Dear reader,

I have a vision for the farm I live on called 'Farleigh' becoming a biological/organic property educational centre and a nature sanctuary for the trees.  It is for sale.  I would like to boldly ask you all as my wild weed family to help make this real.  I need someone or more than one with money who shares this vision to help buy it.  At the moment a neighbour leases most of the 40 acres (15 hectares) for beef cattle.  Every paddock has shelter, water troughs and is well fenced. The soil is light and free draining, we have our own water well, heaps of fire wood, a developing food forest, one house and one cottage in which I live.  This elevation is 304 m or 1000 feet.  We have a huge barn, garden sheds, small tennis court and vegetable and flower gardens and lots of well established shelter.  My parents have created a paradise here and I would like to continue to care for it.  Is there anyone who would be interested to join me in this venture? The address is 72 Belk Road South, Omanawa, Tauranga. I've pasted below a selection of photos that express the beauty of this farm.

I am offering an autumn wild edible foraging workshop here at Farleigh April 22nd.
I don't want it to be the last.  For more information www.juliasedibleweeds.com/workshops

Other workshops coming up are:
Christchurch 9th April
Golden Bay 13th April
Farleigh Tauranga 22nd April
Hamilton 29th April
For more details of these workshops go to www.juliasedibleweeds.com/workshops

Mum and Dad planted everything you see in 1989/1990. They call it the 'Set Aside'.  The paddock is called The Gully and is in the middle of the farm. You can see my shadow standing on the hill with a sun halo around me.

House and garden in summer

View from the upstairs bedroom over the garden with rhododendrons Dad propagated. One can see Mount Maunganui just in the distance.

There is a walking track through the bush or Set Aside. The path follows the old tram track from the days of logging the bush.

Drive way in spring with daffodils lining the drive.

Weeding carrots can be time consuming. I was faced with this task and at first carefully pulled the weeds out, but that made holes in the soil, disturbed it and I ended up pulling out some carrots.  I got the idea to cut them at soil level instead which didn't make holes and it was a win win as I collected a nice lot of 'weedlings' which I turned into a smoothie!

This year I grew three special melon plants in pots in the greenhouse from seed my gardening friend Nicole gave me. It is called Melon de Charontais.  I ended up getting two fruit which tasted absolutely delicious.  Nicole was so thrilled because she said she misses all the melons they had available in France.

It is fuchsia berry time. They taste sweet, juicy and don't have any pips. I love them.

Bye for now with weedy blessings

Julia