:: the passage of Spring, 20 days on... ::

20 days ago I departed on a quick morning tour of our garden with my camera in tow. I had a some time at home alone and a walk around to check out the changes felt like a beautiful way to enjoy it.

 I have been enraptured by the speed at which Mother Nature can create...the now-spent bloom on the left was a bud 20 days ago...

 ...a cluster of baby apples - a sweet group of bright fuschia-coloured buds, petals tightly packed...

...very clearly we see miniature pears now - WOW!

 

and the base of the crumpling quince blossom swells now with a small, fuzzy quince fruit...

 ...not as pretty-looking yet - never-the-less the promise of succulent beauty is here - these berry blossoms are busy pushing forth berries...

...whilst the very subject of my initial wonder - this end of the grapevine has unfolded no less than 7 leaves and 2 bunches of grapes so far from that tiny, furry first sprout - only 20 days ago!

 

the tiny fig is now the size of a golf-ball and has a proportionally-large canopy for protection...

...a strong theme for these immature fruits - the two plums are considerably bigger, as is their soft bright leafy shelter, seemingly fluffing out all about them...

...I nearly didn't find the same cluster of sly blackcurrants, now almost entirely hidden...

  ...last for this morning's walk were the strawberries - and I'm determined to believe there IS a hint of blush there!

 I've truly experienced awe and wonder while recording these small doings in our own garden - there is no doubt in my mind a divine creative energy exists.

When I posted 20 days ago, it was a couple of days shy of the Spring Equinox - and it truly has felt as if Mother Nature has a countdown going to get everything grown to complete perfection in the 182.5 days until the Autumn Equinox.

:: blink and maybe you'd miss this ::

 there's a Hindu folk tale about time summed up by Lord Vishnu telling Lord Brahma how so many incredibly huge number of eons occur not even in "the time I take to blink my eye"

 and I feel as though metaphorically, this was the intense amount of growth our garden did this past week or so...

blossoms unfolding fully...bees busily making the most of the sporadic sunshine...

petals fully outstretched...

 ...delicate quince blossoms fading fast...

...the turnover in the floral department running at a tremendous pace...

...more thoughtfully slow in the case of the furry apple leaves...

...while the grape sprout was astonishing to me - even a tiny, tight bunch of ...grapes!

 and this climbing rose had me utterly perplexed as to which leaf stem I'd snapped last week - I'm fairly sure it was this one...

a dramatic burst of growth - like hands reaching up to the warmth of the sun...

another surprise was hiding under the now-thick cover of leaves on this plum-bough...

and here blackcurrants swell...

hoping it's not too late to have mulched and fed the seemingly-voracious strawberry patches this weekend past...

...it really all appears to be growing so urgently right now - blink and I think I'd miss this!

How is your garden growing this Spring?

:: spying on Mother Nature this morning ::

At a time of the year, when these delicate Snowdrops are still lingering here.... 

...and one of my favourite fragrant flowers is just beginning to flourish...

...Mother Nature is magically composing the most joyous symphony in our garden...and I was drawn out there with my camera this morning...delighting in every single (seeming) incredible feat of growth and abundance...

...some of the fruit trees in the orchard can't wait to frock up in their best party frills and shiver in Spring frosts bedecked in petals all pink or white...they would be the stone fruit - plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and their delicate blossoms are mostly all ephemerally dashed to the ground in the all-too-chilly Spring winds...

...while the pip fruit family like the pear and apple above, dress sensibly in their new leaves first...

...so many wonders - like the beautiful wrapping of these quince bud petals...

...and when was the last time you really looked into the centre of a flower to check out what happens in there? All I could really think about was the promise of luscious berries in Summer...

...and leaf buds literally thrusting miniature furry, leaf-babies heavenward...

...and can you guess what this is?  I was surprised to find this soft, pink tenderness surging forth from the woody tip of...a grapevine! ... 

 and amazed at firstly the brilliant red and secondly the exquisite unpacking of perfect rose leaves...

 ...and here is the plant that spurred my curiosity this morning...a tiny green fig pertly sitting up next to a very new, very first bright green leaf sprout...on a tree, otherwise bare-naked!

 ...and there were more surprises - here are a couple of the earliest plums, while the last unfertilised (?) blossom not yet fallen, dries brown beside them...

 ...lurking beneath leaf-shields are wee blackcurrants, swelling behind flowers as they wither, crumple and shrink... 

...and in the vegetable gardens the first strawberry blossoms were floating - and this - small and green, but soon to be plump, juicy and RED... 

 and last, but not least - asleep in their pod...some baby peas, merely slumbering or growing astronomically-fast?

Ah, Persephone's Return from the Underworld to bring back the light to the Earth - how confident, faithful and abundant indeed - how lucky we humans are - if only we would realise :)

The Mandala Garden and Pruning the Fruit Trees

Here is our mandala garden. Wendy has been in it for two straight days and the results are amazing.
There were so many weeds to pull and there were about 50 plants (super sized) to plant. (That's right, this is Aaron reporting).

The chickens were moved first, onto a new bed. They clucked and squabbled all day - which they do - and demolished every bit of living green available. Not to many eggs though.

I have been pruning. Scared me to death I have to say. Having completed a certificate in organics and biodynamics with Taruna, I thought I would have a little more knowledge, however I found myself searching youtube for tips.

The fruit trees had not been properly shaped from the beginning and so 'water sprouts' had become large limbs and had to be 'sorted' out. If you had been watching you would have seen me up the orchard ladder looking confused, worried, pensive and all those emotions that come with having to 'deal' to a beautiful fruit tree.

The Mandala garden and its 14 or so fruit trees is now done... off to the orchard tomorrow... or sometime later.

:: little house update ::

 the shelter we have been building as part of Phoebe's Class 3 'shelter' study has been slowly creeping along. Partly because there is only a little bit of this:

and the scene usually looks more like this:

(note the missing character from this shot!) Partly, pondering what to do at each stage, partly time available and mostly, interest - after all a project is much more fun if one actually wants to be involved!  And this we as adults learn more slowly, it seems.

As the little house takes shape and the structure with it's leftover pond-lining cover is now a little bit weather-protected, there suddenly seems to be a lot more interest - outdoor play is now centered in the little house. SO, we shall see how swiftly this project will complete from here...

We just need another push to get the cladding attached to the exterior - this sounds like fun - clay daub onto wire mesh...hmmm...old clothes only, methinks.

This picture shows a remarkable plant weaving and winding it's way right up into the upper reaches of this large, old apple tree - I'll admit it's not the clearest photo - so - the plant - a cherry tomato plant - is higher up the tree than Miss P, who is climbing up amongst the boughs - it extends all the way to the very top left of this photo.

and the tomatoes are still ripening!

:: garlic crop 2013 ::

Summer...sunshine, warmth, long days, holiday-time, stone fruit, crickets and cicadas, lushness giving way to parched landscapes, eating outdoors, short-sleeves and jandals, cricket games on the radio, painting the house...and an abundance from the edible gardens...and garlic harvest.

The quiet transformation from muddied globs wrenched from the earth to these bright, white tidy bulbs is magical!  We pulled 51 bulbs that could be considered a 'bulb', plus 8 that bolted before becoming nice and fat.  The plait weighs 2.4kgs, which averages at just under 50gm per bulb - I reckon that is pretty good. 

Especially so, since, while I was meditatively-sitting, cleaning and trimming the haul, I glanced down NZ Gardener garden-diva, Linda Hallinan's feature article on garlic from the June 2012 magazine and read with horror that I'd planted our rows much too close together - should be bulbs handspan apart and rows approximately 40cm apart - allowing enough sunlight to penetrate to each plant!

:: brag-basket #4 ::

I believe this is Silverbeet 'Argentata'

this truly tickled my fancy - this one leaf of silverbeet ('chard' to some) is so large it has almost entirely covered my basket! HUGE! A meal in a leaf. 

And the only other things you can see from this FULL basket of green goodness are the tips of more and more broadbeans - I love broadbeans, a little more Cavalero Kale - which I sauteed along with 'the leaf' and the 'ears' - two gigantic zucchini (Yes, I mean marrows - they hid - I did not know they were lurking in the undergrowth - no I'm not the world's tidiest of weeders ;-) )

So tonight's meal consisted of the aforementioned greens, including 'broccolini' (sprouting broccoli that I completely encourage) and the broadbeans and in the oven was a huge tray of spuds with onions (wedge-cut, for speed and finesse!) and peppers and zucchini - all tossed about in olive oil, chilli flakes and Himalayan salt and fresh ground black pepper. A generous dollop of fresh, homemade basil/parsley/sunflower seed pesto graced each serving! Yum.

+ dessert - because it's New Year's Day - so we had to, of course - I'd been wanting to try 'Clafoutis' for a long time - no red-fleshed plums in these woods yet - so used some special organic apricots from Bremdale Farms instead and what a divine dessert emerged - straight to the pool room with that one! [ooh - and easy-peasy, too - I'd imagined that something that sounded as fancy as a 'Clafoutis' would be a finicky thing to create - not so - you must try one if you haven't already fallen for its charms!]

Happy 2013 to all and may you dream big and boldly!

:: Brag Basket #3 ::

bounty

Tonight's dash about the garden beds was a mad hurry at the end of another busy and hot day. And in about 6 or 7 minutes I had this lush basket full of everything to complete our evening meal - and a few bursts of pretty colour for the table - for is a vegetable garden complete without...flowers?!!
Varieties:
Silverbeet - or chard: Argentata and Rainbow Brights, Basil: Sweet Genovese, Broccoli: de Cicco, Zucchini: Lebanese, Black Beauty and Florence Long-ribbed, Kale: Toscana di Nero, Parsley: Triple-curled, Thyme: French, Nasturtiums and Dahlia.

:: brag-basket #2 :: 12:12:12 ::

here we are at one of those special times - 12th of the 12th of the 12th year....we're having a Zucchini Feast for our midday meal today...someone we know is tying the knot at 12minutes past 12noon....do you have any plans for this auspicious-seeming day?
my second basket was gathered last night and is filled with our juicy, sweet, sun-kissed peaches from two trees - one in the Mandala garden and one in the orchard - and our first plums - no idea of the variety - a yellow-fleshed sweet small round plum. YUM!