What’s been happening…
As most of you know we had a holiday, rather significant for us, the longest holiday we have had together, ever. We travelled to Perth for two reasons, it was my little brother's 50th birthday and the Supercars were on in Perth, well I should say three - and to have a break! We succeeded in all three, had a great break, had an awesome time at the racing and my brother enjoyed us being there for his birthday.
With any time away from a life of living off the land, we were busy prior to leaving with all the autumn gardening, sorting out that the animals are well cared for and setting up Shandy's to hunker down in our absence. We were very appreciative to those who looked after everything while we were away. But it has meant now we are back and winter has definitely arrived, there are not too many big winterising jobs that need doing in this freezing cold. Andy has been straight back into the kitchen to keep up with production to get ahead for the spring as this is very much our busiest time coming up with rearing calves and spring markets.
Now we are back we are planning for all our next moves. Sharon is having shoulder surgery to fix an injury sustained earlier in the year at the end of July so our Spring is going to look very different to past years, which is going to need as much preparation as possible before she is in recovery.
As always we do have a few things in the pipeline which are very exciting for us, a new product is going to be launched! We are just in the process of finalising labels then it will be photos and the big reveal.
We also have had some great opportunities come our way. We now have our products stocked in the Merivale FreshChoice in Christchurch and Dalethorpe House in Darfield has established a 'pantry section' in their shop and have included our Elderflower Products and other gorgeous local products are featured. Both locations are worth a visit. The artisan section at Merivale FreshChoice is an eye packed symphony of colour and great products. Dalethorpe House has all those gorgeous local products but many more amazing giftware throughout their shop and a bonus cafe to sit and savour delicious food and drink.
Autumn is harvest season and this one was very exciting, with Sharon trying apple cider, and pear cider this year again after failing several years ago but this time succeeding. And she also discovered, in a big clean out of the pantry that the kombucha she made last year had in fact turned Fizzy and was delicious. So there has been a constant brew of kombucha going. You can find the recipe in the recipe section.
Upcoming Events
Matariki Night Market - Timaru CBD, Stafford St Timaru, 27th June 4.30pm-7.30pm
Southern Crafters - ILT Stadium, Invercargill, 12th July 10am-5pm & 13th July 10am-4pm
Garden City Makete Midwinter Christmas, 19th July 12pm-8pm
In The Garden
As mentioned above we did lots of winterising at the end of Autumn, which included cutting back everything that had died off from its flush/seeding through Summer. We cut the poplars back, donated some poplar poles for others to plant in the spring and some for ourselves are wintering in the stock water race ready for spring.
We have planted veges in the tunnel house for the first time, to cover winter and maybe get some early spring food, so we'll see how that goes. The garlic is planted and up and the onions are ready to plant out when the weather settles a bit.
We are still harvesting a little spinach and the tail end brassicas, with the feijoas falling each day. The fruit trees and currants are waiting patiently to be pruned on a few nice days. Our vege beds are no dig so we are constantly layering them with different organic matter whenever they are bare to feed the soil for the next round of plants and Sharon is monitoring the tomatoes in storage to collect the ones that have ripened and the apples that are not storing so well get separated from the rest.
