Dear reader,

It is wet and muddy here in the depths of winter.  Everything feels like it is hunkering down waiting for it all to warm up and dry out.  Weeds of course are thriving and they fit the quote I heard David Attenborough say last night "It is not the meek who inherit the earth but the opportunists" and weeds are great opportunists.  Those in abundance at present are Herb Robert, Speedwell, Chickweed, Bitter cress, Hedge mustard, Winter cress, Dock, Onion weed, Forget-me-nots, Annual Nettle, Puha and Borage.  Others are still there but small like Dandelion, Plantain and Chicory.  I feature Chicory this month, it has such nutritious green leaves and deep mineral accumulating roots.  Now would be a good time to dig them and process for a nutritious hot drink. My blog on Chicory explains how to do it as well as the wonderful breakfast I created using pumpkin seeds, kiokio fronds and scrambled eggs.

Taranaki here I come!  Saturday August 20th I'll be offering a wild edible foraging workshop in Omata near New Plymouth.  Please share this information with family and friends. For more information and to book go here.

At the end of August I travel to Great Barrier Island where I offer two workshops in their winter lecture series.  Bookings are through the lovely Nell, Gallery Coordinator. I'll stay a few days before to have a look around. It's been a dream to go there and see what island life is like without electricity.  

Keep warm and dry and keep eating weeds - they help nourish us through the winter months!

This is a beautiful TED Talk by Suzanne Simard on how trees talk to each other.  "A forest is much more than you see". Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have to led an astounding discovery - trees talk often, over vast distances. I loved the talk and think it is such important findings!

I am on a candida free diet which means no fruit, so I invented this smoothie & I really like it.

New Recipe: No Fruit Smoothie
2 T Chia 1 T Pumpkin, sunflower or almonds, pinch of Karengo fronds
Soak all of the above in 1 cup water
Make a pot of tea e.g. nettle & kawakawa. Allow to cool.
Handful of weeds/greens; a selection of e.g. bittercress, speedwell, chickweed, nasturtium, winter cress, parsley, nipplewort, dandelion, plantain, oxtongue, hollyhock, violet, onion weed, daikon radish tops, kale, herb robert, shepherds purse, forget-me-not, borage or your favorite combination.

Method
Put the chia mix in the blender, add the greens and 2 cups of your tea.
Add 1/4 tsp powdered ginger or 2cm of fresh
Juice of 1/2 lemon
6cm raw carrot, cut into pieces or some beetroot
Half an avocado
Pinch of salt
For flavoring add vanilla essence, cinnamon, and/or mint leaves (optional)

Put blender on low speed to start with, then full speed to the desired smoothness.
Makes 4.5 cups (if you have smoothie left over keep it in the fridge for the next day)

Finally I have harvested the seeds out of the Austrian hulless pumpkins I grew from plants my sister  Cathy gave me.  I only got three pumpkins but Cathy gave me a fourth one.  They varied in the amount of seeds they had and they don't produce a huge amount, but are very tasty once processed.  I soaked them for three days and then dried them in my dehydrator.  

Growing kumara in containers was an experiment.  I let a kumara grow lots of shoots last summer and then thought I'd try planting it.  I was rather late, but put the mother with most shoots in the big pot and removed shoots and put them in the other pots.  The mother produced the most tubers but all pots had some.  They didn't get huge overall, but produced a bowl full as you see.  They do go down deep and produced tubers right near the bottom of the pot.  I'm going to do it again and plant them earlier.

This photo is of the lovely Bucks Horn Plantain Plantago coronopis, otherwise known as Minutina or Star of the Earth.  It is sold in Kings Seed Catalogue as a spring green.  It is not generally a naturally occurring weed, but once you have it, it will self sow.  It is a perennial so grows through the winter and I am still picking some leaves.  It will send up lots of new leaves in spring.

This is Hawkbit  It is a more shy relative of the dandelion. I say that because it is not nearly as common as Hawksbeard, Catsear or Dandelion.  This plant was thriving in the heat of Northland.  It is identified by it's flower stem with one flower at the top, no branches (like Hawksbeard and Catsear) and solid (not hollow like true dandelion).

Finally a winter scene in the orchard.  The two grafted macadamias have their wind shelters up around them.  I'm training the apple trees by tying down their branches - that is what the plastic containers are doing.