Garden to Kitchen - with Suz

06/03/2024

This amazing event is coming around again:

Our 15th Heritage Harvest Festival is three weeks away!

You can now book into:
🫒 Pre-festival foraging trip and full-day Permaculture workshop
🍎 All festival workshops
🥧 The Potluck Dinner on Friday 22nd March
🍂 Forest Garden Tours happening throughout the weekend
🥘 The Harvest Dinner on Saturday 23rd March
💛 and if you are able to support our community festival, please consider making a donation at check out!

Head to https://www.sces.org.nz/heritage-harvest-festival-2024 to book in!

06/03/2024

So... the wind and rain decided to decimate the plum tree yesterday, so went out and gathered what was still usable off the ground. Grabbed some recycled jars, put through sterilisation & boiled a preserving pot full of plums up to feed us stewed fruit over the coming cold winter nights. Gave another bag away to a friend who's been having hard times. & go hand in hand. Namaste.

27/02/2023

Feeling very blessed that we have had a great growing season in the south... Plums galore so far, apples a plenty still to come. And the off-grid woodstove is brilliant for preserving.

25/02/2023

Coming up again fast...

We are very excited to be putting together our 14th annual Harvest Festival this March. We are looking forward to welcoming you all! This year's festival will include a pot luck feast, the Champion of the Harvest Competition, forest garden tours, a Country Mouse Market and other children's activities, and a wonderful variety of workshops on all things growing, harvesting and cooking!

This year's festival will also offer opportunities to learn about how the Longwood Loop is bringing our growers and community together and supporting community food resilience in Western Southland, and there will be a guided trip around the Longwood Loop and Heritage Orchard parks on Monday 27th March!

Our full workshop schedule will be shared this week, and a 10% early bird discount will be available until March 17th.

05/01/2023

More sustainable land practices in the south:
..Jon Toogood emerged from a swiftly arranged tour of organiser Tim Gow's farm, ready to enthuse about crop rotation and ancient practices.

"It's awesome,'' he said.

"Animals happy, land happy, it works, and you don't have to buy industrial fertilisers off anyone because it fertilises itself - I find that revitalising.''

Jon Toogood: I like trying to make a show happen with a bit of wood in my hand and my voice, rather than relying on a big stack of Marshalls (speakers) and light shows.

31/03/2022

https://financialpost.com/news/economy/what-your-fruit-has-been-through-a-green-grapes-journey-through-a-global-supply-chain-on-edge

To fully grasp the current crisis in the flow of goods, you've got to watch a box of something struggle its way through

12/02/2022

Pretty pleased with myself to have a whole box of eating apples put down for over winter. This is the end of our 4rd year here and it's the biggest harvest we have ever had!! Yippee...

Ok, so being spray free, I had to share some with other critters, but that's ok, biodiversity is essential to our existence here on our beautiful planet. I'm pretty sure we can find enough to survive on during even our upcoming sustained self-imposed lockdown to keep me safe here, being a high risk vulnerable person healthwise.

I've been grading my fruit into 3 types... Insect damaged/eat now, eat next from my storage or long-term storage (wrapped in brown paper)... Just remember if storing apples, keep them safe from mice and other critters whomlike to eat them too (we have a pack of pu***es on patrol here so no problems there!) AND, don't ever store them with or near potatoes as these will prematurely ripen them. Happy apple-ing!!

10/01/2022

It's that time of year again... the Nasturtiums have been flowering like crazy, attracting aphids away from our vege patches and providing us with fantastic caper flavoured seed pods to pickle...

Going back to an oldie but goodie recipe today, making capers from Nasturtium seed pods. These are wonderful in summer salads, with cold pasta and with fresh caught summer fish if you eat that:

“Poor Man’s Capers” – pickled Nasturtium Pods: Nasturtiums are great in the garden for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, they attract aphids and other insects away from your veg…

27/05/2021

Only 4 days left to pledge to help this amazing community initaitive before we lose our already granted funding... can you help? TIA

Empowering rural Southland to buy and sell fresh food in localised networks, for social and economic rejuvenation and resilience.

02/09/2020

Came across this helpful site, just in time for summer in Aotearoa NZ... a reminder that our lovely US friends call any kind of preserving "canning", so don't be put off by the name!

https ://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/08/26/how-to-preserve-summer-tomatoes-so-you-can-enjoy-them-all-year-long/ =https://t.co/7twk634EVf

Almost any tomato can be canned, but meaty types like Brandywine, Beefsteak, Big Red and Roma varieties are preferred.

10/03/2020

For those following this page, you will know of this history:

A couple of years ago, with failing health when our regional hospital nearly killed me after leaving me fighting sepsis for weeks without treatment, we sadly sold up our completely organic property and moved towns to where hubby works, to a much smaller property. The resulting damage to my organs incl. my heart, meant that I could no longer work physically in the gardens as I had done for some years. I was gutted as I had been used to working hard in the grounds and orchard to feed ourselves, while donating the extra to others in need. So, we packed up our plants we could move in containers, pots and buckets & off we went to a much smaller property.

Being too sick to do anything much at the new house and us having to buy a property that had been sprayed, the only way to get gardens growing was make some small raised beds. It was a friend of lovely hubby's that did this for me, while I got the first years seedlings planted. Another awesome friend dug the holes for our new fruit trees. All up, we did well, the gardens keeping us in greens for the whole year. This 2nd year, I even managed to make up a couple more gardens to add to the original ones, and we finally got the new orchard fruiting. This is proof that you don't actually need much to get something to live off. Anything is better than nothing. Enjoy: