Everyone's posts

Glorious reward for gardening chores.

Found this old book in a back country second hand store. It was published in 1960, it was part of a series of "know how" books.

inside is every kind of wine. I think the author was in the UK, and many of the plants are the same ones introduced here and thrive in our New Zealand climate.

these i…

Last year I got a chainsaw for Christmas, and it was the best gadget - I cut back trees; I cut down trees. I let the light into the garden. I found my own firewood for use in the pizza oven, the smoker, the outdoor bathtub heater, and the fire pit.

But all those branches had to go somewhere. So …

Pl@ntNet is part of the GBIF network and creates a data commons for citizen scientists to document and collate their world.

They could use a few dollars, if you appreciate the imagery on Growstuff, consider donating to keep the wider …

beautiful black rich compost.

ingredients

• 1/2 Grass clipping
• 1/4 pony poo
• 1/4 mulched trees and shrubs
• any kitchen scraps you have

method

• mix daily
• soak with water
• mixture will begin to ferment within 24 hours.
• measure temperature, it should be about 60C
• keep once a…

New feed of user's garden actions is now live as "My friends and neighbours". Please let us know how it's working out for you.

• rhubarb smashed
• lime dropped all leaves

Last year, before i bought a still, i tried freeze-distilling. This is an old method of turning apple cider into apple sprit, that does not need a still. Traditionally the apple cider still in the fermenting barrel is taken outside to the snow. There the water will freeze over night. In the morni…

A whole year of growing, digging, fermenting, and canning eventually comes down to a shelf. Here's what was actually on it, as of early July:

Pantry - 2× pasta sauce - 14× tomato sauce - 4× tomato paste - 3× (huge) jars of pears with cardamom - 4× beef bone broth - 2× rendered lard - About 1…

Autumn is when the garden hands over the last of what it's got, and the cider press comes back out.

The last of the harvest

• Mar 26 — still harvesting.
• Apr 6 — some whataroa harvested.
• Apr 19 — risotto for dinner, made with pumpkin that grew straight out of the compost, p…

If this year's harvest had a main character, it was tomatoes. Here's how it went, roughly day by day.

Waiting

Early January was all impatience. The tomatoes just needed consistent days over 22°C to actually ripen, and Wellington — as Wellington does — wasn't cooperating. "Come on #Wellingt…

By November the garden stopped being a promise and started being an actual source of food again.

Strawberry wine ambitions

I saw a strawberry wine idea online somewhere and decided it was now a mission. It went straight onto the to-do list alongside dress rehearsals and concerts: harvest b…