people’s plant treasures out to cars) and got choosing. Tomatoes weren’t selected, we have a virtual forest of self-seeded ones taking over a garden bed right now. But two chilli plants were; one a sweet banana (intriguing) and one cayenne, as well as three pepper plants; a red, a yellow, and a smoky brown, which I love the sound of. We also indulged in a kumi kumi (https://rediscover.co.nz/kamo-kamo-kumi-kumi/), a ‘patio’ cucumber, and a pumpkin. The pumpkin isn’t needed as we already have seeds, but I couldn’t resist picking it up because of its name, ‘Baby Bear’ (our ginger cat, with huge character, is Ginger Bear, and he’s nearly always called Bear).

But Wait, There’s More

After the vegetable load we thought we’d done our dash and wandered through the greenhouses (they are diy built, rather than bought, and Adrian was keen to see the different structures and materials as he has some ideas for upscaling his salt production) and out to the fruit, herbs and natives. Before we knew it, we had a raspberry and a red currant bush as well an oregano plant. I was gutted to miss out on a chamomile plant, but they were totally sold out; great news for the school, not so much for me.

Already impressed with the whole set-up and environment these kids are learning and growing in, we weren’t surprised to see that the labels and pricing of the plants being sold was thought through with re-use and recycling surely top-of-mind. The labels were mostly wooden knives and forks, presumably used ones gathered from cafés, while the pricing was a simple system of dye coloured ice-block sticks corresponding to a few different dollar values.

So, we lined up with our treasures, the lovely volunteers removed and counted the different sticks and we had a total; voila! All this lovely plant treasure cost a grand total of $29.

Ah, The Memories…

After homemade cake and slice, with coffee in real cups, at the outside ‘café’ (the seats being those I mentioned earlier) run by the local scout group, we left the school, walking around the front this time.

I bent Adrian’s ear jabbering about which teacher I’d had in which classroom, telling him all about the swimming pool we’d spent so much time in; ‘breaking the ice’ as the first class into the water for the day and ‘free swims’ after school if you could persuade a teacher to stay back. I remembered going to the dental nurse when the dreaded brown envelope, brought by the last kid to be there, held your name, and standing in neat class lines on the assembly square that now looks way too tiny.

Looking out over the field I could still feel the prickles in my bare feet as we ran as fast as we could over burnt-brown grass to the back-fence (you don’t get prickles if you run fast enough, right?), and the short-cut home. Seeing the tennis and netball court I remembered how proud I always felt to wear our netball uniform of plain black tunic and white skivvy. The whole place felt special to me.

I was lucky, and I loved being at this primary school, even though it was a bit tricky in the beginning for my siblings and me. We were the newcomers for a while; lily-white kids with strange English accents (this was the 1970’s, things were a little different then and we’d newly migrated from the UK). I think even as a little kid I appreciated the fun and freedom allowed there. 

My Idea of Fun

So, in a weekend filled with a load of other fun things: a trip to the open day at a World War Two fortress (Wright’s Hill in Wellington) followed by a picnic overlooking our gorgeous capital city and native bird sanctuary, having success making mint jelly and rhubarb, rose and cardamom jam, planting out the veges and fruit from the fair, transplanting lots and lots of those self-sown tomato plants, having a fun bike ride, friends and family coming over for a BBQ and a dinner, plus all the other fun things a fine weekend brings, this was my highlight.

So, How Is the Hugelkultur Garden Going?

(https://glad-life.org/we-built-a-hugelkultur/)

I did mention there was an update coming.

Well, we’re loving it and are still (probably overly) proud of ourselves for building it. I’m out there first thing every morning, usually accompanied by Bear, to see how everything is before heading to work, and it’s where I head first on arriving home, from anywhere. I will happily spend hours at a time working in this and the other gardens we have full of veges.

The soil seems to be perfectly loamy. It smells slightly of coffee (all those grounds) and is a beautiful rich brown in colour. It’s warm, constantly moist straight under the surface when we have little rain, and no pooling when there’s too much. Currently we have 17 different types of plants in and they are all healthy and happy (so far):

• the three peppers from the fair
• kale (two staggered crops)
• carrots (two crops, transplanted from the main crop)
• lettuce
• Pak Choy
• six red cabbage
• about seven broccoflower new seedlings
• 20 leeks
• a row of broad beans
• about 14 broccoli
• about eight cauliflower (they were way harder to get successful seedlings from seed than the broccoli)
• about 30 beetroot
• four spinach
• about 20 garlic
• about 20 red onion
• parsnip seeds went in this weekend (hopefully I get some success)
• two rows of corn

Waiting to go in still are lemon grass and spaghetti squash. They just need to get a bit bigger.

To be honest the veges are making their way out of their designated gardens as we look for more space to add the next thing. The kumi kumi and Baby Bear pumpkin are amongst Renga Renga plants, under a hydrangea, while the raspberry bush is making friends with a young Kowhai along the fenceline. This is our take on companion planting.

A surprising development, and a nice one, is that Adrian’s daughter Annie has now claimed some garden space (it’s not the Hugel, she terraced a whole area of another garden) for herself and is the current ‘vege parent’ of some thriving beans, dwarf beans, a tomato and some leeks.

We’ve Started Harvesting

Yep – we’re eating straight from the garden, and it feels great.

When a salad is needed I take scissors and a bowl and wander round the beds, adding whatever looks good. Usually there’s mint, parsley, spinach leaves, baby cabbage leaves (we keep growing the stalk once the cabbage is harvested for those lovely baby leaves that sprout), nasturtium, broad beans, sugar snap peas, young carrots and lettuce.

For a quick pre-dinner snack or nibble with wine we pick kale and make kale chips. If you haven’t tried these, you really should. We often just use salt and oil, but this Nadia Lim recipe includes chilli flakes and sesame seeds for added interest: (https://nadialim.com/recipe/crispy-kale-chips-2/ ).

We’ve also potted up and given away, to various friends and rellies, about 26 tomato plants. I’d love to produce enough from our gardens to be able to gift surplus or put some on a stall at the end of the drive along with an honesty box

But Will It Save Money?

Although saving dollars is part of the reason for putting so much into the gardens (effort and time as well as the crops themselves) it’s not the only indicator for success for us. There’s the pure enjoyment of working in the soil and seeing seeds grow to fruitful plants, along with the taste and healthiness of picking straight from the garden to add to the table or cooking. As well, there’s all those jams, pickles, preserves and new bread additives to be tried.

However, we are tracking the costs and the savings we’re getting as it will still be interesting to see the results, no matter the other benefits.

Well, to be fair, right now Adrian is. He’s recording everything, in a spreadsheet, but I will too when it’s him picking instead of me. Right now, I go out and pick things that are needed, we estimate the supermarket cost, and Adrian records. Any seeds or plants bought are also added, as were the costs of the Hugelkultur build.

So the answer is a resounding “we’ll see…”.