First stop was Carla’s chickens which are doing great and she’s excited to be receiving the veg beds now. Showed me her bokashi bin which is working perfectly and she’s singing its praises. I had a second one to give her but had forgotten lids, duh….so I am dropping it off next week.
Then *Naida. Lovely old Pakistani woman who met me at the car as I unloaded and pointing to other seedlings, was a little persistent that I get more out for her! She also didn’t want strawberries, but DID want coriander, chillies and tomatoes. Her English isn’t good and I didn’t have Haare to translate into Pakistani, but I told her anyway why we aren’t doing these yet, explaining the seasons. I planted it all up and explained the bokashi bin as best I could. As I left she told me she didn’t understand anything I said, but not to worry. I never gave her fridge bags. I think she would have been more confused, so maybe I will drop them with some coriander seeds at some point and explain to Mariyam what I’m doing.
Haare jumped in my car for Panama. It’s hard for me to comprehend why everyone is so scared of this area when every visit here has been peacefully quiet. Today, with a helicopter circling overhead, Haare was quite jumpy, nearly out of her skin when a lady shouted at her dog, but I get that it can change in a heartbeat… or a gun shot, and I should have someone with me.
No one home at Maraea’s and as Haare knew she was at some meeting we didn’t go up there. No one at Sai’s for chicken pre-visit. We walked around the back and I took a pic. It’s a lovely large backyard with good outer fencing.
Candace’s delivery of seedlings was postponed and as Violet’s was just across the road, we popped in there (early) for her second visit but also no one home. I left her gloves in the box and called her after because unfortunately her whole garden bed was now laying empty. I asked her if she’d had a problem and exactly what I expected had happened.
Violet said the seedlings had shot off at the start but then got to a point and never progressed. They had found an extra tub and trough on the side of the road, and emptied some of the bed into these, mixing in some bags of compost as they went. The stuff they have put in there is thriving. We talked about the main reason being the beds do better on grass with newspaper/cardboard underneath. They had chosen to put on the concrete which heats up and dries any soil out super fast. The seedlings roots stretched out into and through the soil and then hit the concrete where they had no nutrition and plateaued, only to die. Violet’s plants would have suffered more stress with the extra dry situation. I told her it was excellent observations and now she has emptied it she can leave the mulch to one side to rot down adding it a bit at a time to the tops of any beds she grows. She said hubby wanted to plant taro and I congratulated her on her progress and learning.
*Some names have been changed for privacy reasons.
Rākau Tautoko 