Dear reader,
Sunny greetings to you all!
It is almost officially spring and today it feels like it. The weather in August has been a big mix though with strong winds, heavy rain, resulting in my little cottage being flooded and having to remove wet carpets, lots of hard frosts and also nice sunny days. I've added some photos of the wintery scenes - chickweed in the frost - I thought it looked very beautiful, the frosty view from my upstairs room and then the transformation with daffodils up the drive.
This month I feature Bittercress - a dainty little rosette shaped plant with a spicy flavor to give us some heat in winter. It is in flower now, but there will soon be new plants.
A brand new feature on my website is a wonderful blog conversation between myself and my friend Wilma, who is now living up in Kaikohe. We are having fun learning and sharing about wild edibles through the blog. Wilma asks me questions and I answer. Share in our exchange here and please feel free to comment.
Another new addition to the website is an archive of newsletters under the blog button. www.juliasedibleweeds.com/blog
I have two workshops coming up in September. My first workshop in Hamilton happens Sunday September 13th and a local one in Te Puna on Saturday 19th September. You can now book on my website. See the flyers for the workshops below.
I have this past month planted an orchard of fruit trees and my two gardening swop friends helped me mulch them all. I'm very pleased that I was able to release most of the fruit trees I had in large rubbish bin containers for seven years. They needed root freedom. But we had to put protectors on the trunks as rabbits live in the same paddock.
Advanced Permaculture Design Course with Dan Palmer Sept 25-27th
I am looking forward to expanding my permaculture design skills with Dan Palmer. There are 5 places left. It is a 2.5 day course designed for people who’ve earned their Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and who want to: be more confident in designing in general, want to take the next step to professional permaculture design or want to set up a permaculture business.
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I have a new passion which is Biochar. What's that I hear you ask? It is charcoal that is loaded with microorganisms and the microorganisms help hold carbon dioxide in the soil instead of it going up in the atmosphere. It means we can all do something in our own way to help climate change. I've been making it and it feels so hopeful to be able to help build humus. Check out this clip on humus from Graeme Sait. He offers other things we can do.
