Dear reader,

Yikes I can't call this February newsletter for much longer, so it is February/March.  In New Zealand we are still enjoying long, lingering days of summer.  But I can already feel a change in the air despite sunshine and heat during the day.  The nights are much cooler and laden with moisture, not surprising after all the rain we've also had. The courgettes and melons have mildew on their leaves now.  But I heard a great remedy at the Whitianga workshop Saturday 24th February.  Use colloidal silver on the mildew.  This makes total sense as it is anti-microbial and anti-fungal. But I am not actually going to use anything as there are far too many leaves to spray. I'll let nature do its thing.  The weeds also tell me what time of year it is.  The magenta spreen is really tall and will soon go to flower. I've been using the leaves a lot this summer in salads, smoothies and even drying it in the warming drawer of the oven. You can also use a hot water cupboard if you have one.  Once the leaves are crispy dry you rub them off the stalk and store in an air tight container for use in soups, stews and winter smoothies.  The galensoga is flowering and setting seeds, while purslane has been flourishing in the heat.  Other cooler loving weeds are just reappearing in my garden like chickweed.

Sustainable Backyard events are about to kick off March 1st with the premier screening of the documentary "Living the Change: inspiring stories for a sustainable future" created by friends of mine from Happen films. It will be screening around the country in the main centres. If it is not in your area you can request to show a screening. Visit their Facebook page here

I'll be running three workshops during the month of March.  Two here at my property which is very thrilling and one from my friends at Plenty Permaculture Sunday March 11th in Whakamarama. To book go here. My first workshop is already full, so I'm offering another on 18th March. For more information go here.

 Following on from local Bay of Plenty events, the next workshop I'm running out of town is 25th March 2018 Te Hoe in the Waikato. See more here.

I joined the Wwoofing (Willing workers on Organic farms) organisation to get some help in the garden.  It's been a wonderful experience. I've had 4 people so far from different countries.  The above breakfast was arranged by Ronja from Germany who had a creative flare with food.  This is coconut yoghurt, banana icecream, muesli I made, mulberries from my white weeping mulberry (if I was to get one fruit tree it would be this as it has fruited for months - it has to be netted from the birds though) and my very own peaches.  Doesn't it look so pretty with the flowers. Thank you Ronja!

Here is the lush garden that was dug over December 9th 2017 two and a half months later. You can see the tall pink leaves of magenta spreen Chenopodium gigantum in the back of the garden.  I love the red tassles that look like red ponytails, of the open pollinated variety of Hawaiian corn. From this lush patch I harvested the basket of goodies below.

This is the harvest of vegetables yesterday 26th February.  I'm just taking pieces off the cauliflower plant as I use it, rather than picking the whole thing.

That's me gathering houhere or Hoheria (Mallow family) flowers at Lake Tarawera, near Rotorua.  Houhere is very mucilaginous and so soothing and calming to your digestive tract and mucous membranes. I made a refreshing cup of tea with the leaves and flowers.

Isn't this a gorgeous collection of wild white flowers gathered in the Lake Tarawera area.  Houhere Houheria, wild carrot Daucus carota, Oxeye Daisy Leucanthemum vulgare, and Yarrow Archillea millifolium

This is the flourishing wicking barrell Catherine Dunton demonstrated setting up during the  December 9th Permablitz we held here.  I'm using all the greens it's providing.

This is a sweet little grey warbler chick that crashed into a window at Piha (beach on the west coast of Auckland city), where Jane from Teacher in the Paddock  and I ran a great workshop each on 10 &11th February.  It lay on its back and I saw it's little legs relax and I thought it was dead.  Next thing it jumped up and I picked it up, not wanting it to crash into the window again and it sat on my hand for ages while it recovered.  It was so at home it started to preen its feathers and was quite reluctant to leave my hand for the shrub I took it to.

The beautiful blue flowers above are from a shrub called Rotheca myricoides, commonly called blue glory bower or blue butterfly bush, is a suckering evergreen shrub with a somewhat open habit which grows rapidly to 1.8-3m tall and as wide in its native habitat but more typically to .5-1.5m tall in containers. It is native to tropical eastern Africa (Kenya and Uganda). This shrub was formerly known as Clerodendrum myricoides.

This plant was growing in a tub at the Whitianga home where I ran a wild edible workshop 24th February with a lively bunch of women.  The bees and I very much enjoyed these flowers.