Oh My Gourd!

OMG! check out these fat boys - all from the Maunga Kereru pumpkin patch. We have all different types of heirloom squashes, freak courgettes (i.e. unfeasibly large ones) pumpkins and other lovely biguns to keep us going over winter.

Fortunately we have some great recipes from Ottolenghi (Plenty), Nigel Slater (Tender) and Shane Delia (Maha) to help find inventive ways to eat these... approx 30 kilos plus of nature's bounty.

Alternatively we could fire up Siamese Dream and start chucking!

Country Life

Have you seen this man?? After a lovely dinner of veges from our garden we were feeling pretty smug.. oh you want to know what we had for dinner. OK... a fresh potato gratin thingy with potatoes picked only mins before being roasted. Also a salad of yellow tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum, fresh fennel seeds (avocado bought from the Puhoi store) and leftover pumpkin cooked as per the Plenty cookbook by Ottolenghi with parsley, thyme and dill sprinkled as a thick dust - all from our garden.

Well we were feeling pretty pleased with our lovely dinner washed down with a fizzy glass of something left on our doorstep (another story) when we found a humungous WETA in our bathroom. Talk about a blackhead - he looked well pissed off by the time we had ferried him outdoors. Anyway after that drama we came back into the kitchen and look what we found?!

It was a bit like one of those moments from a cheesy kid's TV program - we think what happened is that the global unconscious re-arranged about 300 tomatoes sitting on our kitchen bench into this visage terrible. A bit like our own indoor crop circle except out of tomatoes. Perhaps you could let us know if you have experienced something similar?!

Before and After

Tomatoes for breakfast on lovely Vogels bread x 10 has become a big favourite here at Maunga Kereru over the last few weeks.

Large deep burgundy ones, small yellow ones, lovely mild orange ones, tiny tims, chunky acid free red Roma ones... in fact about a dozen different heirloom varieties. These two pics show the seedlings in October and the other pic about a week's worth of harvest. Already we have filled the freezer with every type of pasta sauce, ketchup, soup base and heaps of whole ones. We have had over 150 plants in various parts of the property (there were originally over 470 seedlings but we gave heaps away... we think this is still legal?)

Now we are seed saving for next year (pretty sure that is legal too?) by drying seeds on kitchen tissue and remembering to write down which ones they are - a real favourite is called Martino's fat Burgundy after a recent guest who put them to good use.

I wonder what we are having for dinner tonight?

A Day in February (part one of a big effort by the Kaipara Bio Dynamic Group)

If you want to learn about Bio Dynamics then the best way to get started is to join a group like the Kaipara Bio Dynamic Group which has about twenty plus members who meet every third Sunday in each month North of Auckland.

Each meeting takes place at one of the member's properties and an activity, learning or project is shared. In the past one of the MK crew has visited a lovely bio-dynamic goat farm near Wellsford, made cowpat pits up in Mangawhai and met lots of people keen on learning about how the earth works and in particular growing the tastiest and healthiest veges humanly possible.

Bio Dynamics is the agricultural principles developed by Rudolf Steiner decades ago. In a later post we recommend a really good book to read on Bio Dynamics.

We are just getting started as BD is a logical extension to organic ideas and we have seen great results as beginner BD learners. Bigger, healthier, tastier veges and a growing awareness of the environment, moon and sun cycles are all part of the deal.

So it was our turn for the Kaipara Krew to visit MK in February and the project was to make a Bio Dynamic compost heap - we call it a lasagne because it is made the same way. Over the next five posts we detail exactly what was done our visiting BD posse who in addition to some tasty treats for lunch bought some of the vital material for the compost heap.

Images 1 & 2 show the first green material being prepared. 3 shows the beginning of heap - thin layers of green and brown (more on this later). Pic number 4 shows some ROK (ground basalt rock) being applied a bit like sugar on porridge. As you will see this was a real team effort so a big thank you to the Kaipara team who all worked so hard. We will show the results in future posts.

Part 1b - Bio Dynamic Compost Lasagne

Compost is Go (part 1c of our fabulous team effort at MK to make Bio Dynamic Compost)

Here we are really getting going, about halfway into the process of making our compost heap which is about 2 metres x 1 metre and will be over a metre high when finished.

These pics show us managing the structure of the heap as each layer goes on - use your knees to to pull the compost into a straight line - so you make a good big brick shape.

The idea is to create layers of nitrogen and carbon.

Nitrogen is green plant matter and Carbon is brown. A trap for young players is manure, which although brown, is in fact Nitrogen. Each of these elements on it own will putrify, but layers of each allows for air circulation to get the aerobic bacteria working hard. There is a bit of skill involved as you can see in pic number 3. If the heap is too loose there will be too much air and the heap will dry out. Too tight and the air cannot circulate and the heap will putrify.

A good idea is to aim for 25% animal manure content. Each layer of plant material should be about 15 to 25cm thick and the manure no more than 7cm - apply in rotation.

Water evenly as you apply each layer - but do not drench. It is also useful to sprinkle some old mature compost onto the heap..it has lots of goodies in it that get the whole heap going we are doing that in pic #2

The All-Important Balls (part two of the Bio-Dynamic Compost Heap Workshop)

Look closely at these two pics because these balls of earth will contain the vital ingredients that activates the compost over the next few months.

The Kaipara group has prepared five balls about the size of a tennis ball and into each of these will be inserted the preps.

The balls should be made of really good old compost if you have it. We have an old midden site at MK and we used some of this old original earth, full of old energy (that means it has been exposed to the moon over time)

to make our balls.

Pic #2 shows the BD preps which can be bought from www.biodynamic.org.nz and www.earthmatters.co.nz and cost about $12 for the whole compost combo. The compost preps used are: 502 = Yarrow which is high in potassium, selenium and sulphur which enables plants to be sensitive to light, 503= Camomile which promotes good breakdown of proteins

in the compost into humic nutrients not ammonia which is lost into the atmosphere. Camomile used to be used for the preservation of meat, before freezers as it is great for preventing putrefaction. 504 = Stinging Nettle which is high in silica and aids in strong upright plants. The Nettle prep helps breakdown the minerals in the soil releasing iron. 505 = Oakbark. Soil needs the right amount of calcium so plants can be free of disease, however it needs to be in a living form not as an applied mineral. Oakbark can raise the pH of soil without the addition of lime. 506= Dandelion which is magic silica and potassium activator.

If you want to find out more about the various preps and the roles they play and how they are made then a good book in Grasp the Nettle by Peter Proctor and Gillian Cole. Also if you are thinking of nominating someone for a Nobel prize check out www. onemanonecow.com