Dear reader,

We've passed the shortest day YAY!  We're really in winter now and it's very wet here, but not so cold. My mother always says the weather turns to custard after the shortest day and that has proved true again with all the rain and gusty wind we recently had.  Luckily the wind has died down.  Lots of weeds love the cool, wetter conditions like the lush chickweed, annual nettle, bitter cress, land or winter cress, speedwell, onion weed, hedge or black mustard, puha, doves foot geranium and cleavers.  The nasturtiums are still very leafy and go in my smoothies, salads, and on sandwiches. They'll keep going until a frost kills them.  I also have lush borage and herb robert and am still eating narrow leaf plantain.  My blog this month features oxalis, a plant not really in season but there are still one variety in shady places.  I came across oxalis at Muriwai recently and also saw it being used at the Agricultural Field Days at Mystery Creek where I went to specifically see two beautiful young women Belinda Macdonald and Neena Truscutt, 2014 My Kitchen Rules winners.  They use wild plants in their dishes and promote truly healthy eating. So I've used their idea to have oxalis as a garnish on runner bean humus. See the blog.  Included is a recipe for seed bread.

I'm looking for a venue to hold a workshop in Taranaki later half of August or September.  I've made a contact but if you know of anyone that would like to host a workshop let me know.

Twelve keen foragers came to the Muriwai beach workshop, with several of them bringing along lots of weeds to identify, from their own gardens.  There is certainly a growing interest in this whole foraging, sustainability thing and I recently watched a fantastic Ted Talk on 'Rewilding' by George Monbiot, a well known journalist for the Guardian in Great Britain. It is extremely inspiring Check it out here. 

I wanted to help my friend Gisella find a flatmate or a new house to rent so she has included a little ad about herself. 

Hi, I am Gisella Warmenhoven, a good friend of Julia's. I am a Feldenkrais teacher, a keen gardener and tree pruner. My home of 12 years has been sold and the new owner upped the rent by 66%. I am now faced of either moving out or having a flatmate.  Ideally I'd like a 2 bedroom place, sunny and dry, semi rural with access to growing my food.
Can you help? 0272860891 or awareness.through.movement@gmail.com
Thank you.

Nasturtiums growing wild at Muriwai Beach

This is New Zealand spinach growing wild over other plants at Muriwai. It can be steamed and eaten.

Nicole, Sharon and I went on an overnight outing to Opotiki earlier in June to attend a one day workshop at Torere Macademia orchard.  We learned a lot about macadamias and how to grow them.  I couldn't resist buying two grafted trees A4 and A387 which drop their nuts, rather than having to pick them. The varieties they graft and sell have been carefully chosen over years of trialling by Vanessa and Rod. I didn't know that macadamias are originally from Australia discovered my a Mr MacDam.  The aborigines ate them but they were very inferior to the big, rich oily nuts we are now accustomed to. I'm hoping my trees will bear nuts in a couple of years. Below you can see Sharon and Nicole gathering nuts that we preordered. We each filled a  big bag for a very reasonable $5. It was  a really interesting day out.  

Afterwards we continued gathering filling some big bags of seaweed on the local beach for our gardens.