La Mas Ceramics Studio

 Garden Club had an outing, a Saturday morning workshop at La Mas Ceramics Studio in Kelston. Thera, our secretary, was a ceramics nut and booked us in for a bout of indoor creativity. We painted ceramics of our choosing to be fired in the big kiln to possibly be revealed at the next club night. 

Our garden grumbles were the same - can't do anything in this cold, wet, dark winter. This is why club nights are now put on recess during July and August. It only took about 60 years to make this decision...

Meanwhile at Woodside Community Garden, which I haven't set foot in for a the past two months, is desperate to get me back in on the same morning. Though they haven't called any meetings either, and Garden Club had already organised their Wintergarden and Ceramics outings. So I just go where I've already been booked in. 

I sometimes forget that I'm meant to be a faithful stalwart who sticks and commits to something every time the doors open. Though I find I'm actually fickle as the weather and not like a rock people supposedly can rely on. Being singleminded has its benefits, though it also means you can't just suddenly change your mind. Only crazy people say one thing and do another. If only Auckland weather was reliable. But people also forget it's not like Friendly Feilding, where the town is completely flat and everyone knows their neighbours. Or Windy Wellington, that revolves around a Beehive. Or even Cultured Christchurch, which has an underground crime scene and above ground cardboard Cathedral. In Awkward Auckland, you may have to cross a bridge over troubled waters to get places, or ford a stream, or go around a dormant volcano, cut through the bush, and navigate the tides and inlets of the harbour, or travel through a tunnel, an in and around a dozen or so bridges around Spaghetti Junction whilst changing five lanes to get to a turn off ramp, then fight for the last carpark. On a good day, the sun is shining and you can actually see where you are going. On a bad day, it's like the movie the Labyrinth. It's just easier to stay at home. That's why Aucklanders didn't mind the lockdowns so much compared to the rest of the country. 

I'm just sayin'.

So anyway, I had my ceramic craft fix and painted myself a little shell which I am going to either hold soap or tea light candles in, or maybe potpourri or pearls or glass beads. Thera painted a snail, Karen a conch, Grace had a dragonfly, Bev had a cat, and Cenny a lemon tree wall plaque. If you want to paint and glaze your own garden ornaments, here's the place. Resident ceramic artist Marilyn said she must have supplied everybody in West Auckland with a glazed ceramic wall gecko for the past 25 years. 

I got home and thought should I do some gardening? I pruned the tangelo, which was sour this season, of all the dead branches. Several tuis feed on the surrounding Dragon's Gold kowhai and now can land on its branches. The Orchid Show was also on this weekend, now at Te Atatu Peninsula, which was always a treat to go to. But I am NOT joining their club. That's takes a certain amount of obssession to be an orchid fancier (and glasshouse money, which I don't have) and the Prize winning Orchid people have a sort of crazed look about them. I know the kind, as depicted in the book/movie the Orchid Thief. It's a cult. Once you buy one orchid, you'll want them all and become a shameless exhibitor of the most coveted showgirls in the world of plants and then you've reached the point of no return. 

Foraging Life

 I've been reading a memoir called Foraging Life by Helen Lehndorf, from the 'Naki. She doesn't mention a word about the famous Rhododendron Garden Festival or even the con-current fringe garden festival although it seems people from around her parts are also permaculture nerds like me. 

Her book has several recipes made from weeds and fruits foraged in the wild places that are just the norm for those who live in the Wild West. 

My mum is a forager too. When inorganic collection day comes around, she'd be the first to pick things up from the side of the road, and we frequent Henderson's dozen op shops, looking for that elusive serendiptious item that cannot be bought for love or money online. This also applies to wild chestnuts, feijoas, dandelions, onion weed, kawakawa, pinecones and anything else nature gives us for free.

My neighbour goes one better, she dumpster dives, and sometimes I have to stop her from rescuing food from rubbish bins and on Fridays when it's rubbish day I make myself scarce because I know she'd be tempted to look in everyone's bins to see what they are throwing out, there might be something edible. 

Initially it was something to be ashamed of that we were gleaners and picked things off the ground and ate them that others have discarded and dropped, but now it has become a badge of honour, to say we are saving planet from potential imploding from all the things we keep putting into the landfill and down the drain.

This has given me a perverse idea, to dig a giant hole in the backyard and encourage people to drop their excess money they don't want in it. After all they can't eat it. It's a bit useless. When its full I will just put dirt on the top and level it again with some turf, and then in maybe 30 years time (I plan to still be around) when I do need some extra cash, I can just dig it up. 

Or I could just plant potatoes. 

Actually, I have been hoping for a break in the weather so I can sow sunflowers, and the snow peas (a bit late) and the packet of wildflower seeds from Gardenpost. Although, good news, I have found a new school library AND it will now receive some plant love too. So maybe I can just put my money plants by the doors. It looks like this school doesn't receive free school lunches either so I have my work cut out for me, unless we do a deal with the another school which DOES receive school lunches and eat their leftovers? 

I am counting on Countdown, or maybe Fresh Choice or even New World to provide us with some donations that we can somehow convert into books and materials for the library. Times are tough and I don't want to beg. I can sing for my supper though. Though looking at the field, it too looks like a potential rice paddy/shrimp farm though I must ignore such silly notions and buy my lunch from the nearest KFC/bakery like everyone else. 

My brothers recent drama ($4000 worth of garden tool equipment, gone, after his garden shed got broken into) has left him a bit reeling and I am also a bit sad because actually I was wanting to borrow the waterblaster and hedgetrimmer one weekend for New Gardenland. 'Borrow' not 'steal and never return it'. My brother did not operate a garden tool lending library though and failed to barcode and stamp his tools so, I guess nothing can be done about that...

Fairy Dust

 Weather has been wet as usual, and weather reports say we haven't had a week without rain in Aucks this year. If it's not raining, its drizzling or cloudy, or showery and the moments of sunshine aren't enough to dry out everything so anyone doing laundry has to pick and choose their days or let it all pile up. 

It's like we are lockdown again except it isn't COVID anymore but simply being plagued with rain. Or maybe just the winter blues. Some people claim they have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and get prescribed either Vitamin D tablets or if they can afford it, trips to sunnier climes, like Fiji and Raro. 

All this rain is very good for the water table. Maybe this will sustain is in times of Summer droughts. All I know is if the puddles don't dry out we're in for damp, dank mould and mildew and possibly outbreaks of TB and general miasma. 

The problems is we are on an an isthmus and the only way out of Auckland is up North or to the South, if you go further East you end up in the bogs and fens of Thames and if you go West you crash into the surf at Piha, if you aren't hit by landslides down Scenic Drive. 

I have been plotting my escape, the easiest route for me would be to go up North (rather than brave the motorway South to the airport) however, thing is I can't take my garden with me. Also I feel it would be a faithless act to up and leave for greener (or drier?)  pastures just because of a bit of rain. Also if I stay, why not turn the backyard into a rice paddy? Mum might be pleased to have homegrown rice instead of importing the precious commodity from Thailand. 

My solution is to scatter fairy dust over everything, i.e gypsum aka Calcium Sulphate in hopes that the clay will accept this attempt to bind and poke holes in it so the water can drain and perhaps form underground caves underneath the garden. Could work. 

I could also invest in a broadfork, or shoes with big spikes in it to aerate the ground, or just commandeer a school rugby team to run roughshod around the lawn, turn it into a mud wrestling pit, and once the ground is throughly rucked over, start planting again. I had this vision when I worked at the Orchards Retirment Village for the neighbouring Glenfield College (battle) fields. I remember saying to my boss look at all that green space we could turn it into an amazing garden. Then the residents of the retirment village would have something beautiful to look at rather than a muddy pasture and two rugby posts. He just thought I was crazy and reminded me that I missed a spot leaf blowing. 

He was no fun. 

Matauranga

As promised, pics of the latest garden trip.  For those who love symmetry and order the Auckland Domain Wintergardens are for you. Planting in grids and colour coordinating your flowers for the mathematically minded Minecrafters amongst us. I can imagine maths books having questions like how many pots of flowers would you need to source per square foot to create bedding displays like this. I remember using string lines to make perfect circles and patterns for car park beds and had it down to a fine art. The heartbreaking thing was pulling them all out again when the display was over. But then this is the reality of mass annual bedding displays. It is the garden equivalent of fast fashion for the 'wow' factor. 

 I'm pleased that a parcel from Garden Post has finally arrived. I have ordered tiger lilies 'Corsage' 'Red life' 'Yellow Bruse' and Oriental lily 'Stargazer'. The instructions said to plant immediately yet I have to wait in between thunder, lightening, hail and wind. Real witchy weather. I don't know who made God mad, but He was sending His judgement down on Henderson today. Thankfully at the end of the storm is a rainbow and the sweet silver song of a ...tui. I recommend wearing gumboots should you ever be struck by lightening and not flying a kite. 

Pat had given me a parcel of seeds to sow including beans, bee and butterfly wildflower mixes, rocket and coriander. I'm still hanging out to plant snow peas if they have not drowned by now. 

Rivercare had their Matariki and Matauranga talk in which they reiterated that schools are the places to get the message out there to be environmentally aware. All Westie schools are somewhere along the awa (Henderson Creek, Opanuku, Hururhuru, Taikata) do water testing and education of what to flush or not flush down the toilet. Apparently our sewerage system is breaking down. Sir Dove Myer Robinson did not forsee the over flows from a population nearing 2 million in the wider Auckland area! To think only a few decades ago Auckland was fledgling city with its outer limits only reachable by tram. It was basically a big village ending in Western Springs and Westmere was 'the West' while Henderson was a small country town that you could only get to by rail. It was also a 'dry' area on one side of the tracks. Te Atatu Peninsula (or Henderson North) was scrubland and wild and there was no motorway or even causeway..everyone travelled along Great North Road from Karangahape until they reached Swanson. And there were Kauri forests all around (before it got cut down for Auckland's houses and then all the gum dug out). So far, so progress. 

Queen Street was just a ditch and the way to get down to the harbour was on your waka, imagine if the Pakeha settlers had their original dream and the centre of town was actually Cornwallis. I try not to look into the past so much but now I've lived long enough to say to youngsters well it was not always like this. I remember when....and they look at me incredulously as if I've just jumped out of a tardis and travelled back in time. I've started singing a waiata E Karanga E te iwi E 'Pomaria E' in the mornings just to be grounded. This is my turangawaewae the land filled with so much we loved and lost.  The apple trees are still growing as I've put them back to remind me of those days of yore when Henderson was a Garden of Eden of orchards and vineyards and the apple man would go door to door bringing Granny Smiths, Golden Delicious and Braeburns when the fruit was just there for the picking and the cats play and are buried when they die in the pet cemeteries of our yards.