A few years ago the then editor of New Zealand Gardener, Lynda Hallinan, tried to live off her land. But there was only one of her to feed. No offence Lynda, but it’s a bit harder to feed four.

So I’ve been thinking about a new adventure. From August I’m going to try and see how much we can grow, on our section, for our family of four. My plan is to document what we grow, what succeeds, what doesn’t and how much we save (or don’t!).

I know that those of us with families are stretched for time and the family will go and get fish and chips if you serve them cream of silverbeet soup for the third day in a row. With that in mind I don’t expect that we will be able to grow all that we eat. The idea is to see how much we can grow and inspire others to do the same.

I guess there is no such thing as a typical family so I’ll re-introduce the tribe so you can get an idea of who I’m feeding.

G1 is 11 1/2, and growing like a pumpkin on compost. She eats as much as me, but since she is now size 10 in women’s clothing, and still growing, she is allowed to.

G2 is 9, never short for her age, she is the height of an average 11 year old, fortunately she doesn’t eat like one yet.

DA MAN is still 6’2, he is supposed to be eating less, but he still has to fill that lanky frame. I took this picture of him after I explained that the vege options will have to alternate between broad beans and silverbeet in October.

Then there is me. As an active women of generous height, 178cm last time my children measured me, (that’s just shy of 6’ in old currency), I eat like a man. I tell myself that is OK, since I can eyeball most men I meet.

Along with the gardening there will be other tips to help families shave their food bills and recipes for using all that food I’m going to grow. I don’t know it all and if you have any good ideas let me know.

So are you ready to join me on my new adventure?

We live on the west coast of the lower North Island, inland, tucked up under the Tararua’s. This means we have very good rainfall. It also means that the temperatures are mild, not too hot in summer but not so cold in winter. Usually we would have about 5 frosts a year (this year was an exception). Sunshine hours are not high, due to cloud build up around the hills. This can lead to ripening issues.

Above is the actual garden. It is made of raised beds. The soil is heavy, verging on clay. The drainage is not great, we live on the edge of what was once a huge swamp, flax milling was the first industry in our area. You can see the puddles on the paths in the right of the picture.

I have improved the soil, but it is a work in progress.

You can see Magnolia’s blooming in the background. Since I took this picture we have had 3 frosts, which turned the flowers to brown mush. This winter has been cold and quite dry, leading to clear sky’s and lots of frosts.

So what are we eating from the garden?

This week I picked spring onions, nothing else. I was hoping to eat a cabbage but our pet ‘lamb’, who is really a 40kg hogget, got loose, and she really likes cabbages. I found her sitting in the bed where the cabbages were (note the past tense), chewing her cud, which was probably made up of cabbage.

Trying to look on the positive side she did free up a bed for summer planting and graciously left it manured!

When it returns I’ll let you know if I feel better.

That is unfair because August was warm and dry here, shame September hasn’t started off that way.

I know there have not been regular posts for a while but as some of you know and others may have guessed from the last post G1 was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the end of May.

This was very stressful. She requires ongoing care and medication to keep her alive. This is quite a burden for her and us.

But we are coping a lot better now. So maybe there will be some more time for blogging.

I hope this gardening year to keep a running record of our vege garden, which could be used as a resource for others. So keep watching because I have already begun planting.

Book reviews will return but not as regularly. I think I’ll review books as I read them. Diabetes may even make an appearance.

The above photo was taken in our garden this morning. We have a marvellous display of daffodils at the moment, reminding us that spring is really here.

It was small and brownish. We looked a each other for a few minutes then I slowly moved, and then ran inside to get the camera. When I came back the frog had gone.

I did some research on the net and using this site I worked out that I had seen a tree frog.I borrowed one of their photos, my frog was more uniform in colour though.

Tree frogs usually hang out in the foliage around steams and ponds. We do have a stream on our property but it’s a good 5 metres from the vege garden. I think seeing a frog is a hint that I need to do some work on the drainage.

With school and uni starting back I’ve been having scheduling issues. But never fear I’m working on it. Part four of ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ is coming (so is Christmas!).

What I need is a gadget that translates the thoughts in my head in to typing. If I had one of those I could write posts like Jonny’s. If anyone out there invents one, let me know.

In the absence of a thoughtful post here’s a seasonal picture. 

Traditionally 1 March is the beginning of Autumn. Pumpkins are the vegetable of Autumn and this year we planted 3 different types. The first to be ready is ‘Peek a Boo’. This is our second pumpkin to turn orange. We were going to eat 1/2 of the first on Saturday, except the power went out. For 5 hours. The power cut started at 5pm and the pumpkin had only just started roasting. No one wanted to eat half cooked pumpkin.

So I don’t know what it tastes like, yet. But they look really pretty, like a pumpkin from a story book.

For once I’m up with the trend, I’ve been vege gardening for about 15 years. I think the popularity of growing your own vege has been driven by a number of factors. The growing price of veges in the supermarket makes grow your own worth the effort. Wider green issues, which are also trendy, are also a factor. People feel good about the small ‘carbon footprint’, the recycling, if you make compost, and you can grow organically.

Another, more theoretical factor is that some people have a desire to return to the land. We often have a romantic idea of what our pre-industrial revolution ancestors lives were like. By growing our own food, as they did, we imagine we can return to the (supposed) idyllic world that existed before factories, cars and supermalls.

The idea that we can create some sort of pre-industrial earthly paradise is a strong ideological thread running through both the political far right and the far left. In NZ the Green Party are the far left and their desire for this can be seen in some of their policies.

Contrary to what some may think the far right in NZ is not ACT but the National Front. The National Front are pretty shadowy, partly because what they believe is deeply unfashionable and often abhorrent. Occasionally they pop up in the news, partly because they have that controversy factor. Today there is an article on Stuff about the National Front wanting to start their own community in North Canterbury. It’s pretty standard far right/fascist ideas. What caught my eye was that the community would have a ‘large vegetable garden’.

I, and many NZers have something in common with the National Front! I guess it’s a lesson that there are attractive parts to all political philosophies, and that we should always look a bit deeper. After all political parties want to put their best face forward so we will vote for them.

When I read about the large vege garden I thought of this:

It’s Villandry, a large potager style vege garden in France complete with a Château. I wonder if this is the kind of thing the National Front had in mind?

Holidays are supposed to leave you feeling rested. I’m not sure that this works for our family, all I seemed to get was bad dose of sunburn and grumpy children. But we have put all the pre-Christmas madness behind us.

While away I hadn’t organised for anyone to water the vege garden. I did regret this as it was hot a sunny where we were (hence the sunburn). When we got home we found evidence that this had not been the case at the homely wife mansion.

We had a lot yellow beans. Not quite as many as in this photo, but I picked 1.28kgs.

For those who want to grow a good crop of dwarf beans I planted Roquefort, from Kings Seeds.

And what do you do with 1.28kgs of beans. You put on your i-pod and chop, then blanch and freeze. This job is um.. not fun but I remind myself that I will reap the rewards in winter.

In early November I planted some cucumber and yellow scalloped zucchini in one of my garden beds. The seeds sprouted. One group of cucumber was killed by a late frost. Two plants remained. One I was sure was the yellow zucchini, this was the first time I had tried growing this veggie but I was sure that I had planted the seed where the plant came up. The other was a zucchini as well, I could tell by its leaf shape and the smell of the leaves.

I was puzzled by the second plant, I didn’t remember planting it where it had come up and wasn’t even sure if it was a yellow zucchini because it looked different from the plant I believed was the yellow zucchini. I moved the second plant to a different bed and it died. I wasn’t too worried, any one who has ever grown zucchini knows one plant is usually enough!

Fast forward through December. My ‘yellow zucchini’ plant grew well, but it grew trailing like a pumpkin not a bush, which was my previous zucchini growing experience. I was puzzled, but the scalloped type are sometimes called zucchini squash so I wasn’t too concerned. Then the fruit started to form. I was interested in this, I wanted to see what shape would form at the bottom of the female flowers. The plant had a lot of male flowers, I couldn’t see any female.

Until last week. On Tuesday I was looking at my ‘yellow zucchini’ and I found a female flower. The swelling wasn’t at all what I expected, in fact it looked rather like a … cucumber.

Suddenly it dawned on me, trailing growth, tendrils, and fruit that looked like a cucumber. This plant is not a zucchini it’s a cucumber! 

The lesson. Don’t rely on your memory, and if looks like a cucumber it probably is. I can’t believe I was in denial for so long.