Dear reader,

It is a really wet day here today, perfect for being inside creating a newsletter for you!
Spring is definitely in the soil with daffodils and tulips flowering and the bluebells showing the first flowers. We have a beautiful avenue up the drive of daffodils and rhododendrons, most of which Dad grew from cuttings on a heated bed in the greenhouse with mist irrigation.  That system is no longer used but the waist high cutting bed is perfect for starting spring seedlings. And I will be sowing lots of seeds this week. 

Yesterday my two gardening friends Nicole and Sharon helped me make a big round compost pile, out in the paddock almost in the same position as last year's one. We used all the materials I've been collecting for ages like leaves, grass, seaweed, grape prunings, coffee grounds, chook manure, horse manure and dead dried stalks of magenta spreen, tansy, yakon and corn stalks.  It's going to be very nutritious when the decomposition process has finished. If you'd like to explore how to make nutrient dense compost go to this link.

The weeds are starting to grow again and now is a perfect time to benefit from the riches of new spring growth, especially stinging nettle which is the featured plant in this month's blog. It is extremely mineral rich and is said to offer us the energy of the earth when we drink tea of it or have it in soup, smoothies, pesto or even nettle bliss balls.  The sting is completely neutralised by the action of food processors, blenders or heating in tea or soup. Below is a thick patch of annual nettle Urtica urens that grew in the chicken run.

Healthy annual nettle.

On 20th August I ran the first workshop in Taranaki in Omata New Plymouth.  I stayed an extra day with my friend Sharon who was house sitting down there and we visited Hollard Garden in Kaponga, created by Bernie and Rose Hollard in 1927.  It has extensive gardens and native bush as well as a permaculture garden, in which we saw this impressive insect hotel.

Above is a garden Euphorbia containing the same milky latex as found in the small garden variety Euphorbia peplus.   Do not eat any Euphorbias - they are mucous membrane irritants. However, externally I've heard numerous first hand reports of warts and surface skin cancer being healed with the sap carefully applied.

An ancient native passionfruit (Passiflora tetrandra or Tetrapothaea tetranda) plant was growing in that patch of  bush at Hollard Garden long before Europeans came to NZ. It flowers in the canopy during Oct-Dec and the orange fruit ripens during April and May. We were astronished at the size of the trunk that wound up and around and over the track disappearing into the canopy of trees.

Wall lettuce Mycelis muralis  doing its thing in the gaps in rocks. It loves to be up in or on things.  I always smile when I see the clever places it finds to grow.

A very happy hawksbeard Crepis capillarisis growing in an orchard I recently visited near Katikati where the owners use liquid seaweed fertilizer and no roundup. Everything was flourishing including the weeds!

This little plant is called Corn salad or lambs lettuce Valerianella locusta.  It is a great cold weather green edible. Once you have it it becomes weed-like and self sows preferring edges of gardens or cracks or coming out from under pots. It doesn't compete with other plants very well, needing its own patch to grow.  It is mild in taste with lots of flavour.

I'll close the newsletter with a photo of hippeastrum papillio isn't she gorgeous!  It is the first of my hippeastrum amaryllis plants to flower.

Have a great month and enjoy the spring!!
Julia