We had to hurriedly harvest the remaining crops in the last 2 beds as they would not wait till we returned, so we processed and stored what we could. We had already frozen about 30kg of broad beans but bed 6 was completely planted with the wretched things which we just couldn't face, so we took them by the wheelbarrow-full (literally) to Pam, the organiser of our lagoon restoration group who seems to know everyone around here, and they were apparently very well received.
I had grown all the seedlings for the first 4 beds from seed but the last of these were still in the greenhouse and would need to be looked after while we were away and there seemed little point in planting seeds for the final rotations at this stage. In addition, watering had to be automated as much as possible, the chooks food and water had to be made as easy as possible, and everything had to be mown or weeded or tied up so that it would survive a month without us, whatever the weather.
But after some very long days, it was all rather neat and tidy and we had a succession of lovely friends and neighbours organised to help out.
All the house plants were shifted to the breezeway and a trough that could easily be refilled.
The plants around the house and the trellis were weeded and watered.
The magnolia grandiflora was watered and mulched and looked quite healthy.
The willow hedge could have grown a bit more but was still alive.
The climbers on the pergola were tied up.
The pumpkin patch was in its infancy but looking good.
There were lots of flowers on the feijoa ...
... and about 50 apricots on a very healthy looking tree. Let's hope they don't ripen in the next month.
Some rather sad looking kumara plants had arrived just in time to be planted. Not sure about their chances.
The vege patch was looking good. Bed 1.
Bed 2.
Bed 3 - sweetcorn
Bed 4 - just mulched as no time to plant it out.
Bed 5 - some very lucky chooks with quite a lot to eat.
And bed 6, recently stripped of its broad beans.
The strawberries were just coming into in full production and it was sad to leave them.
The greenhouse was all planted up and looking good.
The new path looked good, from a distance.
The grass had been cut around the natives, as the bulbs had died back, and were looking good with their new mulch.
The willow house was alive and well and developing a Sonny Bill Williams haircut!
There were the first signs of comfrey around the fruit trees in the orchard.
And the natives and the surrounding kikuyu grass on the soak field were thriving.
And then on December 7th we were up and away. Let's hope they don't miss us too much!
.... So, we were due to have 2 days back from our volunteering before our Xmas trip but the plane broke and couldn't collect us from the island so we only had one day. In addition, our camera had broken while we were away, so no more photos for a while.
The weather had been mixed, or even wet, while we were away, so everything had survived. Our helpers had done a great job and we just had some frantic tidying, mowing and picking to do in our 1 day back.
We also discovered that we had had an aerial photo taken of our new section on December 2nd and we thought it was rather interesting. Our new section includes the strip of bush to the right (west) of the section which is bounded on the other 3 sides by the almost visible gum trees. Our pony paddock is to the left of the main section and only partly visible.
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