How our Vege Garden Grew - Part 1

This last summer of 2011/12 was not a good one for growing - complaints abounded all over the country about poor results.  Literally, summer as we know it in New Zealand just didn't arrive.  Here in the Wairarapa, we had plenty of cloudy days, little sunshine and unseasonal cold weather.  Some vegetable prices in the supermarkets were ridiculous - for example, pumpkins which normally abound and run amok in everyone's garden, reached an unprecedented $19 each in the supermarket - a small portion cut for 2-3 servings calculated out at around $6-7.

A renegade pumpkin plant in the compost bin ran riot but alas, too late.  By the time the weather had made up its mind it was, indeed, summer - our days were already waning.  Resulting pumpkins from this growth failed to fully ripen before being cut down by early frosts

Over summer, we had 9 raised vege beds up and running at Fossils Retreat, varying in size from 1x1 to 2x1 and 3x1 sq. metres.   Two beds were set up for early and main potato crops, with Ilam Hardy and redskinned Heather selected for the early crops, and Rua and Agria for the main crops.  We were extremely pleased with the redskinned Heather which grew prolifically.  The Ilam Hardy reached a decent size when dug but weren't all that abundant.  Of the main crops, Rua performed poorly and developed heaps of nasty little inedible 'flowers' which resembled small, unripe green tomatoes which turned out to be a real pain after the haulms were cut before harvesting, as they fell off the foliage and then had to be removed one by one from the bed.  We harvested a superb crop from the Agrias and it looks at this stage as if we have easily enough potatoes to last us the full year.  Green skinned spuds which were accidentally exposed to sunshine were boiled up nightly in the stock pot on the fire with feed peas and fed to the pigs.  We'll go with the same two earlies this year and just stick with Agria for the main crop

Rua potatoes a few weeks before harvesting.  The tall 'bush' in the background is actually a bed of Jerusalem Artichokes - another abundant crop

We had a couple of unseasonal, doozy storms over summer which wreaked some havoc not only in our garden, but over the whole district.

Gale force winds snapped the supports of the tomatoes causing the plants to collapse and sprawl untidily.  If truth be known, too many plants were planted, too close together.  We're not huge tomato eaters, so maybe we'll just stick to two plants this summer

Late tomatoes from here to China.  These did not amount to any great size, and huge batches of tomato sauce were made and frozen.  Because of the lack of warmth, tomatoes were still trying to ripen on the vines when we got hit with early frosts

We had good crops of beans, with a few Broad Beans sown and the remainder Kings Seeds Purple Tee Pee Dwarf Beans, which remained nice and compact and we got two picks from each plant.  Surpluses were french sliced and frozen

Some plantings just didn't get there.  Golden Eggplant seedlings (Kings Seeds) were transplanted, initially grew well, then remained in a permanent state of blue-flowered limbo with no fruit developing.

Not all bad news!  Look - we got two Rock Melons!  Lovely bite sized morsels they were too!  Lovely lush Eggplant bushes in the background which gave a splendid display of blue flowers and nothing else

Yams were very prolific and coloured up nicely, growing to a decent size and very tasty.  Our first frost cut back all the foliage

We grew garlic and onions - very well as it happens.  This winter we have devoted a whole bed for garlic and have planted 81 Kakanui Garlic cloves (our own saved cloves) and 16 Elephant Garlic cloves which we will mainly use for roasting with veges with a roast dinner.  Greens grew very well.  Spasmodic luck with carrots - those that did germinate grew well;  same with peas.

More March Arrivals!

We had been waiting and waiting in anticipation for our two heavily pregnant Dexter matriarchs - Bella and Bonnie - to produce their calves. It was very late last year (according to Wairarapa birthing schedules) when we leased LEGEND, a very handsome red Dexter with impeccable pedigree, who could not arrive until we had a loading race in position into our yards. Bonnie was the first to produce on 4 March ...

Bonnie, with baby heifer calf DAWN - not even one day old. We noticed her early in the morning, and she had not been born the night before when we checked. We had the possibility with a red bull and a black cow, that the calf might have been dun in colour (Dexters only come in three colours - black (the most popular), red and dun.

Bella was several days later birthing a lovely red bull late on St Patrick's Day - 17 March.

Bella, with bull calf PADDY. We knew this chappie would be red in colour, like his parents.

Dawn and Paddy - Dawn is 3 weeks old here, and Paddy 1 week old.

Both babies are doing well.

Tansy Gets a New Sister

We initially chose our Dorper sheep for one reason - they are a self-shedding meat breed, so we would not need to get a smallfarmer shearer in (which costs a lot if you have no plant or shed). They originated in South Africa, where over the years they, of course, adapted to their native surroundings. They do well in New Zealand, but, unfortunately, not too well in wet conditions. We have had two very wet winters in a row, and we are flat, so we have had to yard them very frequently and check and trim their feet.

We only have two of our original mums left (see previous blogs) but they have passed on certain characteristics to their daughters, namely : run up and put your head in the bucket for nuggets, allow patting, follow the bucket ONLY TO 20 METRES TO THE YARD GATE - then turn round and CHARGE AT THEM.

Believe us, we have bred big girls. A large woolly missile projecting itself at chest height is one to duck! We have learned it takes 3 persons or 1 person and a good dog to yard our wily sheep. Anyway, Denise has been lamenting for some time our lack of a dog, and we started asking around friends and neighbours if anybody knew of a retiring sheepdog with heading abilities (i.e. a strong eye to stare the sheep down and make them retreat). Our good friend Jean who lives on a large station in South Wairarapa came to our aid and was able to negotiate such a dog, belonging to the owner.

We started to get prepared. We had been told the dog responded to a whistle and swearing. A second plastic whistle was purchased. A Google search revealed a standard set of whistle tones for various commands (e.g. tweet tweet tweeeet = STAY, you bugger!) and one site even had all the tones! Problem was, neither of us was very good at producing any tone!
The dog whistles. One of us managed to produce a noise and tones relatively quickly; the other took several hours to produce a monotone and has apparently, since, given up altogether! (I think she has sussed that the dog doesn't appear to respond to any tonal variations anyway!)


So, last Saturday, we travelled down to South Wairarapa and picked up KATE, who is an 8 year old Beardie cross, and very Large. Jean had warned us she is a SHEEPDOG and has always been a working SHEEPDOG and she has always lived OUTSIDE and she is very used to living OUTSIDE. So, in the meantime, whilst we are still busy planning to build Kate her own roomy house, she is resident in the calf pen in our shed at present.

Kate on the day of her arrival at Fossils Retreat. That's a soft bed on a palette we have made up for her you can see inside the pen, but we don't think she knows what it is for

So Kate, after 3 days, seems to have settled in. She has now discovered her warm blanket bed. We did have one go at seeing if and how she works, but she seemed more interested in exploring our stream and having a wade (it was very hot) but she did come to the party eventually, barking and helping move the sheep.

We gave Kate a bath on her second day here, and gave her a bit of a trim. Isn't she lovely?

She is very good out in the paddocks and keeps to herself. She is not too fond of our two Dexter cows, Bella and Bonnie. Bonnie, in particular, who always births black calves, is absolutely certain that Kate is a renegade Dexter calf, and tries to run after her for a smell at every opportunity.

Things we are gradually learning about Kate :

1. She is really an agility dog ...
Kate showing remarkable speed and agility in fence hurdling to get away from curious Bonnie (out of picture) who thinks she is a Dexter calf.

The Flock Increases

Towards the end of February, we decided if we didn't get some chickens underway - bearing in mind we have been established at Fossils Retreat two years next month - can you believe! - it would be next spring/summer before we got cracking. As most hens go into their annual moult over winter, we thought we would raise our own first flock so that they would be (hopefully) coming in to lay this coming spring. Broody hens are relatively easy to find, and we were lucky enough to have been offered one. As well, she is a 'breed' chicken - a french breed called 'Favorelles'. We have called her HANNAH - not that we really want to go down the road of now starting to name every chicken we will own ... but we know from past experience that some hens become character favourites down the track and do end up being named. She needs a name, anyway, as she will become our official chicken nanny.

This is not actually Hannah Hen, but a web photo. Hannah looks pretty much like this one. When we looked up on the web to find out more about Favorelles chickens, we discovered this breed has five toes. Most poultry only have four toes. Now, isn't that an interesting biological fact you have learned today?

A local poultry fancier sold us six fertile eggs which were collected the same day as we collected Hannah. She claimed them as her own immediately.
New mum-to-be Hannah settled in on the first day of her chick rearing in her little custom-made nesting box made from an old wooden nails box. Twenty days to go ...

The new chickens are Plymouth Barred Rock chickens - a dual breed, which means as well as laying a decent supply of eggs, any surplus roosters can be fattened separately and should make for a fairly decent casserole. It will be a while before their growth indicates how many will be roosters and how many will be hens.

This is what any hens we have from the eggs will look like when mature. Of couse, we may not hatch any hens - they may all be roosters!

The eggs hatched bang on target on 7 March - 21 days after Hannah sat. Five out of the six hatched. Our eels enjoyed the dud one.

Hannah right into the role of an active Mum. As soon as we lifted the chicks out of the nesting box she was up and at it, clucking to them and showing them how to eat the crumbles and forage in the grass

They really are a delight to watch and hear, especially at feeding time when they are given table scraps and the like. You can hear the raised excitement of the 'cheep cheeps' when they are given something exotic like a soft tomato or the fat off a chop.

A web photo of Barred Rock chicks at 5 days old - ours looked just like this. No doubt a surprise to many of you who thought all baby chickens were yellow - eh? Another useful informative fact you have learned today

Lucky has discovered the new family and we have to feed her at the same time. She walks round and round the coop (sometimes chased by Tansy - grrr - bad dog!) clucking for her feed, so we have to toss it down at the side of the coop

By now many of you will have noticed and greatly admired the handsome nursery coop made by Jennifer (patent pending). This one survived our two storm bombs no problem.

Where in the World was Lucky?

A couple of weeks ago, the accountant in our household announced that we had a spare credit card with a little bit of credit on it, and having seen advertised on sale a chicken house with run attached, suggested we might buy it, bearing in mind we have been at Fossils Retreat almost two years now and we still haven’t had the time or resources to build a chook house.


Looks great in the advertising material, doesn't it?



And so we entered into the world of poultry keeping in two dimensions - disregarding the fact that we are now officially into autumn, and most laying hens are entering the annual moult about now and over winter. We did think the purchased house and run was pretty flimsy when we were unpacking it (looks solid as a rock in the photographs, of course), but we ended up being so thrilled that the instructions were actually very easy to follow and plenty of spare screws were supplied, and the whole thing looked so cute! with its little ramp up from the ground to the house, that we decided to go ahead and look for some tenants anyway, but resolving to go to town in the weekend and get some tent pegs to secure the base of it to the ground. We purchased a couple of young Rhode Island Red pullets from the Masterton A&P Show Poultry section, and established them in their new home. They took a few days to settle in, needing patient educating on how to eat chook feed pellets from a dish, how to slide down the ramp from their upstairs sleeping quarters (with a bit of help via a firm shove out of the nesting boxes where they weren’t laying) and they were just coming right after six days, with a couple of eggs to show, when we had a doozey of a southerly, with a burst of gale force winds and horizontal rain.

After one particular gust when we thought perhaps the house roof may be coming off, we ran to the laundry window and saw the new hen house bowled right over upside down, with the living quarters and roof smashed and broken. It was nearly dark with no chickens to be seen, but we struggled against the wind and carried the run and remains of the house into the shelter of the implement shed. The weather really was so atrocious it was pointless stumbling around, so we retired until the morning, hoping the weather would have settled down next morning.

Saturday dawned with much depleted winds and flooding visible in several paddocks along with a couple of willow branches down along our shelter belt. No hens to be seen after an hour or so fruitless searching. Some time later in the day, we were alerted by Tansy to something really interesting in the paddock next to where the hen house had been standing, which turned out to be one very sodden and very dead chicken – we figure the poor thing had probably died of fright and drowned in a deep puddle of water. Many searches in grass clumps, on hay bales, wherever a frightened (to death obviously) over the next couple of days were in vain with not a sign of the remaining hen.

Then, one sunny morning, exactly twelve days later than the storm, as we were over in the hay barn, came this loud jubilant ‘dook dook dook dook dook dook’ (which translates into ‘Egg laid! Egg laid! Egg laid!’) and here, large as life, strutting up and down on the hay bales, was one of the chickens! Now, where on earth she had been holed up for twelve days is a total mystery. She is very much a presence in the vicinity of the implement shed/hay barn, waiting for breakfast and dinner every day, and sleeping in the shattered remains of the hen house (still awaiting repair and reassembly).

Esme, now called LUCKY (for obvious reasons) perching nightly in the shattered remains of the hen house

Waitangi Day Celebrations

Last year we heard rumours that there was a ride-on mower race on Waitangi Day among the residents of our road, and indeed, we saw ourselves the remnants of the festivities and the very merry participants as we returned home that day. Having since acquired a ride-on mower - Denise, as the most practised member of the household, decided by hook or by crook that she was going to be lining up at the start this year. We found out indeed, the race was on, and we started with a 'Meet and Greet' at Mick and Sylvia's place. Now, we don't have many residents on our road, and not all of our residents have ride-on mowers, so it was great to see a generous percentage of neighbourly support crews turn up.

Rules and a route were hastily agreed upon, and our four participants lined up at the start of Waitangi Road.

Brian looking to see what the hold-up at the Start line is. It is Denise, resplendent in appropriate attire, having a quick tipple from her flask. There was a further hold-up when she felt the need to touch up her lipstick and then found her handbag was unclasped. For some reason, she thought there was a TV news crew arriving, even although we assured her they were all otherwise engaged with other more important, historical events.

First call was a short sprint up the road with a couple of driveway turns, a reverse park, refreshments, and a house and garden tour. Then away again on the next leg, the endurance stretch where it was all about how many horsepower your mower has.

Brian was an easy winner of the Endurance Stretch - by a mile and several minutes. JUST LOOK AT THAT SPOILER! And - LOOK UNDER THAT MOWER! Do you see any blades? The rest of the competitors became somewhat suspicious (when they eventually arrived at the end of this leg) when Brian came up with every excuse under the sun not to participate in an Activity Challenge of mowing several lawn strips and it didn't take long for an observant spectator to point out that not only was the mower body suspiciously high off the ground owing to HUGE replacement tyres - but there was an awful lot of fresh air and nothing else occupying that gap. On a show of hands, Brian was elimiated from the competition by the remainder of the competitors. And the support crews.

At this stage, a Scrutineer was hastily elected and serious discussion and inspection of competing machinery ensued. It was found that our flash Italian job was in fact, the lowest horsepower, so Denise got a good handicapped start on the final leg. Brian the Cheat was allowed to follow only at a discretionary distance at the rear of the field.

Mick nearly loses it showing his jubilation at coming in first on the final leg. The photographer nearly lost it as well a few seconds later.

This last leg ended up being an unplanned obstacle race. Our region happened to be hosting a National MG Annual Meet, and they were all off on a rally. We ended up with a stream of vintage vehicles weaving in and out of our competitors. The support crew did their bit and put the MG crews on their correct routes. Their directions were a bit haywire.

Denise finishing a very credible fourth on the last leg.

We all ended up back at Mick and Sylvia's for a BBQ. A thoroughly enjoyable, social day. Thanks to Denise, from now on, it is agreed, the annual Mower races will be held in costume and we will be handicapping the lower c.c. machinery. The worry of it all is that Denise is already gathering pamphlets on huge c.c. engined mowers. Thankfully, the reality of our upgrading is remote as it's not exactly on the 'getting on with things' agenda.

Guilty Wrap-Up of 2011 - Part 2

Cattle – We gained Walter and Wanda, who arrived early October, purchased from the dairy farm over the road. They are Friesian/Hereford cross cattle.

Wanda, in front, with Walter and Tansy. Wanda and Walter are now 6 months old; Tansy is nearly 5 with not much more sense than she had at 5 months old, but she has a big heart

Dorper Sheep – Casper
Astra’s lamb Casper, who arrived in June 2011, is but a flavour-filled memory in our freezer. As are Colin and Clive, born at the end of August 2011 from Abigail. Annabel had twin lambs, Cassie and Cedric, born the day before Colin and Clive, which we still have. We also have Cyril, who was born in mid November, mothered by a young but perfectly big enough, Beatrice (good old/young reliable Barry!) It really was a lambing season favouring rams; verified by many of our smallfarming friends. The only one we will be keeping (alive) from the 2011 intake will be Cassie.


Twin rams Colin and Clive, with proud mother, Abigail

Apart from that - we had our last bit of fencing done, which has certainly made things easier for us in that we now have seven paddocks and a couple of extra gates, as against four big paddocks we originally had.
The well went in so we can water the vege gardens and all the stock troughs (albeit with many metres of garden hoses joined together); we
now have shelter trees along the north and west fence lines of the house garden and orchard. Ten raised vege beds of varying areas ranging from 1x1 square metres; 2 x 1 sq. m. and two 3 x 1 sq. m were set up and filled, and what a joy it was to stand and leisurely hose. Lugging 20 litre containers of water up from the water race just a distant nightmare of the past!

We had no guests over Christmas and had Christmas Day away with family. However, the gigantic tree went up but this year we restrained ourselves and only put up about 2/3rds of the usual ornaments. Still and impressive display which we would not be able to have if not for retaining a 12ft ceiling height in our lounge.