Pile Of The Brown Stuff

Progress report on our Veggie bed, named RIMU. Dateline:27052015-13:45NZST Reikorangi Valley.

Since the weekend when the bed was being rototilled, two-and-a-half days later, my progress at sifting the soil has been, in the words of my friend Charles Dickens, rather tardy, mostly for reasons beyond my control.

By the way: whilst checking whether "rototilled" should be hyphenated to "roto-tilled" or not, I encountered an interesting (in my anal view) word "tilth": 

"...The term soil tilth refers to the soil's general suitability to support plant growth, or more specifically root growth. Tilth is technically defined as the physical condition of the soil as related to its ease of tillage, fitness of seedbed, and impedance to seedling emergence and root penetration..."

So, I would guess, this digging over and sifting of the soil constitutes one of the steps in attempting to improve the tilth.

Improving the tilth of the Southern half of the RIMU veggie-bed 

Our steps in tilthing are: (1) Digging over the soil and removing all the grass, weeds, etc; (2) Sifting the loosened soil to remove the pebbles and rocks, tree roots and any other undesirables. At this stage, I would estimate that 44.5% (or roughly half the bed) has been completed; (3) Adding a good dollop of earthy organic compost to each pile of soil (roughly a barrow-load) and (4) mixing these components thoroughly together with any other required conditioners, and (5) finally raking and leveling the whole bed as a unit.

  

A close-up of the sifting operation - sometimes a bit difficult with wet soil...

We chuck the virgin soil shovelful by shovelful on top of the wire mesh, switch on the vibrator (bang the frame with your hands) and coax the sods through the holes, allowing the pebbles and grass bits to remain on top of the mesh and to 'ski' down to the bottom in a pile of dirt.

This is barrow #3 of stones and organic material which has come out of about 4 square metres of veggie bed.

Oh look, the drizzle has stopped. Time to stop writing and to start shoveling again.

Drat, look at that. The Pohutukawa veggie bed, which has just been sown with grass seeds as a green compost for the upcoming veggie season, has been infiltrated and mutilated. Hello....,labrador Sophie has just been spotted slinking away, after escaping under the mesh fence!

The veggie bed POHUTUKAWA, doggo-tilled to expose everything!

Frosty Wuz Here

Back in primary school days, we were always so "clever" by inscribing"Kilroy Wuz Here". That was in the days of old when people (including us kids) still respected other people's property and would never dare deface garden walls or public property. From my vague recollection, though, I seem to recall that public toilets were the exception and that graffiti could be seen in those hallowed halls of society.

FROSTY WUZ HERE. My graffiti on the trampoline.

However, I never knew whether the Kilroy tag was political, or rude, or racist. I suspect that it was generally done out of total ignorance and without any malice. Thinking back, I'm pretty certain that I never ever carved it out on a tree trunk or scratched it anywhere. I guess I was too scared that it would become a thing of school discipline and that living with such shame at being stupid enough to be caught red-handed...

I guess the origin of the tag is a bit shrouded in ignorance, but I understand that it started off somewhere around WW2-ish in the U.S.

First decent frost for 2015  ---  26/5/15

I shrugged off my schoolboyhood fears and with my fingernail inscribed the graffiti on the trampoline, with the date of the first "proper" frost of the 2015 season. That was about an hour ago. The sky is a cloudless brilliant autumn blue this morning and the sun has since obliterated my artwork. So, there, Mr Policeman-Headmaster, nature has "dissolved" the vital evidence. I live to write another day...

My footsteps overt the crisp frosty lawn.

A general view over the white lawn and my art canvas, the trampoline

Jacko standing eagerly in the frosty grass at the frosty goat-hill fence...

Make Thy Bed

Yes, yes, I know. The garden buffs among the readership will be calling out to me,"Why on earth are you doing that? Don't you realise that you are spreading the seeds of weeds by sifting your soil like that? Leave the ground as nature intended it, silly!"

Yep. They may be right.

What I see is a number of different weed enemies, most of which I am trying to remove in their entirety, but I cannot give any guarantee that there isn't some of their tiny seeds remaining in the soil, ready to leap out of their husks and smother our plants!

Bed "A" -  KARAKA

Some months ago, we prepared a clay/rock/sand bed, loaded it with compost and planted a number of seedlings. That was Bed "A"- referred to as the Karaka Bed. It is 9m² in size,  measuring approximately 3 metres by 3 metres.

Crops of tomatoes, beans, capsicums and cucumbers were grown and harvested in small quantities. This has subsequently been cleaned out, re-composted and mulched, and sown with various types of spinach and beetroot seeds. We have surrounded the planting areas with green plastic barricade netting as a precaution against inquisitive digging dogs!  

Bed "B" - POHUTUKAWA

Shortly after that, we constructed Bed "B",which we called, if memory serves, Pohutukawa, measuring 12m² approximately 4 metres by 3 metres. This bed was sown with beetroot, spinach, parsley and leeks. The spinach and parsley was OK, but the leeks and beets left a lot to be desired.  On the suspicion that the soil is of poor quality, we have sampled the Pohutukawa bed and sent the sample away for analysis by an agricultural soils laboratory.

The grand plan at the time was to build about six beds. Well, this one, Bed "C" under construction is called Rimu and it measures 20m², approximately 7.7 metres by 2.7 metres. 

Bed "C" under construction - RIMU

The retaining wall of 185mm T&G boards were measured, cut and bolted together in a rectangle recessed about 150mm below the level of the surrounding grassy ground. The soil has been roto-tilled to a depth of about 300mm. The soil composition varies considerably from the left-hand (containing more clay, pebbles and rocks) to the right-hand side (which is more "soil-ly", richer and "organic").

The long job of sifting gets underway

We are now at the stage where the rocks, stones, pebbles, roots and other vermin must be eradicated to give us a smooth lean planting medium. Whilst the process is labour-intensive and time-consuming, sieving the sand spadeful by spadeful is very efficient and, I should imagine, beneficial in the long run. Once this has been cleaned out, we can look at importing and blending in some good compost, roughly in the ratio of 1 part compost to 3 parts soil over a depth of about 250mm. 

Recall

A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. That's how some would define the word 'Nostalgia'.

Whether some of my recollections are purely simple "recalls"or whether the fall into the "nostalgia" category, would probably depend on the degree of  'wistfulness' and 'longing' associated with them. For the purposes of this blog post, I shan't try to analyse the events into categories like 'happy' or 'sad', 'longing'  or 'dreading' -- they will simply be recall recollections of the past, which I have already 'tested' on some younger people.

Take, for example, a simple cup of coffee and slice of buttered bread. 

Take the boiling water, the coffee component and the bread individually. The kettle (after the phasing out of the old aluminium flat-bottom boiling kettle atop the wood-fired Victorian Aga stove) was a new-fangled electric plug-in device, which could generate more steam than the local power station! And, unlike its predecessor, you needed to switch the steaming thing off at the wall-plug as soon as the water reached boiling point.  

My recall is walking into the kitchen on a cold morning to be faced with millions of rivulets of condensed steam running down the walls to tiny pools of water all along the skirting boards -- whoever had 'put the kettle on' had forgotten to keep a watchful eye over the device -- in extreme cases, the thing would boil dry and the heating element (which was clearly accessible inside the bottom of the kettle), would simply overheat and 'burn out'.

Today,having successfully boiled the water in a self-descaling, self-cut-off thermostatically-controlled boiler, I can 'make' my cuppa. Instead of  percolating the ground coffee beans in a stove-top percolator, the new-fangled technology allowed one to make coffee virtually 'instantly' by adding a teaspoon of liquid coffee essence in a cup of boiling water.

Of course, as kids we were not allowed to have 'instant' coffee -- it was far too expensive waste on kids! I once tasted of few drops of the neat essence from the bottle - Arrghh! Not sure what I expected, but certainly not the bitter result!!  

At that time, powdered instant coffee was not available -- I think so, as I was never really privy to grocery shopping at that stage -- the self-service 'supermarket'had not yet been invented. We were relegated to the class which was doomed to drink aromatic 'normal' coffee percolated from coffee beans, recently ground on the green-grocer's shop counter. 

 Bugger.

The slice of bread.

No, don't simply take it from the plastic sleeve packet. Take the loaf from the roll-top bread-bin, get the bread-board and the bread-knife and cut a slice of bread.

"No, not a 'doorstep' and not a 'wedge', either, mind."

It was almost impossible to produce perfect slices from a warm freshly-baked loaf -- that was a sure recipe for instant disaster -- you could just as well grab the thing in your mits and rip it into chunks -- like they did in days of old...

On one of the end-crusts of each loaf, you would find a printed paper 'duty' stamp much like a postage or revenue stamp. I can't remember the reason, but I always believed that there was some old phlegmy geezer at the bakery, who had the job of spitting on the back of the stamps and sticking one to the end of each loaf.

If served a sandwich with the label still on a crust-end, I would carefully remove the geezer-gob with a bit of the underlying bread, just in case. I recall that I had imagined detecting a stale taste when I once accidentally bit into such a label. Arrghh!

Come to think of it, I always seemed to get the label end-slice.

Bugger.

15-05-15 A River Runs Through It

Today we have one of those UK/US friendly dates -Friday 15/05/15. It has nothing to do with this post,merely an observation.  The weatherman has promised some more downpours in the afternoon, so I suggest to Jeanette that we stroll down to the Kents Road bridge over the Ngatiawa/Waikanae river to see the flow rate and state of the water.

For those readers who do not know, (or did not pay attention to previous blog posts), the Waikanae River at the bottom of our street, is not one of the country's major waterways, although it must be said that it is a major supplier of drinking water to the town of Waikanae as it winds its way through the valley and enlists the services of other streams. We are, so to speak, fairly close to the source of the river, so its flow is naturally erratic and responds to rainfall quite dramatically.

Looking up Kents Road towards the S-bend corner.

On the way down to the bridge, the soak-water was flowing with fair gusto, making a serene babbling sound, with the sounds of the fast-flowing river and fluttering poplar leaves completing the rest of the symphony of natural silence.

The gutter is generally dry, covered with leaves and twigs, but I was now able to see what happens to the water at the crossover pipe. It flows under the road and flows across a paddock belonging to neighbour Gerard.

A pond has developed in Gerard's grazing paddock.

   

If you look very carefully in the photo above, you will see a gang of ducks who had just been for a morning dip in the pond. 'Gang?'  What do you call a group of ducks, then?  I looked it up, just in case you need to know: they say  'a raft, or a bunch, or a paddling of ducks on water' and 'a safe of ducks on land.'

Another pond in the making in neighbour Shayne's field. Being closer to the river, it will
probably drain away within a day or two...

A small flock of sheep stood quite lifeless, wondering what these two odd humans were up to on a cool drizzly morning... The sheep have nothing to do with this post, either -- I simply though they looked pretty enough to deserve a mention.

The famous Grassy Knoll

Life is strange, and can sometimes be coincidental. 

I find that certain words frequently raise their heads, which leads me to think of events, places or people by association. I once worked with a fellow in an office environment. He was in the habit of talking aloud to himself while doing whatever his computer-based work entailed. I can vividly remember one instance. The word 'pool'.

"pool.... pool.... cool at the pool... James, would you believe that woman who was on the phone to me just now? I asked about her holiday, and the best she could come up with was to say that they were mostly drunk on brandy, lying in the sun on the lawn by the pool the whole time! pool...would you have..."  The conversation would end as abruptly as it started.

"Cool by the pool... cool... pool...  cool by the pool... by the pool, hey?...by, hey,by..." 

Damn. The continuation of the earlier monologue took off once more, interrupting my train of thought for the umpteenth time that morning.

Back to the present:  This morning I had one such what-I'd-like-to-call 'headraiser.' It'd been raining since just after dark last night. Showers on and off type of rain. I had just checked the rain-gauge and emptied the 65mm of overnight rain. Then, a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder... shower! shower! I barely managed to make it to the kitchen door to avoid the unprecedented deluge. It was truly a veritable 'torrent' 

There. One of those headraisers. Torrent... Torrent... Torrey... Torrey Canyon.

Question 1: How many readers know who /what /where  is/was Torrey Canyon? (Clue=1967.  See footnote #1 at the end of this post for the answer.)
Just to complete the story:   I rushed outside over the grass to the veggie garden five to ten minutes later to inspect the rain-gauge once more. That particular 'Torrey' had delivered 6mm in those few minutes.

As I returned over the grass, for some unknown reason another headraiser:  Grass... grassy.... Grassy Knoll!

Question 2: With which 20th Century statesman would you associate 'grassy knoll'? (Clue=1963.See footnote #2 at the end of this post for the answer.)

Page Down

*1 - Answer:   An Oil Tanker:  The SS Torrey Canyon was an LR2 Suezmax Class oil tanker with a cargo capacity for 120,000 tons of crude oil. She was shipwrecked off the western coast of Cornwall, England in March 1967, causing an environmental disaster.

*2 - Answer: John F Kennedy --- Dealey Plaza is bounded on the south, east, and north sides by tall buildings. One of those buildings is the former Texas School Book Depository building, from which, both the Warren Commission House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded Lee Harvey Oswald  fired a rifle that killed President Kennedy. There is also a grassy knoll on the northwest side of the plaza. At the plaza's west perimeter is a triple underpass beneath a railroad bridge, under which the motorcade raced after the shots were fired.

Fixtures

The latest updated fixtures for Waikanae Sharks* junior development hockey matches are:

28 Apr: 4:00pm v Kapiti Kings
28 Apr: 4:45pm v Kenakena Krushers
 5 May: 5:30pm v Param Beach Keas
12 May:4:45pm v Raumati Beach/ Paekakariki Blades
19 May:5:30pm v Kenakena Krushers
26 May:5:30pm v Kapiti Kings
  2 Jun: 4:45pm v Raumati Beach/Paekakariki Blades
  9 Jun: 5:30pm v Kenakena Krushers
16 Jun: 4:45pm v Kapiti Kings

*Note: In the interests of personal security, I have decided that no photographs of any Sharks hockey players will be posted on this blog.

Leaf Me Alone!

A gardener I'm not. I try to act like one, tackling gardener tasks such as digging, raking, weeding, mowing, watering, and, I hope, my skills will develop as time goes by. As a by-product of the weeding and mowing, we also do a bit of modest composting. And now, coupled to the composting, we are trying to make a bit of leaf mold. Apparently,it may take some time...

Leaf mold is what’s left when the dead, fallen leaves from deciduous trees and shrubs are heaped up and allowed to rot down. As they slowly moulder, only the toughest bits remain, eventually forming spongy, dark brown crumbs to rival any dessert topping. Leaf mold is easy to make, free of pests, diseases and weeds (unless you gather it from where they’re seeding), a delight to handle, and you can’t possibly overdose your soil on it. The hidden alchemy that brings it about – the countless microorganisms that drive decay – gives leaf mold its almost magical quality.

Raking up all the damp leaves is best done in the absence of pesky gusty winds.

The difference between compost and leaf mold?  Leaf mold is not the same as compost. Compost is produced by bacterial decomposition. Leaf mold is produced by fungal decomposition. Compost is hot, aerobic, and quick. Leaf mold is cool, slow, and can be produced with little oxygen. This means you don't have to turn it. Where compost needs a variety of ingredients to attain the right carbon to nitrogen ration to feed  the bacteria, leaf mold needs only the one ingredient-leaves. Leaves have a Carbon: Nitrogen ratio ranging from 80:1 to 200:1. There is some nitrogen available, but not enough to allow the bacteria population to explode.

Getting the piles of leaves picked up and compressed into the garbie bags is the main job.

Leaf mold serves as a soil conditioner rather than a natural fertilizer. It primarily changes the structure of the soil rather than serving nutrient needs. Its the fungus. All the little hairs of the fungus grabbing onto soil particles help to bind loose soil, while at the same time the hyphae helps to break up compact soil. The natural growth habit of the fungus will move from the leaf mold to the surrounding soil in all dimensions. Start with a small area of leaf mold, end up with a greater volume of better soil. Leaf mold will continue to break down until the only thing left is stable humus which will remain in the soil for decades to centuries, taking a fire to destroy it. Until then, the leaf mold is rich in organic components: humic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and stuff I never heard of. It is complex and impossible to manufacture. As the foundation of the soil ecosystem, there is nothing better.

Tons of  Carbon C and very little Nitrogen N

E-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y  the raking is completed. All that remains is fitting the collected
leaves into the bags for storage for a year or two.... 

Reflecting The Seasons From A Goat's Point of View

To start off : I have a tiny confession. I told a tiny little fib on Facebook by inferring that this blog post is a reflection of Jacko's thoughts about the seasons. Truth be told, Jacko really couldn't care less, but when I look at him up close and personal, his eyes exude such 'intelligence', that I thought it apt to personify him in this way. Sorry.
But on with the post:

There's nothing new or remarkable about the Seasons.They come and go every year, almost like clockwork. Well, almost. It's one of those clocks that slows down and speeds up, sometimes unexpectedly but frequently predictably. Something to do with El Niño and El Niña and Global Warming and other such sciencey things. You might get a long dry summer, or an early autumn, or you may not even notice their passing. I suppose it depends largely on where you live and whether you are exposed to nature.

Autumn, in our hemisphere (I use the word 'our' loosely - aka 'Southern'), is supposed to be in charge round about now. Quite correctly on cue, I see the signs of Autumn all around us when I stroll through the garden. ( I use the word 'garden' loosely as well -- aka 'grounds')

Nature reflected in the puddles of water on the garden table indicates that Autumn is truly here.

This morning, the lawns were fairly dry because of the wind that has been billowing around the trees and through the daisy stems, chucking generous quantities of brown and yellow leaves around. Brown and yellow leaves which will fit in very well with the green lawn cuttings destined for the new compost bins.
So, there being no time like the present, out comes the mover and we're busy with Composting 101, a course with nine steps: 1-Get mower; 2-Check Oil; 3-Fill gas-tank; 4-Start engine (hopefully first time) and set blade height; 5-Mow grass in a grid pattern; 6-Stop mowing when catch-box is filled; 7-Cart lawn clippings /leaf mixture to the composting precinct (I use the word 'precinct' intellectually simply to make it sound a bit more grandiose!); 8- Spread the mix equally into the bins and blend in, as appropriate. 9- Return to step 5. Continue with this sequence until you die, or nightfall comes, or until you run out of gas, whichever comes first...

The heavy leaf-fall in the garden picnic area will have to wait another day.Green area mowed.

Then, of course, it happens. I've hardly mowed a section of less than 20 square metres and Wham! the clouds open up and the Autumn rain starts falling. And Wham! some more. The pits: Composting 101 shelved for the day.

After dodging the showers and garaging the mower, out comes the camera and a short stroll around the lawn, so that I can share the view with you.

The volume of leaves falling from the Cherry tree is infinitesimal, when compared to the fall-volume from the Poplars. (a) the leaves themselves are smaller and (b) the trees are also smaller.

The Cherry tree with its shower of red-brown leaves ready for collection.

Oh look, the Crab Apples, the last of the fruit to develop, have ripened completely to this beautiful rosy state. Jacko loves Crab Apples. Jacko likes all sorts of apple, come to think of it. Actually, Jacko loves being hand-fed and would probably eat any fruit. I hear him shouting for attention right now...

The bright red Crab Apple fruit is ready for harvesting.

This great guy is a bit of a show-off. He insisted that I publish a whole bunch of pictures, just in case a talent scout might look at this post. We argued and debated the issue. Eventually... well, eventually I lost the argument (and my temper), but I managed to negotiate that we keep the number of his mug-shots down to 10. Of course, this post only has 3 -- but, don't worry : it won't become an issue ... I suspect that Jacko can't count, so he won't know the difference. (I hope!).

Jacko's cute pink tongue. No bad breath here, just wet goat coat-a bit like a schoolboy jumper.

Sniff sniff sniff... What's that I smell? Crab Apple,  I'd guess...

I am led to believe that the Nanny-goat down the road considers me quite a handsome old goat...
Check my teeth as I do this silly smiley thing...

Jacko isn't into full-frontal photography, he prefers head-shots.However, here is one full body shot, just to confirm his physique (in case Nelly the Nanny from down the road happens to read this.):

Jacko stands proudly. Actually doing a pee... like a girl-dog...

It looks as if Jacko has been doing his job,eating brambles and other greenery on GoatHill.

A view of the foliage down goat hill shows many bare Autumn branches

Keas Too Good

5th May sees the second game afternoon, with a late hit-off at 5:30pm for Game 3 of the season against the Paraparumu Beach Keas. Last week's centre-forward striker is given a chance to show his colours in goal, but has now had time to re-contemplate where his skills lie.

Granny and Mom were in the grandstand to watch the game and to provide much-needed support for Brynn and her team-mates.

Keas in Blue, Sharks in Red  (Photo: Bianca)

The Keas have a good combination of forwards, linking in well with their defence, leading them to be 2-0 up  without too much opposition. The Sharks managed to pull one back, but the Keas ended up deservedly as 3-1 winners. The "Man Player of the Match" award went to one of the two girls in the team for her performance as an able Left Wing in the first period, and as Goalkeeper in the second half. Well done, girls.

The log standing reads:

P   W   D   L   GF  GA  P
3    2    0     1     4      4    6

Casual-er

Tuesday morning means it's croquet time. Like all the cool dudes say, "Grab it and let's mallet!" or something to that effect. The trouble is finding a dude that is cool-ish at the croquet club!

Anyway, driving through Waikanae town to the croquet courts this morning with the car radio on Waikanae 93.5FM ,  after the news headlines at nine, the announcer's voice, "And the weather for today...Kapiti Coast, Paraparaumu to Waikanae... light showers, clearing later. The ranges... casual showers at times, with a gentle south-westerly. A high of eighteen degrees..."

Casual showers? I asked myself. What on earth is a casual shower? One with laid-back raindrops which simply saunter down feather-like to earth and then lol around on your shoulder? One that simply refuses to drop down in straight military-style lines, like trigger-happy water-canon?  Now, at lunchtime, we still have not experienced any sort of rain at all, casual, commonplace or proper. The anticipated precipitation quite evidently was extremely casual, perhaps casualer than casual, like, man, like the most super casualest of showers?

This opens up a whole new section in the Dictionary of Meteorology: instead of a 60% chance of showers, we could have casual, more casualer, or even the most casualest of showers...

Raindrops keep falling on my head.... nothing's bothering me-e-e. 

Autumn 2015 Arrives

Time has moved on steadily since we landed in New Zealand a bit more than 16 months ago. I can clearly remember Autumn 2014, which (I think) arrived at Reikorangi a bit later, and Jack Frost made his first showing two weeks earlier this year.

Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I mused at the number of Autumn leaves being snatched up by the mower as we mowed our joint way across the grassy lawns. Hmm... green, orange, yellow, and brown... And so, I've posted a few Autumnal pictures to share with you on Facebook here.

The picnic area looking a bit forlorn under the falling Autumn leaves.