Red smoothie

Blend 250gms strawberries.  Add 1tsp chia seed or sweet basil seed – let thicken.

Green smoothie

½ cup pineapple pieces
1 banana
½ avocado
2 dsp dairy or coconut yoghurt
1 leaf of aloe vera – peeled and scrape out the gel.
Slice of lemon including skin.
Handful of weeds including borage, mallow, plantain, fennel, purslane, kale, chickweed
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground ginger
Pinch salt
1 T honey (optional)
2 cups water

 Blend all the ingredients together to a smooth consistency.

 Pour 1 cup or green smoothie into a bowl and add 1tsp chia or sweet basil seed let thicken.

 To put together in a glass – pour small amount red smoothie first, then alternate green and red. Decorate with flowers and pieces of strawberry.

Julia's best bliss balls

Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Throughout he demonstrates that our existence is always connected to the land, and that even in a modern global economy local farming is essential to the flourishing of our culture, to healthy living and stable communities, and indeed to the continuing survival of the human species. Wendell Berry has published more than eighty books of poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism.

I was looking to see if Wendell Berry wrote about weeds and found one. I can relate to it as I've seen many chimneys as all that remains of a house and the life that was once there in the NZ rural countryside.
 Wendell writes
"And so there would always be more to remember that could no longer be seen...our history is always returning to a little patch of weeds and saplings with an old chimney sticking up by itself...and here I look ahead to the resting of my case: I love the house that belonged to the chimney, holding it bright in memory, and love the saplings and the weeds."
Wendell Berry

To the left is a recent photo of the wild flower garden which is a rich diversity of plants including borage, phacelia, poppies, cornflowers, sunflowers, coriander magenta spreen and on the edge there are catsear flowering happily and nipplewort. It is such a joy to see it alive with bees and bumblebees. I planted sunflowers on the edge.

There's even self sown Magenta spreen in the wildflower patch.  It adds to the variety and colours.

This is the vegetable garden with the brassicas under cover crop to keep off the cabbage white butterflies and it works really well.

I have a wonderful crop of new avocados coming along.  This variety is called 'Ester' and is semi dwarf with a size of 3m x2m but I keep it small. I liquid feed it and give it lots of mulch and compost.

This is a veiw from my patio towards the wildflowers and the avocado tree which is just to the left of the bird bath.

This is an Iceland poppy with a bumblebee. The wildflower patch has attracted many pollinating insects and my bees would have been very happy!

I've had an abundant berry harvest which is ongoing.  To the left are mulberries - black with stalks, boysenberries, raspberries, the small red berries are wild raspberries or Japanese wineberry and the smooth dark berries are fuchsia berries.  I don't know their properties but I do know they are sweet with no pips and have a crunchy texture.

This pretty fuchsia flower has the best berries besides the tree fuchsia which I'll feature another time.  I don't know the name of this variety, but one of you might??

The difference between the seedheads of Dandelion Taraxacum officinale, Catsear Hypochaeris radicata, Hawksbeard, Hypochaeris radicata and Hawkbit Leontodon taraxacoides
To the left is Hawkbit which is a single solid stemmed plant in the group of four main dandelion look alike plants. Its seed heads are round, but smaller than Catsear or Dandelion and a light brown colour.

In this photo are Catsear left, Hawksbeard centre and true Dandelion right. You can see the seed head size and colour differences.

Here are the leaves of the same four different plants.  From the left  Catsear, Dandelion, Hawksbeard and Hawkbit.  All are edible but I  usually on eat Dandelion and Hawksbeard as I find the others too hairy. Just my personal preference.

THRIVE: What on Earth Will it Take? is one of the most widely viewed documentaries in history with over 90 million views across 27 different languages. Released in November 2011, the unconventional documentary lifted the veil on what is truly happening in our world by uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. It is free to watch on Youtube.

Thrive II was released 26 September 2020.   I've watched half of it (it is 2 hours long) and was blown away and so excited watching it as the solutions explored are totally amazing - we never hear about them and I thought it was so positive about the future!!
THRIVE II: This Is What It Takes brings viewers behind the scenes with the people and innovations that have the power to transform life for everyone. It follows a journey across the globe investigating the most promising solutions in energy, health, consciousness, and non-coercive self-organizing while unpacking the underlying science, principles, and strategies that make them possible. Inspiring trans-political, grassroots, and decentralized solutions THRIVE II offers practical tools for reclaiming authority over our lives, an endeavor more significant by the failures of governments and authoritative institutions amid the pandemic and civil unrest sweeping the globe.   Here is a link to access it.