Blog
Weekly tales from The Outpost.
My mother’s mother’s mothers
How the women who came before me have shaped my life at The Outpost today. The story of my matrilineal line.
Harvesting the kūmara
After ignoring our māra kūmara for several months, we dug it up!
Preparing for a cyclone
A look into what we do to prepare when the warning comes.
Albert (‘Snowie’) Charles Schaeffer (WW1 23/903)
Albert “Snowie” Charles Schaeffer served in World War 1, and returned home, broken.
Planting potatoes
Potatoes can be planted as soon as the last frosts pass. Find out what to do now to great crop next season!
Clearing the clearing
This week we cut down a bunch of gorse and cleared out a nice spot for a picnic in the bush.
Rainfall
We’ve got two full years of weather data now. What does it say?
Manual of the New Zealand Flora
How do you learn to see the trees for the forest? You look closer. And then you look closer again. And again.
Cloche hoops
All about our wonderful cloche hoops – and how you can have them too.
Everything I know about looking after garlic
My main crops are half way through the season and I’m working on setting them up for good bulb growth in the next couple of months.
Square foot gardening
Low rainfall in summer each year means my garden always suffers. This year, I’m planning to share our water with one bed that really pumps… and grows everything.
How to grow ginger (Zingibar officiale)
A surprisingly simple and satisfying little crop to grow. Find out how to take a small piece from the supermarket and turn it into a year’s supply of ginger!
Down the garden path
Paths are a perhaps overlooked, at yet very important part of the garden. Here’s a look at my trials (and errors).
The eggless chickens
Every year about this time, our chickens stop laying eggs. Each year I swear I’ll be ready for it the next, but it always, always seems to catch me by surprise. One day we’ll look in the cupboard and there’s no eggs. Our supply is dry. It’s part of a natural cycle….
Garden time
A bed-by-bed tour of the winter vege garden.
Garlic growing 2021: the experiments
Each year I experiment with new garlic varieties to see if they’re worth adding to my “garlic collection”. This year I’m trying 3: Russian Red, Spanish Red, and Kakanui.
Garden of smiles
I’m slowly learning plants don’t have to be “useful” to be worthwhile. So this week, I planted a flower garden just to put a smile on my face.
The roosters
A couple of months ago, we welcomed some new chickens, and now the roosters are crowing.
Animal tales part 3
Our lives are made richer by the creatures we share The Outpost with. Every so often I write out some short stories about them. This is the third post in that series.
The lazy woman’s garden
I’m getting lazy and spending less time in the garden. But we’re still harvesting fresh food regularly. How? I’m letting nature do the gardening for me.
A slew of updates
Generally, I blog about what’s new, and what’s going on right now. Today, I’m looking back and providing some updates on stuff from the past 2 years.
The value of the bush
Musings on what value we place on our native forest remnants.