A deliciously light but definitely show off gooseberry fool was pride of place as our Christmas Day dessert.  It was also the fruit I used to christen my new ice-cream maker creating a frozen yoghurt that was most definitely the fanfare of gooseberry taste experiences so far.  Turning some into jam will I hope bring back the bitter sweet taste long after summer has gone.

There are plenty more berry adventures to come this year with raspberries, blueberries, worcesterberries (that are apparently taste like a cross between a gooseberry and blackberry), tayberries (cross between blackberry and raspberry) and blackberries all starting to show their colours alongside the red and blackcurrants.  There is nothing more comforting to be reaping the rewards of your own growing efforts.

I spied a punnet of gooseberries tucked away on the top shelf in the supermarket and gasped at the price.  A small punnet was almost $6 dollars making me realise once again of the long term benefits of growing your own berries. We’ve recouped our initial investment in the plant already and I suspect treated our berries with more reverence than I ever would have with something I’d bought from the shop. That said it dawned on me that I might need to buy some strawberries to buy for this year’s jam supply after the recent rains have ruined the possibilities for a continued home harvest.

It’s was the strangest feeling recognising that I felt a disappointment to not be self sufficient in strawberries for jam.  If I were a a person truly committed to self sufficiency I’d be doing without strawberry jam this year but instead I’m wrestling with levels of self indulgence I’ve not recognised in myself before.  As a next best thing to growing my own strawberries I could buy locally sourced fruit or perhaps I should buy locally made jam.

If you were me what would you do?

A: do without home made strawberry jam this year

B: buy local strawberries and make my own jam

C: buy locally produced jam?

Over the last four years we have done battle with gorse harvests, thistles and hay length grass.  You know you still have a long grass problem when the wind blows a seed storm and you think it’s dust. After days of hard graft with the mower and strimmer/weed wacker the place looks much tidier and dare I say mostly looks like a garden rather than a hay field.  The Kitchen Garden is an oasis of calm fully stocked with goodies and only the final painting to be complete on the arbour making our shady retreat complete.

One of the biggest luxuries of life these days is long summer breaks off work – partly vacation and partly enforced unemployment as the rest of New Zealand kicks back and has no requirement for consultants to whip them into shape. Even after his Lordship returns to work I have a long list of projects to plod on with.

I wonder whether Sisyphus had quite as many late starts to his pushing day.  As many stops for morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea.  Or time out to read his Christmas books and contemplate the good life.  I suspect not.

As we end 2011 under a large black cloud and pelting rain I’m in no mood for positive reflection nor inspiring new year’s resolutions. I know I shouldn’t complain but the temperature drop of 15 degrees has been a  shock to my system.  I’d rather be facing my gargantuan harvest of strawberries with a large dollop of ice cream and a grin like a Cheshire cat.  Instead I’m wondering how wet I might get if I dashed out and brought in some rhubarb and make a crumble with them instead.

It can’t rain forever, can it? No, really?

Whatever the weather, I hope that the transition to 2012 will bring you high hopes for great things in the coming year.  My head is brimming with ideas and aspirations for the rest of the summer and indeed for 2012 but right now I feel I need all my energy to stay warm as a southerly brings us a polar chill.

Whatever you are doing this New Year’s Eve it’s full of good things and cheer.

At first sight everything looked marvellous but closer inspection showed that in some cases there had been rather too much blooming.  The emerging broccoli spears of two days ago had a growth spurt and were now looking like a bouquet of flowers playing host to visiting bees.  The garden has never been so well stocked at this time of year as I managed to get my planting ahead of schedule and the greenhouse has been a godsend allowing germination of seeds and a forest of tomato plants to be growing indoors.

Still dressed for work I resisted the temptation to snatch out a few stray weeds although admit I did graze a while on broccoli, peas and strawberries.  I know if they’d been left for another day their moment of vegetable glory would have passed.

It’s been a strange few weeks.  Days have been packed with work, gardening and losing the battle of time in my Christmas preparations.  I’ve been slightly disconnected from blogging and tweeting which makes me feel even more distant from family and friends.  It’s just a few days until the big holiday and I’m looking forward to kicking back and getting focused on domesticity for a few weeks.  But until then there is the home run on the work front to be endured.

I say endured but in reality we’re heading into Christmas catch ups, parties and soirees.  It’s going to be tough but I think I’ll manage it.  I’m hosting an English Afternoon Tea for some of my clients mid week so there’ll be plenty of baking to be done.  It’s a shame that the weather forecast is pretty dire this week, great for the gardening but disastrous for outdoor entertaining.

For the first time we have a crop of gooseberries and worcesterberries.  Last year the birds feasted on them before I could get them netted for protection.  I love gooseberries and have grand plans for splitting this harvest between desserts for now and preserving them to enjoy over the coming months.  The Globe Artichokes are growing brilliantly too.  I am actually glad I took out two of the five I planted otherwise we would be over-run with them although we eat a lot of artichoke hearts so preserving them would not have been such a problem.

As I trudged back up the garden the other evening my feet aching from standing in high heels all day were starting to be soothed by my gum boots.  Nothing quite like swishing through the long grass to bring life into perspective.  Although their hopes dashed for a last feed the chickens were by now happily sitting on their roost.  I couldn’t help but smile and say thank you as I scooped up half a dozen eggs for the pantry.

Summer officially started on 1 December and all around us nature is blooming.  The kitchen garden is well stocked and although it’s thin pickings right now the potential food bounties are tantalising. The warm and occasionally damp weather is perfect growing weather and I like nothing better than wandering amongst the beds to check progress.  I swear the tomato plants in the green house are growing before my eyes!

Away from the garden the traditional pre-Christmas rush has started at work with people wanting to tie up loose ends before the summer break.  Given the state of the overall economy, opportunities for work are a precious commodity that must be cherished through extra efforts. A twist of fate with a colleague of mine has also resulted in extra work for me next week including a rare trip to Auckland.  Hope the weather doesn’t turn wild like it has done recently forcing flights from Auckland to abandon landing in Wellington and return back north.

I really admire other expats who seem to have the whole Christmas thing organised.  Especially those people who meet the earliest (and cheapest) last posting dates to send cards and presents back to the homeland.  Once again I am behind the pace and running to catch up.  Perhaps next year I’ll be better prepared although a bit of me thinks there would be no fun in that!

The wild birds are the biggest threat to my cherry trees and indeed pretty much everything else in the Kitchen Garden.  They successfully pilfered my recent planting of red onions I suspect on the grounds that they looked very much like tasty worms waving in the wind.  With the cherries and gooseberries bearing fruit it’s a race against time to create the protective barriers to keep the birds from helping themselves when I’m not looking.  You’d think that they’d been happy enough pecking my cabbages to death.

Mice have become a pain too digging up garlic and having a ferret around the potatoes.  I was tempted to set a few mousetraps but that seems churlish since I’ve already cut off the source of rich pickings by locking up all the chicken and dog food into lockable bins.  Instead they are feasting on the compost heap which I’m OK with as long as it keeps the rats away.  Yes, rats!  Although they elicit a distinct yuck factor with me, we’re luckier than some of our neighbors who seem to be over-run with large rodents.

We tend not to get too many slugs and snails on account of the number of wild birds that parade the garden although I’m always vigilant since we have a proliferation of hostas which would be perfect fodder.  My nemesis is the cabbage white butterflies that love to flitter amongst the vegetables with potentially devastating effect.  I’ve planted heaps of companion flowers to distract them but will be netting my brassicas this year to avoid a repeat of the locust like devastation of last year.

For all the irritations of birds, mice and other inspects the biggest threat to our gardening endeavors is the Wellington wind which can strike at any time and beat the garden into submission.  I’m in despair at the moment with my broad beans which however hard I try to protect and tie them up well seem to entice punishment from the wind and turn them into bedraggled and battle weary specimens.

I’m all for biodiversity and embracing the principles of permaculture into growing just as long as I can reap the rewards of my growing efforts rather than losing them to other garden residents.  So this weekend it’s a rush to install the fruit cages and continue with the almost daily routine of tying in plants to canes.  And when the kitchen garden is battle ready I shall start on remedying the damage to our deciduous trees which as mere babes in tree life are still struggling to find their feet and battle the onslaught of gorse.   But that’s a whole other story for another day!

For the purposes of the training I decided that an achievement I was proud of was the life shift we’ve made in the last 6 years.  I’ve gone from a state of mostly exhausted existence in the UK to a life which no less exhausting at times but one that feels better and much more fun.  I’m often asked why didn’t I make the sort of life I wanted in the UK and the truthful answer to this question is that would simply have been too hard. It was much easier to just pack everything up and move to a completely different part of the world and start again.

Hard work and a lot of luck has helped us along our way but having a clear view about what we wanted our future to look like has been the thing that has sustained progress. Sometimes the details aren’t clear but that’s when the fun starts as you can shape and change things until you find a level of satisfaction.  Who’d have known that a notional dream about “living the good life” would have resulted in a growing obsession about where my food comes from and where on earth I can get my hands on a medlar tree or crocus bulbs so I can grow my own saffron.

These are luxurious thoughts but I’ve come to realise this week that my work as a coach helps heaps of other people to take small steps every day to making their life better or those that they work with and that’s an incredibly powerful thing.  Now all I need is a Jedi outfit and I’ll be good to go.

Medlar Bud in the Orchard.

Our new wooden arbor will provide a quiet shady sanctuary and provide a perfect barrier for the bench that grew wings last year when the wind blew and spent as much time outside the garden as it in.  I know the basset will appreciate the cool spot and I can hardly wait to have a quiet place to contemplate or perhaps stretch out for a quick snooze in the shade.

All this new development is just in the nick of time as the kitchen garden is springing into life for another growing season.  The beds have been topped up and most of the crops that were started from seed and grown through adolescence in the cold frames are now planted out in the garden.  It’s been a marathon effort but worth it to see the possibilities for what we’ll be eating in the not to distant future.

While we’ve been wrapping up the kitchen garden the herb garden has been unwrapped.  It’s time the box hedging earned its keep and be sprung from the cage that has encased it since shortly after it was planted three years ago.  All it needs now is a really good haircut to smarten it up.  I’m excited about the possibility of the spare box plants I had being turned into some topiary treats.  For now they are growing up in pots and being used to take cuttings so we can perhaps in time add a suitably smart boundary to the kitchen garden.

The warm and wet weather we’ve been having this Spring has done wonders for the garden although it feels like a sprint every week to get ahead of the grass which seems to grow before your very eyes.  I’m slowly unwrapping all the flower beds around the house and you can almost hear the plants sigh with relief as they can spread their branches and stems.  It has softened the edges and transformed the look of the house.

A big shout out to my lovely friend from Wellington who I’ve known long before we moved to New Zealand.  She’s been a perfect slave in the garden and made the whole arduous task of weeding, trimming and clearing so much more fun.  Thanks N!

If we’re to survive eating food from our kitchen garden I’m going to need to be better organised and dare I say more of a veggie geek.  So far, my vegetable gardening routine has been driven by available time and energy.  To be successful in this game I need to get into a more planned approach treating each season and crop according to a pre-planned timeline.  Also, I need to be more specific about how much I plant of what.  I’m still very much in the let’s see what grows and plant it all.

We’ve just eaten the last garlic bulb from last year’s crop which were harvested 10 months ago.  I’m actually amazed that the stock stored and lasted as well.  I know this year it won’t as the mice ran off with many of my garlic cloves from the garden immediately after they were planted.  We will probably only have a third amount of garlic to store this year but we shave savour every one. Our potato stock ran out months ago although I’m fast coming to the conclusion that we’re better off just growing new potatoes which do taste much better than shop bought whereas main crop potatoes stored don’t taste that different and we’d need a massive garden to grow enough for the whole year. I seriously underestimated the amount of root vegetables to grow last year.  We ran out of carrots and parsnips pretty soon although I was beginning to feel I never want to eat another turnip as they sprung up easily and grew to massive proportions.

Knowing what you want to eat and when is of course the starting point for any kitchen gardener.  I’ve placed so much emphasis on the what that timing and yield hasn’t really crossed my mind.  Although I’ve been putting more of a conscious effort into thinking about that this year I am still a little on the back foot as far as stocking the garden goes.  It’s been a flurry of activity re-filling the raised beds which have settled considerably and needed an injection of new compost and soil.  Potting on seedlings in the greenhouse and then into the cold frame has been relatively straightforward although I amassed a stock pile of plants which really should have been in the ground by now.

I’ve also grown masses of companion flowers this year which are groaning at me from the cold frame to be let out into the garden proper.  If all goes according to plan this will be happening today.  Along with a massive seed plant of root vegetables.  The runner beans still need to find a home and I’m running out of space as I’ve been a little over enthusiastic with my planting of peas and beans this year.  I have no doubt that I’ll manage to squeeze everything in and then it will just be a question of standing back and seeing what happens.

One bit of planning I have done this year is to choose varieties of vegetables that will feed the soul as well as the serve our dinner plates.  I’ve planted a much bigger range of New Zealand heritage varieties and crops that will be beautiful as well as tasty.  I love these peas which have frilly stems and are competing for the beautiful pea award. Charting progress in my backyard pantry has never been more exciting and you can be sure that there will be plenty of veggie geek reporting to come.

Living in the country you can’t have a pristinely cultivated landscape so trying to tame nature in our garden is a futile goal.  Our dreams of a croquet standard lawn long abandoned as are thoughts of wildflower meadows. Instead we push on determinedly to have something resembling a residential garden around the house and a potager style kitchen garden that feeds the soul as well as the stomach.  Each year we become a little older and wiser and with it that sense of being overwhelmed with the enormity of it all is only an occasional emotion rather than a daily despair.

There is of course plenty of natural beauty to admire, especially as you walk the forestry tracks close by where the hedgerows and verges are bursting with new growth and drifts of spring flowers.

Aside from the horticultural bias of the weekend, New Zealand was firmly focused on the Rugby World Cup Final played on Sunday evening.  The whole nation was feeling the pressure and it’s hardly surprising that this took a toll on the All Blacks who had to face not just another Rugby Team but be the guardians of national pride and morale.  I was reminded of watching England play in the same position eight years ago.  And like England then, the All Blacks kept the nation on a knife-edge from the first kick and last pass of the game.  A few days after the big match I feel it’s only now possible to reflect on how good the All Blacks are as a sporting team and enjoy their achievement rather than curse them for putting our nerves on edge rather than romping home with the cup.  If you want to get a sense of how it was for us all here, take a look at this video.  A brilliant short film of the pain and joy of being a rugby obsessed kiwi.

Nature is testing us more as we endure the wild winds of a Wellington Spring, no sense in trying to tame the gusty gales which dominate at this time of year.  Just like the All Blacks we just need to dig in and defend our territory as best we can!