It's A Mission At The Mission!

The Mission Winery Summer picnic concert is a world famous (in Hawkes Bay). A well attended, annual outdoor concert in Napier. This year rocking Rod Stewart is playing for the second time to around 25 000 of us.

The ritual is simple, get a group of friends together, pack a picnic, toss a coin who is the designated driver and get to the concert in plenty of time to grap a good spot on the grass and proceed to eat wonderful food, drink lovely Hawkes Bay wine and socialise with other picnickers around you. Things look picturesque at 5 pm when the supporting acts are playing. By 10 pm when the actual concert is over things are a little less attractive. Picture slippery sloping grass, too much wine and beer consumed, trying to pack everything up and rummage over bottles, tarps, and other rubbish in the dark and finding your way out with the other 25 000 patrons doing the same thing. The ambulance staff are always kept busy with strained ankles and the other injuries that occur when people mass and drink too much alcohol. Don’t get me wrong it is a fun night and one we go to most years.

Not my cheese.

That Sushi looks nice!

First problem is I am full of a cold and the last thing I feel like to baking and preparing home grown food for a self-sufficient picnic. I wonder what woman did in the olden days when they were sick and didn’t feel like killing and plucking that chicken for dinner or digging potatoes or baking bread and cooking stews over a fire. They could'nt just go to bed after having baked beans on toast, like we do?

I scramble some home grown food together and make sure it is carefully packed with the food bought from the gourmet food store. You guessed right, Chris is not playing the game tonight.

At the concert while my friends and people around us are enjoying pate, fresh buns, ham and all manner of gourmet bought food, I am nibbling on home baked bread, homemade fresh feta, basil leaves  and tomato. Not bad, but not great!

When you are not feeling well and people around you are enjoying wine and beautiful food, living off the land kind of sucks. Very proud of myself though as I didn’t slip up and make a grap for some fresh white bread and pate’ or the bacon and egg pie sitting next to me. Won’t lie and say I didn’t want to though. Sometimes living off the land gives you "missing out feelings".

Bunnies

Quinn with bunny One (would somebody please
 wipe that childs nose!)

Quinn with bunny Two

Our track record with pet bunnies has not been the greatest! Four bunnies in the last three years, no survivors.  The first died mysteriously at only a tender age. The second got out of his run and disappeared into the undergrowth only to be found a few weeks later as a dried patch of skin on a nearby car park. The third met an untimely death by hanging herself with a trailing lead and harness and the fourth also died suddenly. So as you see not much luck. Many graves around the garden, tears from the kids ( and mum)  and no live bunnies to show for it .

Concerned about our access to protein with our project I am venturing into the unknown world of bunny farming! Raising rabbits for meat makes great sense to an urban farmer. They are quiet, easy to keep, require only a small amount of room and breed like rabbits! Raising rabbits for meat is becoming popular in many large urban areas as people become aware of farmed meat full of hormones, chemicals and the issues with large scale factory farming. Raising your own grown meat actually makes very good sense. You know what your meat has eaten and what sort of life it has had. Maybe this time I may get the recipe right.

With our previous pet bunnies we kept them in a movable wooden run which could be pulled around the lawn. This allowed them to nibble on the grass but maybe also brought them into contact with calicivirus or RCD . I suspect that several of our previous pet bunnies may have succumbed to this lethal virus. This virus has been sweeping through New Zealand infecting the wild rabbit population. Once a rabbit catches this easily transmitted virus, they die within hours.

 South Island farmers are believed to have illegally introduced this virus from Australia several years ago. The story goes that other farmers have spread it around the country by grinding dead bunnies up in the food processor and spreading the detritus around other farms. Yuk I hope they cleaned the machine before wifey made the next batch of scones! One could argue that this wasn’t very responsible! Kiwi farmers may have felt as if they had no other options. There are few natural predators of rabbits. We don’t have foxes, wolves, bears or many other predators that feast off rabbits, apart from stoats and weasels which were introduced to keep the growing rabbits population down but acquired a taste for Kiwi instead!

 The climate and landscape of many farms suit the rabbits perfectly and numbers over the centuries have just exploded. This has resulted in paddocks literally moving with a rabbits. A rabbit fence was actually built in Hawkes Bay stretching 64 kilometres in 1885 to try and stop the spread. It didn’t work. The crazy thing was that rabbits were introduced on purpose in the late 1800s to establish a fur trade and for a food source. Needless to say rabbits are seen as a real pest to farmers. City folk see these animals as cute and cuddly pets- which of course they are too.

If I start farming my bunnies for meat and pelts will I have PETA banging down my door? I don’t know of anyone else keeping bunnies for meat in an urban situation, in New Zealand. Is anyone actually doing this? Can I actually kill a cute bunny? I have never killed anything with a face before? My first ever pet when I was young was a rabbit. When he died I remember crying for a fortnight (being away at boarding school probably didn’t help matters). Is this a start to my slippery slope into mass murder?

Will Work For Wheat

 There are some things I just cannot grow here in Hawkes Bay. Wheat is one of them. The major wheat growing area in New Zealand is Canterbury in the South Island. There is also the problem of milling small quantities of wheat to make flour. Just in the ‘too hard’ basket for this small time, urban farmer.

Making fresh pasta- eggs, flour and a pasta maker.

 It is very hard to live without wheat, unless you are gluten intolerant. I am bartering for wheat so that I am able to make bread and do all manner of baking to keep my hungry boys happy. I am certainly finding that I am going through a lot of flour with the baking I am doing. At least one loaf of bread comes out of the oven each day. Scones and pikelets are a regular afternoon snack, pancakes are a Sunday breakfast tradition and of course there is the homemade pasta for dinner.

Today I had a garden group visit for a tour of the garden. Normally with these such visits, the groups give me a small gift of perhaps a gift card to a garden centre. When the lady who was booking this tour asked what I would like, I calmly replied “a large bag of flour please”. Bet she has never had that request before! I got to meet some lovely ladies, show them around my garden and get a bag of flour to last me, hopefully until the next garden club visit.

Tonight we had freshly baked bread with some pumpkin soup. The boys have never had soup before so it was interesting to see their responses. The two older boys did very well – the four year old threw a wobbly shouting, “yuk, I hate living off the land!”. I have been pleasantly surprised in how well the bigger boys are doing with trying different foods. They are really embracing the challenge and I am very proud of them.

Trying to Squeeze Milk Out of A Stone

I’m trying to squeeze milk out of a stone! My goats are not exactly producing the amount of milk I was hoping for . Admittedly these girls were in the process of weaning their kids when I inherited them. Milking is exactly like breastfeeding I tell myself. It is all about supply and demand. I am desperately hoping that with a couple of twice milking days, their milk will start to really increase.

Frankie is so easy to milk. She now runs to the milking stand, jumps on up and starts to gobble up the grain waiting for her. This grain is like a treat and a thank you for giving her milk to us. She is very patient but I am pleased to report my milking technique is getting faster and faster. She is giving around 250mls in the morning and around 100 mls in the evening. Not exactly enough to make a milkshake let alone cheese.

Lolly on the other hand just doesn’t seem to like having her teats or udder touched! Can you blame her. She jiggles, jumps and tip toes around the milking stand doing anything to avoid not being milked. I ordered some goat milking hobbles from a local supplier. These hobbles are placed firmly on her back legs above her hocks. The idea is they put pressure on the tendons and stop the goat raising her legs or bucking. They certainly help encourage her to stand still. In fact she appears a little more relaxed during milking time which allows her to let her milk down and make it flow into my milking jug.  If you have a bucky goat try some of these they could help.

Lolly’s milk output is really poor. She is only giving around 100mls each time. Seems hardly worth the effort. I feel like I am robbing milk from her as she is so skinny with such a dull coat. I have decided to drench them both and stop milking Lolly so she can put on some condition. Lynda, who I got the goats from, had wormed them around a six weeks ago but perhaps with feeding twins and being infested with ticks they have just lost all their condition.

Spot the hip bones on poor Lolly.This girl needs beefing up!

Deciding that the girls need to be really well drenched for worms I go along to the local farm vet to buy some worm drench. When the vet nurse asks me how much they weigh I pluck a figure out of the sky. How do I know, it is not like I have been carrying them around like a pet poodle! Remembering the recent time when Frankie accidentally stood on my foot I randomly guess around 45-50kgs, thinking they can’t be much more heavier that out 12 year old overweight chocolate Labrador, Mocha.

The wormer drench comes in a syringe, bright blue and thick. Luckily the syringe can be easily slipped into the corner of their mouths and the blue syrup squirted down a struggling throat. Can now add drenching goats to my list of farm skills! Lolly walks around for the next day sporting a blue moustache.

For the next 5 days after drenching the goats we can’t consume the milk. I can’t bring myself to throw it out so decide to freeze it in the hope of making goat’s milk soap on day.

Make Mine a Flat White.

I would kill for a coffee. A girl needs some vices and one of mine is the daily requirement for a good coffee. Since I don’t grow coffee I haven’t had one since I started this experiment and it is beginning to affect my demeanour each morning. My only drive to get out of bed each morning was to get down to my local café for a coffee. It is my special treat after the bedlam of getting ready for school and kindy in our house. Not only is it for the caffeine fix but also serves as a good place to catch up with friends before the real start to the day i.e. Making beds, picking up little boys undies around the house, mopping up split milk on the kitchen bench and feeding the animals.

Since the commence of this experience I feel like a social leper, wondering what my other coffee friends are up to and what the local goss around town is. Interestingly I am surprised that I am not experiencing the tremors or headaches of a true coffee addict. Perhaps I haven’t drunk enough!

I have read that during the war people would grind dandelion root to make a poor man’s version of coffee. Thinking this may be an answer to my caffeine, or lack of, dilemma I go on a forage for  some roots.

Freshly dug dandelion roots

Dandelion root dried and ready to brew

 Dandelion plants have a long single tap root so need to be dug up with a spade. If you try and just pull them out by hand they will snap off at ground level. Trust me I know this for a fact. Once dug out  scrub the roots clean under running water and place them in a hot oven for half an hour. Very proud of myself as I did this at the same time I was baking my bread. The roots will become crisp and easy to grind up in any grinder. Place in a coffee plunger, add boiling water and let steep for a few minutes.

Don't try this at home!

After sampling this concoction I will admit if you imagine very hard the aroma does smell of coffee (sort of) but you do need a vivid imagination. The taste is dreadful, bitter and woody with a hint of mushroom? Sorry I can’t recommend this to anyone. After 10 minutes I still had the bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Give your dandelions to your rabbit, chickens or goat. They will put it to much better use.

What to do? I still have the dilemma of no daily coffee. Armed with some freshly cut sunflowers from my garden I trudge down to Hawthorne, my local cafe, and explain my experiment and resulting predicament. I ask if I  can barter some produce for an occasional flat white. The wonderful people at Hawthorns are with the programme and I am back enjoying my coffee and social catch up time. Perhaps it’s not just the morning coffee a girl needs?

Do you know that a Flat White is as kiwi as pavlova? Apparently my daily indulgence was  developed in little old NZ. On my recent trip to New York there was not a flat white to be seen! In fact I know I was a tourist in a big city but I found it really hard to seek out any form of good coffee in the big apple. Lots of warm filtered coffee (yuk) and that horrible stuff from Starbucks but not a lot of proper coffee as we Kiwis know it. Surprising given the number of cultures found in this giant melting pot. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the know?

Harvesting Protein

I have been keeping Japanese quail for several months. They are delightful little birds, cute, quiet and prolific layers of tasty delicate eggs. They are similar to chickens and lay an egg a day. I have been keeping our quail on our balcony. They are a great option for people who would like to keep some livestock but only have a very small space.

No prizes for guessing which are the quail eggs.

The eggs can be eaten exactly like any other eggs. They take 2 minutes to hard boil, 12 eggs for an omelet for two! I hard boil them and serve them in salads. They are great as mini scotch eggs. In a rabbit hutch we keep one male and four females. The kids all have names for them and often take them out and play with them in the living room. I, of course, have to follow around with a tissue in hand to clean up the little messes.

We have had success with hatching them in our incubator. In fact much more success than any chicken eggs we have tried. Obviously the little male has been very busy ensuring that all the eggs are fertile. The chicks are so cute. Newly hatched they are like fuzzy bumblebees. They grow really quickly and the girls start laying eggs when they are around 7-8 weeks old.

We have raised a batch of 7 new quail with 3 boys and 4 girls. The girls are getting “harassed” by the boys. Sometimes the three boys are all after one girl! My boys think they are wrestling. I don’t have the heart (or inclination) to burst their bubble and explain what they are really doing! That sex talk can come later.



How can I cook these so the kids don't know what they eating?

Becoming very tired off watching the daily assaults I decide it has come to the time to dispatch a couple of the males in preparation for the pot. Killing is fairly easy. The hardest part is doing it quickly so that Quinn, my four year old, doesn’t walk in on me and start telling me how nasty I am to kill his bird! A sharp pair of garden secateurs does the job of cutting off the head and then plucking only takes 5 minutes. Much faster than plucking a chook or duck! After the body cavities are cleaned I place them in a ice-cream container in the fridge to soak in a salt solution  overnight and then they go into the freezer.

I need to start looking for quail recipes.

The day of reckoning is here. Today we start our challenge. Breakfast was a lovely poached egg served on some homemade bread I had baked in preparation the night before. I make the most of the taste as in the last couple of days I have noticed that our chooks have started to moult. Talk about bad timing. I am not too sure why they have chosen now to lose their feather, grow some new plumage and in the process stop laying! Maybe someone has put them up to it? Chooks normally moult once a year, often in Spring. Their old plumage falls out, they start looking like moth eaten feather dusters until new feathers start making an appearance. During this time they are putting all their energy into growing feathers rather than laying eggs. Needless to say they generally stop  laying for around 6 weeks.

A chook in lay will have a bright red comb

I have had my chickens for over four years now and really I should get some younger hens which will lay more eggs. The problem with chooks is they are easy to become attached to, each having their own unique personality. I have been avoiding a culling session for this very reason. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that it is only a few hens moulting and the rest keep producing an egg most days.

Looking at the chooks it looks like there are only two hens that appear to be moulting. Hens that are laying well have a bright red comb which is firm and, depending on the breed, stands upright. When hens are moulting I feed them extra protein in the form of meat titbits or cottage cheese. This helps them grow their feathers fast and get back into their laying routine. Hopefully I will be able to feed them the whey from the cheese making as an extra treat too.

Ive Got Wwoofers (not dogs)

I recently had some Wwoofers stay. Wwoofer stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms (or in my case organic urban gardens). It is an international movement and is very popular for backpackers travelling around New Zealand.  I am a first time woofer host so didn’t quite know what to expect. Basically a woofer comes and stays and for free board and food they work for a determined time on your property for you. Sounds like a win-win situation. My wwoofers, Catherine and Api, contacted me as Catherine was very interested in learning about Top Bar Beekeeping. They came complete with their own caravan, baby Tao and Chico the dog.

I think I hit the wwoofer jackpot. You couldn’t wish for a nicer couple to have to stay. I learnt so much from them regarding growing, seed saving and preparation of food. Api is Turkish and Catherine is Norwegian. Their plans are to return to Turkey and set up their own organic self-sufficient farm. Catherine was a natural with the bees too and loves the Top Bar Hive system.

My Top Bar Hive in my garden



Checking Frankie for size

Luckily they are both very practical (unlike Chris) so were very happy to help with preparations for the goats. I found a plan for a milking stand and they got to work building it for me out of recycled timber I had lying around the place. I do love those sorts of projects! A few days later I was presented with a work of art and craftsmanship. All made with hand tools, apart from a cordless drill! the goats love it too. Thank you Catherine and Api.

 Api also made me a pen to house the goats in at night. To keep them save from any dogs and warm in winter. Goat fences need to be tall and strong as goats are known as the ultimate escape artists.  I picked up some recycled pallets from the hardware store and furnished the pen with a weather proof shelter made from pallets and some corrugated iron .

Lolly lazing in her new shelter- I hope she likes it?

We Have Vampires!

Oh… yuk you will never guess what happened with my first time milking. Prepared everything by the book, got the grain for Frankie to eat, got some warm soapy water to wash her udder with, found a paper towel to dry her udder with, located a clean glass jar to milk into, rummaged for an old mug to use to collect the first couple of squirts of milk into and mentally prepared myself so as to fool the goat into thinking I knew what I was doing.

As we don’t have a milking stand yet I just led Frankie up onto the patio and hemmed her in a little stall I made with the patio chairs. I sat on a little stool next to her and commenced to wash and dry her udder and then collect the first few squirts of warm milk into the mug to check the milks colour and odour. Everything looked hunky dory so I commenced to milk her, trying desperately to get the coordination of grasping, , pinching off the top of the teat and then squeezing my fingers ( like playing a piano) down her teat.

All was going swimmingly, actually to be perfectly honest quite proud of myself thinking I have this milking thing sorted when plop something dark and round fell into the milk. What was it? Hoping it was a piece of leaf or some other inert object I kept milking. Another round thing feel into the milk soon after.  As I stopped milking and looked around her udder I saw a multitude of small, round, inflated dark discs  latching onto her udder and around her tail and on the inside of her back legs. I pinched one off and it squirted red blood over me!!! Yuk we have ticks.

an engorged tick

Ticks are these mini leach-like insects that attach themselves to mammals and suck their blood before falling off in a blood filled stupor. On closer inspection Frankie was riddled with them. They were on her ears, her face, along her back and neck and even hanging out of her bottom! Its times like these I wish I had a farmer for a husband! Luckily had  Api and Catherine, woofers who had just arrived to stay. Api said he has had a lot of problem with ticks this summer on their dog so was well equipped to assist. He grabbed some vinegar ( organic apple cider vinegar non the least) and paper towels and a rock. By smearing the tick with vinegar it makes them release their mouth from the hide so they could be pulled off easily. If you just try pulling them off apparently the mouth piece can be left in the animal causing infection. They were then quickly dealt to with a rock to squash them. Apparently they can easily leap onto any other passing mammal including us! I am sure Bear Grylls would eat them but I was very happy to see them squashed on hard concrete.

There are chemical treatments for ticks but because we are milking our goats I want to avoid these. Slowly over several days we have managed to de – tick both goats. I am sure they are much happier for it. I have read that animals can become anaemic if they have only 30 ticks feeding off them. My girls certainly had many more. I guess milk production will not be great for a while.

post note  Yes, the ticks were removed from the milk, the milk filtered and feed to the dog. Just could'nt bring myself to drink that batch after that experience.

Getting the Goats Home

I now have first-hand experience with transporting goats. For furture refference they travel very well in a trailer! In fact I think they enjoy the sensational of the wind blowing through their beards!

We picked the goats up in a hired trailer. For some padding on the journey home I placed some straw bales in the trailer. The goats happily jump up into the trailer. We tied their lead ropes onto the side and away we went.

Getting into urban Havelock I did notice we did get some stares and strange looks. Back at home the kids were very excited with their new charges. They were walked them around the neighbourhood and were introduced to everybody, nibbling any passing shrub on the way.

We haven’t sorted out an enclosure yet so we are just tethering the goats on the lawn near some overgrown shrubs that require some pruning. If it rains they happily stand in the garden shed for protection. Goats don’t like rain as apparently their coats contain no oil to help water proof them.

These girls look so skinny. Their hip bones and ribs can be seen through their coats. I know that dairy cows have prominent hip bones but this is a bit extreme. Hopefully now without twin kids feeding off them and lots of rough grass (which they prefer) they will start putting on weight. I have also bought some Brood Mare Mix. This is a mixture of grain such as maize, wheat, barley, oats, sunflower seeds and Lucerne all mixed up with molasses which I am told many dairy goat owners feed to their milking goats. Have to admit the stuff smells good enough to eat.

I Become Heidi, the goat girl!

It has occurred to me that yes, I may be able to provide enough veges and fruit, even if  perhaps not the variety we are used to, but one very important food group is missing- dairy. Not too sure whether we can go without any milk or cheese for any length of time.

Keeping goats in urban areas is becoming more popular, especially in the States, as families become aware of how productive they are and how little space they require. Perhaps they will become the new urban chicken? After a quick check on our Council website I’m surprised to see that we are permitted to keep goats in our backyard. The regulations state that they are required to be tethered at all times and must be kept two metres from a boundary. Seems simple enough. After reading any and every goat book I could find in our public library it became clear to me that we definitely needed a goat, or two.

Last December Chris made the cardinal mistake of asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I calming replied  “ a milking goat please". Poor man he didn’t even see it coming. Not to miss out on a great opportunity to get a new pet I jump on the Internet. We have a great local resource in Hawkes Bay, a large online network of permaculurists. I sent out an email asking if anyone knew of anyone who had dairy goats in milk for sale. Almost immediately a wonderful woman called Lynda replied and said she had two! A few days later Quinn , Edwin and I took a 20 minute trip out to a biodynamic lifestyle block to visit Frankie and Lolly.

Frankie and Lolly began their milking careers at a dairy farm and then Lynda acquired them around 4 years ago to provide her own household milk supply. Frankie is a Saneen British Alpine cross and Lolly is a full Saneen. The Saneen is a Swiss breed. They are pure white and are the most commonly used goat for milking in New Zealand. On average they will give around 3 litres of milk a day. The British Alpine is normally black with white stripes running down their faces. Frankie has a lot more white and both have horns, which is a bit unsettling. They look like they could do some serious damage with those pointy tips if they wanted to.  Lynda is a lovely lady who reluctantly decided to stop milking as she and her husband are wanting to spend more time away from their farm to enjoy their retirement. That’s the major problem with milking. You are required to be there with warmed hands ready, morning and night, come rain or shine. No full, creaking udder is going to allow you a day off.

Frankie, one soon to be milking goat.

The goats look skinny, hip bones and rib cages clearly visible through their coats. They look like they could do with a good drenching for worms or a couple of dozen pies in them, to fatten them up! Lynda explains that they are both feeding twins so have lost a lot of weight. Wish I had when I was breast feeding! She collects Frankie from the paddock, clips on her lead rope to her leather collar and I watch as Frankie tears up the hill dragging Lynda behind her like some badly behaved Labrador. She grabs a mouthful of Feijoa bush as she streaks up the hill. I think this may be a daily ritual judging by the small statue of the feijoa plants. A small fox terrier barks at her heels and Frankie gives her a bunt with her horns - ouch. The goat jumps onto a milking stand and proceeds to gobble up some grain placed in a bucket for her. She certainly knows the routine and seems very accepting for me to have my first go at trying to milk a animal. It is pretty instinctive really just clasp and squeeze and a hot white jet of milk comes shooting out. How hard can that be each morning? Lynda kindly shows me how to trim goat nails. This is an important six weekly job to stop the quickly growing horns from becoming too long. The little foxie gobbles up all the nail peelings as they fall to the ground. Obviously nail biting is not just a human habit. Lynda kindly and very trustingly offers me the two girls for free. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth it looks like I have become a goat owner.

Who Wears The Pants In Our House? Chris, Janet or maybe Hugh?

Our family dynamics are probably not typical in many households. My husband Chris does all the food shopping, the cooking and the ironing. When he travels he has been known to prepare meals in advance for us as he fears we may be living on toast whilst he is away. I do all the bloke work around the home. I mow the lawns, fix leaking taps, change the light bulbs, build things and generally do all the DIY. The tool shed is certainly my domain. Chris would not know a square headed screwdriver from a Phillips- bless him. Anyway it works for us. The boys and I wait for Chris to get home and ask him what’s for dinner. As I don’t do the supermarket shopping I have no idea what’s in the pantry or fridge.

 I can see with this project I may have to be a little more prepared and do a bit more of the food preparation and cooking. In anticipation I ordered Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls new cook book Veg Everyday from the Book Depository. Incidentally the Book Depository is a great site to check out if you love books. It is based in the UK and they offer free delivery worldwide on all their books.

Veg Everyday will become my bible  for all my vegetable recipes. I figure I can slowly work my way through the recipes with the changing seasons. As I flick through the pages it reminds me of all the types of vegetables I should be growing and makes me feel like I should be out getting some new crops planted this minute.

My book arrives in just over a week. As I flip through my new purchase and inhale the lovely intoxicating smell of new book I can’t help but think this can’t be so hard. Simple ingredients, many of which are already growing in my garden, and simple instructions which I am sure even I can follow. Each recipe is accompanied by a glossy photo of what the dish is supposed to look like- a important tool for someone who prefers to wait for dinner rather than cook it!

My Big Idea for New Year!

Have you ever made some hare brained New Year’s resolution on New Year’s Eve and lived to regret it?

Well I may. On New Year’s Eve I gave myself a challenge to try and live off produce I have grown in my urban garden or bartered for with produce I have grown for four months. We all need challenges in our lives and this seems like a good one. Of course I want to haul my husband and three young boys along for the ride, much to their protest. Could it really be that difficult? Won’t it really just be like how our great grandparents had to live? Sure we may need to go without a few food luxuries but I am happy to live without Californian grapes or bananas for a few months.

It can’t be that hard. We have a large garden situated in urban Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, NZ, which I have been cultivating into an edible permaculture garden for the last four years. I have created my ‘crop circle’ gardens where I grow all manner of vegetables and edible flowers all mis- mashed together in an unruly but intensively planting scheme.

Some of the gardeners

When my vegetables are harvested my feathered gardeners, also known as chickens, move onto the area in their chicken tractor and deal to all the insects, left over broccoli stalks, forgotten lettuce and  rampant weeds. During the time they spend on this particular ‘crop circle’, normally 4 four weeks, they devour all the seeds, weeds and insects, turn over and mulch the soil and poop in it. I throw in our lawn mower clippings, kitchen scraps, a hand full of straw, leaves and they give me fresh daily eggs and beautiful organic rich soil to grow my vegetables in.  It’s a win-win situation. The chooks are allowed to be chooks. They get new ground to dig and scratch, take dust baths, bask in the sun, perch, fight over a food morsel and have lots of fresh air whilst being protected from the rain and chilling winds and predators. I get eggs with yolks the colour of ripe orange, organic compost and waste disposals neatly packaged as a chicken.

I have around nine ‘crop circle’ gardens which the chicken tractor neatly fits over so it is a process of rotating and harvesting and re-sowing with the chooks doing my hard grunt work. So sounds like I have the vegetables sorted!

Over the last five years I have also been planting fruit trees like a woman processed! The lady who owned our property before us loved roses and pretty perennials but of course you can’t eat those. I have been ripping out these with gay abandon and planting all manner of fruit trees. Having an urban garden I have generally gone for dwarfing trees which will not grow too high and cast shade on the neighbours or plough through overhead power lines or require tall ladders when picking the fruit. Our region is blessed with a wonderful climate for growing pip and stone fruit which I have taken full advantage of. My favourite fruit is an apple. My husband jokes that that is so unexciting and boring. His of course is a Mango. Juicy, sweet, exotic, imported and not able to be grown in our garden. I think at the last count I have over 15 apple trees growing in our garden, and on the street verge. Many have been espaliered, trained along wires, flat against walls or as living fences.

apples, apples and more apples.

  

Surely with such a bustling garden full of fruit and veg it won’t be that hard to life off the land for a few months.

These will be the rules I will live by for the next four months ( February to end of May)

• only eat produce grown from my garden

• barter for as many items as I can which I can’t grow with produce from my garden.

• foraging is allowed

• allow our family one night out each fortnight to eat out, or eat at friends.

I will follow these rules to the letter. My husband, Chris travels regularly so I can’t expect him to leave with a broccoli tucked under his arm as his away rations so I suppose he will have an out every few days most weeks.

My two oldest boys, Liam, nine, and Edwin six, have a cooked lunch at school so I know they won’t be dying of scurfy. They are very keen to try the experiment but I think to preserve our family dynamics if they don’t want to eat what is served they can have toast, or an egg as another option. Quinn who is only four and lives off peanut butter and nutella sandwiches on white bread may present more of a challenge. Not wanting to put him off fresh local food for life I will just go with the flow with him. He is actually happiest when he is free ranging in the garden munching on broad beans and peas so I suppose he is with the project?

My boys, they are not usually this clean! Edwin, Liam and Quinn.

I am quite excited to see how much food we can grow in an urban garden and if indeed it is possible to live off the land in regards to food production whilst living in an urban environment. Before I go any further must make it clear that I my only challenge is with food. I will not be using large leaves as toilet paper, brushing teeth with salt or disconnecting us from the national grid. I may be green but I am not an eco fundamentalist and do enjoy, and need, some modern day creature comforts.  

I hope you enjoy reading about our challenge. When I am not preserving fruit, baking bread, planting broccoli or making jam I will be blogging about my success and failures.