Dear reader,

Autumnal Greetings Everyone,

I travelled to Havelock North Friday 22nd for the collaborative workshop - Seed Processing by Setha and Roddy and Autumn Weeds that I led. It was very successful.  Now I'm in  my old stamping ground of Palmerston North for a talk April 29th and two workshops May 1st and 2nd organized through RECAP at Ashhurst which I'm looking forward to.

Whakamarama is the next local Bay of Plenty workshop held at Sharyn's permaculture property.  See more about it here.  Following in June I am holding a workshop in Auckland at Muriwai Beach.  For more information and books go here. Please let your interested friends and family know.

At the beginning of April I travelled up to Kerikeri with Jane Powell of Teacher in the Paddock and we did a collaborative workshop there which went very well - the weather behaved - it was very warm and humid.   I had some enthusiastic supporters of wild edibles especially purslane and amaranth of which the venue flourflower had great examples.

Returning home I've spend two weeks farm sitting while my parents gadded about in a camper van visiting old friends.  I got back into the habit of walking the farm everyday with Lulu the dog and having a ball foraging for my breakfast.  My parents are back but I'm still out foraging each morning which starts with a few coprosma berries ( NZ native) - those tiny orange berries that the birds also love, then a 5-7 leaves of herb robert in the bush, in the gully I've been developing a relationship with barberry and eating the berries, even though it's a bit late and they're a bit shriveled. They taste really good a little sour, but refreshing (I've written the latest blog about barberry and created some delicious bliss balls using the berries), then I eat some green plantain seed heads of broadleaved plantain because they're long, strip off the seeds with my teeth and chew well - sustaining and a bit nutty and mucilaginous. On to the crabapple for a mouth puckering hit of sweet and sour in those small pretty fruit. Finally I eat some mucilaginous houhere or lacebark (another native) leaves for their soothing qualities.  After that I feel quite satisfied!! See the photos here

This is Hawkbit, a dandelion look alike that has a single solid stem and flowers in autumn.  I saw this up in Kerikeri but we have it flowering on our farm as well.

Demonstrating face cream making at the Havelock North workshop using infused oils of plantain, kumarahou and calendula.  Participants got to add their own unique essential oil blend to make a nicely scented, soothing face cream.

This is a shiitake mushroom that grew recently to my huge surprise.  I inoculated this log on a workshop with shiitake spore plugs a few years ago and it has only produced 3 or 4 mushrooms before. I was so excited when I came around the corner and saw the size of this one.  It tasted good too!

These are two Green Bell Frogs that I saw sitting on the edge of the swimming pool amongst the toatoa plants with serrated edges - a native healing plant.

This is a recent harvest at the farm gala apples (which unfortunately get black spot), my conference pears, cleavers and chickweed on the right and creeping thistle (bottom right), blue/black barberry berries and chestnuts.

This is my playing around with barberry berries.  I soaked the berries and the pink water I used in a smoothie, I also put some berries in vinegar along with other weeds and herbs.  I invented the bliss ball idea with the berries and the red topped jar has barberry root tincture in it.  More info in the blog.

Beautiful autumn flowers picked in the autumn Farleigh farm garden where I live.
Roses, japanese anemones, dahlias and lemon verbena.  The grey/green leafed plant top right is good for use in flower arranging.  I don't know it's name can anyone help?

Until next time,

Warm wishes,
Julia