Returning to the Garden

 It's been two years since I really put any effort into my vege garden.

I started working full-time, with two hours a day travel, while still spinning and weaving and keeping up my small business.  It hasn't left me with a lot of time left over for any gardening.  Add to this, now, I'm also studying online in my own time.

But the world is going to hell in a handbasket and it's easy to feel hopeless about large international events that will impact and are impacting us here.  And the Muppet show that is our current government isn't helping (while I try not to get political normally, recent statements and law changes are steps too far). Someone said to me "Yeah, but what can you do?"

What can I do?

A great podcast that I follow (Do You F*cking Mind on Spotify for any who are interested) is all about mind health, and some neuroscience.  Alexis frequently says to concentrate on the things you can control.  I can't control inflation, I can't control other peoples' poor choices, I can't control what is looking more and more like another major war impending.

I can grow food.  I can ensure that my family and close friends are fed.  I can provide ordinary veges that only cost me time to grow but cost an arm, leg and a kidney in the supermarkets right now.  I can preserve my glut so that all my family have access to soups and sauces over winter.  I can host a regular family dinner that brings everyone together and ensures that they have a good hearty meal every so often.  

I had previously put a lot of work into improving the soil, the weeds loved my work and as a result, it had become extremely overgrown.  We had made a start to it in summer, but a wet and colder than usual summer meant that harvests were pretty dismal.  Still, it gave us a starting place.

I enlisted Hubby to help build the beginnings of planter boxes.  These have all come from the scrap ends of new rail fencing to replace the fences that were crushed under the fallen trees in some of spring storms we've been having over the last few years.  As more fences (and my new cattle yards!!) are completed, there will be more scrap ends and I'll raise it higher again.  I'm getting older and a bit broken physically, so anything we can do to make the job easier is of value to our future selves.

I didn't want to buy in soil to fill the boxes.  I've heard stories of soil that had some sort of poison in that killed anything planted in it and not even weeds or grass would grow there. Plus all the constant stories of oxalis or similar growing rampant in bought soils.  I've been working to build up my own soil.  I'm  composting as I'm planting in it.  Hubby cleaned out the gutters, so I put that in.  We cleaned the chookhouses, so I put that in.  Fireplace ash and lawn clippings.  I'm ensuring that I dig it into the existing soil and mix it up in diagonal layers.  Leaf Litter and roadkill are also going in shortly - the roadkill will be well buried of course.

Hubby built some covered planter boxes to protect my broccoli and cauliflower from the brassica moths a few years ago.  This has worked well, although I have to be careful to pick them before they grow through the netting.  It also keeps my feral hen that thinks she's the dog's pet (long story) out of them too.

The dags and bellies from shearing and the neps and double cuts I find when spinning wool are the base for my path, covered with wood mulch.  Some of the wood that has been mulched is probably too fresh to put directly in the garden, but it can work for this year in the path.

I'm buying plants and seeds in small amounts when I see them available.  I'm trying to keep it manageable to plant and maintain.  So far, my humble vege garden is boasting broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot, onions, peas, boysenberries and strawberries.  I'll plant some beans in the next few months and Hubby's patch is always filled with self-sown potatoes - I know we didn't get them all last year.  Wow.  I didn't realise the variety I had until I typed it in just now.

While I have struggled in recent years to find something to grow that both Hubby and I will eat - as I usually grow too much for just one of us - I am now growing for my wider family too.  This makes it easier to select and makes for some small economies of scale when I'm buying plants.

We are making plans and organising materials for the next stage.  Watch this space!

Time Bank Hurunui

At the start of this month, I attended a meeting at the Amberley Library about setting up a Time Bank for our area.

The presenter had been involved in The Lyttelton Time Bank and missed the sense of community since she'd moved to Amberley and wanted to start one up out here.

The concept is simple but exciting.  With the Time Bank, you are trading time - literally. I do an hour's baby-sitting for you, you spend an hour weeding that person's garden, they spend an hour stacking firewood for someone else and somewhere in there, someone will come and spend an hour doing something for me.  The Time Bank is set up so that the hours are recorded somewhere - so that there is a way of knowing who has spent hours and who has earned them.  It also is a valuable place for learning who and what is available locally.

In that first meeting, as an exercise we had a mock Time Bank exchange.  We wrote down 5 skills we have - what we could offer and went around others at the meeting seeing what they offered and where we could do trades.  In exchange for baby-sitting, preserving fruit and tarot readings, I was getting Freeview set up, Reiki, a singing lesson and the dog walked - although I got the feeling from her that I'd be doing her a favour by having her walk the dog.

A community's greatest asset is it's people and the different skills they have.  Many of those skills are underestimated in their importance and undervalued for their true worth.  There was an elderly chap at that meeting.  He was interested in the concept, but could only see physical labour type scenarios, but as it turned out, his depth of knowledge with plants and gardening is extensive so he could spend an hour teaching others how to propagate plants - just as one example.  How many jobs are there that just take time?  If I had a few more hours in the day, I could get so much more achieved and here is the way to do it.

We also get a bit hung up on returning favours, on giving back to someone who has been generous to us, paying them back.  My neighbour has been tremendous, I am so immensely grateful to him for his time, experience and willingness to come and help me with things that I don't fully understand, or have the facilities for (like cattle yards).  I've said to him, repeatedly, if there is anything at all that I can help you with, don't be shy, sing out.  He (and his wonderful wife) just laugh at me and I haven't had any kind of request for help with anything yet.

The Time Bank is a way for me to pay that favour forward.  So I put my name down for being involved in setting ours up.  Our first meeting was this morning.  Mostly this was the initial getting to know each other, who is willing to be a part of what aspect of the organisation and the first steps towards making it a legal entity.

It will take some time for Time Bank Hurunui to be fully functioning, but the ideas, experience and motivation of the people who were at the meeting was inspiring.  I'm glad that I did put my name down and attend this meeting.

For more information on Time Banks, or to see if there is one operating near you, check out Timebank Aotearoa.  From there are links to various groups, explanations of how it all works as well as many resources that are useful for any groups of this sort.