So what's been going on here at Uma Rapiti in my first week? Well, a lot of mulching really. The main goal has been to get the garden beds covered and in order in anticipation of spring planting for the seedlings we've started in the greenhouse. So chop and drop is the name of the game at the moment, turning all those pesky weeds into green mulches. I need to replenish my stock of cardboard for sheetmulching purposes, such has been the demand. Simple things like cardboard and newspaper become highly valued commodities within a permaculture system. I've also sown broadbeans and peas as cover crops for their nitrogen-fixing contributions, plus as a bed full of garlic. I've been making lots of trips into the surrounding karaka forest to collect sack-loads of tasty leaf litter as well. It's pretty sweet to be able to listen to birdsong from tui, kereru, etc. while doing my job. I just hope none of the karaka seeds decide to take root in the garden beds. I also headed down to the beach with my trusty wheelbarrow for a load of seaweed to grace the uppermost asparagus bed. Other jobs have been things like digging out gigantic flaxes and attacking it with an axe to divide it into three pieces before I could even move the behemoth, let alone replant it. A new tamarillo has gone in as well as more olives. I'm awaiting the arrival of about ten new banana trees to fill out the subtropical garden. Oh and I also restarted to the worm bin that had gone to wrack and ruin previously, so fingers crossed that the new worms are happy and healthy in their remodeled home.
In terms of produce that was growing when I arrived here, it's been mainly leafy green like silverbeet, brassicas like broccoli and cauliflower, a bunch of chili peppers, a few radishes, lettuce, leeks, some young potatoes, and there's a stash of kumara and an assortment of squashes in storage. The chooks are laying many eggs, but still getting a few feeds out of them. Oh and the brined olives from last years harvest are ready and so I've been cracking into those and they're delicious.
The upper garden all dressed up in leaf litter.
Lower garden bed
Seaweed-laden asparagus bed
One flax divided up
Filling the void left by that gigantic flax, becoming a pathway to the forest sleepout
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