Letters from Wetville

More gardening.  A perfect day of sunshine after yesterday's gale.  I weeded along most of the garden underneath the kitchen window, and then I planted cavolo nero and basil in the resultant gaps.  Cavolo Nero is my favourite kind of kale, and we didn't grow enough last year. In yesterday's fierce weather the garlic and the bergamot were flattened.  I cut the bergamot (which was about a metre tall) almost to the ground, and will deal with the garlic tomorrow.  Then I cleared one third of the punga raised bed of weeds, spread the charcoal (dumped from the remains of a barbeque using driftwood), buried a bucket of bokashi along the centre of this third, then collected several handfuls (through a plastic bag) of chook-poo encrusted wood shavings and spread them along this third.  Then I severely diluted the liquid from the bottom of the bokashi bucket and poured that on top of the poo-wood mix.  Then I laid the branches of bergamot on top and the ...

Last night I went to a play called Goodnight Irene , put on by Kiwi Possum Productions and inspired by the deaths at Pike River 12 months ago. Attendance was by invitation only, and I think that was wise as the media circled Greymouth this weekend looking for a story, us as objects to feed their ratings. I really enjoyed the play and I am so proud that Greymouth has the talent to put on community theatre like this. There is naught so interesting as compost for a keen gardener. Yesterday we bought a new compost bin. For the first few years I made a pile under the big tree and hoped for the best. It worked okay, but then it got invaded by perennial weeds and I decided there had to be a better way. About this time last year I bought a standard issue type compost bin for our grass clippings and the pea straw/chook poo which I take out of the coop (as mysteriously the chooks no longer want to roost at night, so they poo in the coop instead). It is making compost alright, but it is i...