Good Little Plants

Happy Spring Equinox

Happy Spring, Happy Spring Equinox! Welcome back longer days, daylight savings, warmer weather, and all the wonderful spring things.

With Spring some people get a surge of energy, some get hayfever, and some get neither or both! I get both, lucky me.

I’m directing my spring excitement into seed sorting, planting, and planning, as well as creating a new website where I will eventually be able to sell some of my excess seeds and seedlings. I have brought over my old blog from my QuietRectangle blog, however the rest of the site is brand new.

I have actually had a lot of fun creating the site. I work with wordpress in my ‘day job’ but for some reason, creating my own site with a basic template has felt so easy and fun. In fact, I’m half tempted to say if you want your own website, hire me. I don’t do front-end customisation or back-end development, but I can get you set up from scratch with hosting, a domain, and a pre-made template customised with your own photos. Well the thought is out there… Yet it’s not really my goal to become a website creator!

Seed Envelopes

I have finally run out of previously purchased seed envelopes, which has kickstarted a plan for making our own. My partner Adam has crafted an envelope shaped deckle (mould for papermaking) and I will temporarily use it to trace and cut out envelopes from whatever paper is in the house, while long term he gets set up to create beautiful hand-recycled paper. We need to find some old flyscreen for the mesh, and he will look for a pre-loved blender for the paper pulp. I dream of a bicycle powered blender, but I don’t know if our mechanical skills are up to the challenge of building one just yet… Only time will tell, and time is the thing we seem to always be short of.

Ducklings

We are getting a lot of duckling visitors again this spring. They waddle through our street, doing a tour of each of the neighbours who have kids, as all the local kids love to feed the ducks.

NZ Secret Santa Seed Swap

I am participating in the Secret Santa Seed Swap again this year. This will be the 4th year I’ve done it, and every year it has been a lot of fun. Sign up has closed for this year, but if you are on instagram I highly recommend giving the page a follow so you don’t miss out next time around https://www.instagram.com/nz.secret.santa.seed.swap/

Affiliate Links:

Support this blog by using our affiliate link to purchase Eco Warehouse products.  Eco Warehouse are New Zealand based, offer plastic-free shipping,  and a range of great eco brands.

eco-products-online
Strawberries, Raspberries, and Black Currants in a stainless steel colander.

Three Years Later

January 9, 2025

My last update was March 2022*, and it’s now January 2025.

Close enough to 3 years, and coincidentally, around how long I had been telling myself it would take for my new garden to ‘get good’.

The definition of good, well, if you don’t include ‘tidy’, and simply measure it’s ‘goodness’ by how many imperfect raspberries you can pick on a summers day, then I think it’s doing ok.

It has been a chaotic few years. But, probably starting to feel a little settled now. Have had the first family trip back to Auckland, and it actually felt like home on our return here.

I always intended to become a writer in my 40’s, but I never took into account how much I actually dislike writing. However… blogging is somewhat cathartic. And with the youngest off to school next month, I may have a little more time to hammer out a few words between work projects.

I may even endeavour to do more cooking stuff. I don’t know. It’s a beautiful sunny day so I’m feeling very motivated and optimistic, but who knows how long that will last!

*Edited to add, I’ve since been working on transferring a lot of social media posts to the blog, so many more will pop up between these two dates!

Giant Sunflower

April 4, 2024

I haven’t posted in ages again. Hard to find a handful of uninterrupted minutes outside of work hours. But here’s a collection of garden photos from summer.

1. Giant sunflower and sun
2. Random self-seeded dahlia with bumblebee
3. A handful of ivory raspberries
4. A yellow tomato from the garden, joining a fruit bowl full of veggies from

… Well I’ve been interrupted before I’ve finished writing notes for the photos. Pressing post anyway I guess.

Popping Corn Polenta

November 22, 2023

Last summer I grew a bunch of popcorn corn, that once dried unfortunately had very low rates of popping.

It looked very pretty though! But eventually after tiring of it hanging up in the pantry, I thought I’d try an experiment.

I chucked some corn into my flour mill and ground it up, and yes, you can make a delicious polenta from this corn.