Week 7 - Mowing

The focus this week has been on mowing. In particular mowing the lavender field. The grass between the rows of lavender was almost the same height as the lavender, around knee height.

P and I took turns on the ride-on mower, riding up and down the rows. We have about 20-25 rows of lavender altogether. It was very, very slow going because the grass was so long. We had to travel at the slowest speed and have the blades as high as we could. In the half day we had available to do it in, we got about half of it mowed. The rest of the week T has been here finishing off the mowing for us. There is just no way I can do it while the girls are here. So we've had to pay someone to do it.



It took T three and a half full days to do an intial mow of the grass (continuing on from what we'd been doing), weedeat around the lavender plants where the mower couldn't get, and then do another final mow to cut the grass short.

The lavender should be ready for harvest in about a weeks time.

All that's left to do now is pulling the weeds out from inside the lavender. I spent a couple of hours doing it in Sunday. It is very slow and time consuming and fiddly work. Each row takes me about 45 minutes.

The ride-on lawnmower is broken again. We only just got it back from the repair shop a couple of weeks ago. Now it just sends out lots of smoke when you turn it on. P thought it was the oil and replaced that. But it's still not going.

The vege garden is still full of weeds however the potatoes are getting bigger. We also have some kind of pumpkin/squash thing growing too.

-M

Week 6 - The Garden of Weeden

I have nicknamed our garden The Garden of Weeden. Theoretically it's supposed to be an idyllic place. However if you look closely you'll see weeds springing up all over the place. Actually you don't need to look that closely. They're everywhere and they're large. Last week the paddock nearest to the house was a sea of yellow dandelions. This week it's a sea of white yarrow.

I got out the weedspray at the beginning of this week to go around the yard, spraying the weeds that either P missed or have popped up since he sprayed a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I got the proportions wrong and only did it at 1/4 strength. So at the end of the week I found myself doing it all over again, this time at the right strength. Even so it looked like some of the less hardy weeds had already started wilting.

The vegetable patch / potato garden is completely overgrown with weeds. This doesn't seem to be stopping the potatoes from growing though. I attempted to dig out some of the weeds one afternoon. I got about 1/8 of the garden done and haven't gotten back to it again.



The caterpillars that we kept finding in the sunroom have gone. There was a pile of firewood the previous owners had left behind, which I moved outside. A few days later the number of caterpillars had dropped dramatically. I'm still not sure if it was because we moved the wood, or if it was a normal drop off at this time of year.

We went to the Horowhenua AP&I show this weekend. Hoped to get some contacts for various things but didn't. It seemed to either cater for the established farmer by way of competetions, or for recreational lifestylers who are more concerned with the aesthetics of their gardens than the practical aspects of farming.

-M

Week 5

The Christmas holiday are over and P is back at work now. Meaning I've been here on my own with the girls and not a lot of work has been done. It'll be easier when V is older but right now I can't realy leave her alone for too long. But if I take her outside with me, all she does is eat things. Which probably isn't going to hurt her ... except for the areas where we've been weedspraying, or where the deadly nightshade has started springing up as a weed everywhere.

The weeds that were sprayed last week have started dying, but more are springing up. And the grass needs mowing again but the ride-on mower is still broken. We're hoping to have it looked at this week.

I have made a start on learning about lavender, what we need to do with it, when and how. Have contacted a local grower, T, who usually helps with the harvesting of the lavender. The harvesting is carried out some time in February. His lavender is always the first to be ready for harvest, so he will know when it is time to do ours. He has been incredibly helpful and informative. I spent an hour or two with him over the weekend and learnt heaps. Saw the harvesting and distilling process in action at another local lavender farm. Have been given some prices for harvesting, distilling and materials required. Now I need to crunch the numbers together and come up with some sort of budget. Although the harvesting and distilling is done in February, the oil then has to mature in glass jars for another 6-8 months after that before it can be made into products, so no income for a while.

The grass and weeds in the lavender field are knee high or more. T says he can cut that back for us and then we'll just have to keep it short to prevent contamination of the lavender. I am rather embarassed by the state of the field, but with all our concentration on moving in to the property, things just got out of hand in the last 5 weeks (plus it wasn't necessarily handed over to us in a weed-free state).

The other paddocks are all overgrown too and the large weeds are threatening to spread their seeds far and wide. Gotta get some livestock in there soon!

Met some of the neighbours this week under rather unusual circumstances. There was a knock on the door one day and the lady at the door said she had accidentally backed her car into our letterbox and broken it. But she would get her husband to collect it and fix it. Later on another neighbour phoned to say that they had put our mail into her letterbox as ours wasn't there any more. I'm just happy that they were honest and put the matter to right. Country folk are good like that. Plus it enabled us to meet some neighbours so all in all it was a good thing.

This week we had no biscuits in the house and I really wanted some. So K and I baked some cookies. It was fun and I'm going to try and keep doing this instead of buying them. Might try and make muffins this week too. Plus we're back on track for making bread again.

-M

Week 4

This week has pretty much been a continuation of the previous weeks. As it has been summer holidays with Christmas and New Year, we checked out a lot of the surrounding attractions - Owlcatraz, Waitarere Beach and the Levin Aquatic Centre.

The borders of the garden were bare when we moved in. Now there are little weed forests growing in them. P found the weedspraying backpack and loaded it up with weedspray. It holds 16 litres but I don't think he filled it up. He did halfway around the garden before running out. Later on he refilled it and finished off the job. I'm not sure how many tanks it took, and that's only for the garden let alone the driveway.

The lawn needs mowing again.

The grass in the paddocks continues to get longer.

The lavender is starting to look really beautiful.

Self sufficiency is taking a back seat this week - we haven't made lemonade because we're scared to drink the water, and the only loaf of bread I made was a complete disaster.

But we have had more potatoes out of our garden. I also discovered a rabbit burrow right in middle of the vege garden!!! Cheeky rabbits.

-M