The end of the harvest

There are still pears and apples on the trees, sure, but it feels as though the season has finished. The festival was a great success; everyone seemed very happy, the crowds were large and constant and we didn't have any catastrophes, even while we were bringing down the enormous marquee in the wind that sprang up just as the weekend drew to a close. The weather's turned though. It's feeling wintery; colder, clammier and dimmer. Mind you, it's difficult to know these days what will happen during a week. We've had ridiculously high temperatures this autumn, mixed in with the usual weather, so winter could throw up some hotter days than usual. I suspect this will be the case. I'll have to get out soon and pick the remaining apples and pear and there are a lot of them. We took bags and bags of Rokewood apples down to put through the cider press, yet there are still plenty on the tree. Our biggest cooking apples are still there, causing the branches to groan under their weight and the pearmain varieties haven't reached their full ripeness yet. The garden is looking lush and full. I haven't groomed any paths at all this year, so the edges are looking wonderfully natural and I'll stick with that management from now on - I don't like the primped look at all. There have been so many visitors through the garden that cutting a path has been completely unnecessary. I've just finished writing a column for NZ Gardener on the subject of permaculture and I found that interesting, having moved through a lot of thinking and practice since the day I first heard about it, and it was interesting to me to read my own thoughts at this point and compare them with those I had 20 years ago. That column will be published in the June edition of NZ Gardener. I'm now thinking about the Tree Crop Association AGM in Pukekohe later this month, where I'll be speaking about the forest garden, especially the trees that form much of it, and that will be enjoyable. I've an appointment to speak to the Taieri Mouth Garden Club next month on the same topic, so I'll be well prepared and practiced for that. A fortnight ago, it was the Dunedin Herb Society, where I met many delightful herbalists and talked apiaceae and convolvulus, amongst other things. Yesterday's Regional Council meeting was about biodiversity, my pet topic, so I was quite vocal in promoting ideas there that seemingly had not occurred to anyone else, such as using the roadsides of Southland as conduits for plantings that would support and add to Southland's biodiversity. I was met by a stunned silence in general, but you have to begin seeding ideas somewhere and a captive audience of councillors is not a bad place to start. So, there we are, lots of words, no pictures, sorry :-)