Blog
Weekly tales from The Outpost.
December in the garden
The most important tasks for December in your garden.
How my garden grows
A peek at how the garden is doing going into the main growing season.
Making joy
The world is a lot right now, so I took some time to create some joy in it.
November in the garden
It’s full-steam ahead on all your fresh summer faves.
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.
Sourcing native trees
In order to plant native trees, we need to source native trees. I went tree-hunting this week.
The zoo grows again
One person’s problem became our new friends with the arrival of 7 new chooks.
Everything I know about planting garlic
Everything I’ve learned about getting a successful garlic harvest in the ground.
The visitor
We’ve a new friend at The Outpost. An Airedale Terrier named Hine Toa.
The beauty of weeds
Looking at the beauty provided by some of the weeds on the property, and getting a bit philosophical about it.
The composting toilet
Pooping is such a basic part of every life. We’ve got a little closer to our poop since we moved to The Outpost by composting it through our composting toilet.
Some of the succulents
A short tour of some of my succulents and cacti.
Cooking in compost
In my garden, there is a big compost pile generating a whole lot of heat. So I tried cooking in compost – and it worked!
A selection of limes
I’m up to 5 lime trees. Am I obsessed? How did I get here?

















