Autumn foraging
by Fionna Hill

Autumn is the season of the harvest.  Last weekend in South Wairarapa, New Zealand, my nieces and I went roadside foraging. From the ground we gathered acorns, chestnuts, walnuts, spindle berries, beech nuts, cones and more. And to follow when we came home we put together appealing mixes. The pomegranate, clove oranges, and Greek olive wood egg came from previous adventures.

 Many flowers and foliage colours are golden, russet, orange and red – my favourites.  And berries have appeared – some edible and some unfortunately poisonous. Some tree branches are becoming bare at this time, but those with a few of the turning fiery shades in their leaves are special.   Gather up the fallen leaves and display them in a bowl. Later the changing of the seasons from summer to winter brings bare branches of deciduous trees.  A couple of large branches alone in a large vase set on the floor can look sculptural and elegant and make a simple statement on their own. Choose good quality stems, not quantity.  For shorter branches place a couple in a glass container so that the whole line of the stems can be seen.

Fennel growing wild on the roadside has lime/khaki seed heads and stems can be long enough to stand in a huge crock on the floor.  The vegetable garden supplies good branches of seeds too – like parsley, fennel or angelica.

The orchard too can produce some splendid treasures. Branches laden with edible fruit make wonderful decorations. Green persimmons or quinces on the stem look amazing indoors. Bought fruit used as a decorative item can turn the edible into an artful feast too. A simple bowl of oranges looks great or a huge shallow bowl of shiny red apples can be dressed up by placing candles at random throughout it for a low-level design with high impact.  I once used a huge bronze Indian Urli for this purpose for a function and it looked impressive.  Gourds, small pumpkins and maize add good colour and interest and are long lasting at this time of year too.  Autumn is a bountiful season with great richness. ©

​MENZ  SHED
 
 By Fionna Hill
 
I did some homework on MENZ SHED a couple of months before moving to provincial New Zealand and decided that I was a starter.
 
My branch in Greytown has an active female membership of 25% and is happy to increase the number of women. Plaudits to you Greytown because I gather this isn’t the case with some other Menz Sheds. There was one other woman on my first day and about nine men.
 
I arrived to live in Greytown and, before I even finished unpacking boxes, I snuck down to see the Menz blokes. Not wishing to arrive empty handed, but unsure of the system I took a small, peculiar, probably industrial, metal pedestal table that I bought in a junk shop near Dunedin years ago. I wanted to convert it to a side table for beside an armchair.  It’s black with abundant rust traces. The top was actually a sort of ‘lazy Susan’ but I can’t think of a sensible reason why I would want to revolve a side table. I want to keep my scotch and soda at arm’s length and not spinning out of reach like at Yum Cha.  I bought a vaguely wooden round table top in a dump store for it and when I took to it with sandpaper it fluffed up like candyfloss. I need to learn about faux wood. I want to do a decoupage decoration on the table surface but Menz is probably not the environment for this less practical stuff, although they encourage suggestions for future skills practice and there are many skills among members.
 
The blokes look askance at my table and suggest black paint or varnish to cover the rust and patchy surface. They clearly want to ‘tidy it up’ more than I do. My idea is ‘rustic industrial chic’.
 
The workshop has masses of machinery and the men help me with the names of gadgets that we use. Ratchet. Combination square. I’m all over it. Not. I had my eye on a grinder that has a sort of tiny floor polisher looking attachment made of lethal metal spikes. Someone says it will take the rust on my table down to silver but I don’t want that. Anyway, Les says it’s too dangerous for a newbie like me. I do some sanding and wire brushing and Les saws off the nails sticking out of the bottom of the legs with sparks flying everywhere. I can’t work out why his trousers don’t catch fire.
 
John’s wife Eve shows up and is my first female colleague at Menz. Looking like an astronaut because of head safety, she whips up a perfect looking wooden bowl on a wood turner and helps me clean the gunk off my table legs with white spirits.
 
You can’t complain about the membership fee – just $30. With it comes my own ear muffs and protective goggles that immediately have my name emblazoned on them and are shoved into a dusty pigeonhole, which will have my name on it as soon as my sub is in the bank. How cool is that?
 
Morning tea is announced by a loud hooter and we all clatter around a large table for tea, coffee and biscuits. Dunking your gingernuts is OK and one gentleman ices a slab of chocolate cake in situ, complete with a lone candle. He doesn’t want to talk about the obvious purpose of this cake. No problem.
 
A Scout master joins us for tea and asks about someone teaching scouts to make a knife. There are lots of suggestions and then, by pure chance, a former blacksmith and new member turns up. He has great suggestions and produces a gigantic sharpened cleaver sort of instrument from his pocket and like Crocodile Dundee proclaims, “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.” Fred tips out the morning tea gold coin donation coins and some comic has donated metal washers.
 
The second week, I take an old office chair, bought at the Whangarei dump store for $2. The blokes look a little startled but they will get used to my stuffed stuff. They kindly carry it for me to an operating table and soon Pete has the raggedy splintered wooden seat sanded smooth and clean and sends me to the supermarket to buy coconut oil to oil it. A vigorous scouring with a metal pad reveals a patina on the table metal but the pads’ plastic composition is almost useless. Mental note - bring an apron next time or wear scruffier clothes. The following week my chair is ready to go home to my desk and is clean and au naturele, not over-tidied and varnished. 
 
I’m going twice a week to this blissful Menz Shed retreat and take along items that I never dreamed of bringing back to life.   
      
The fundraising knife sharpening day is extraordinary and confirms that I have indeed joined rural New Zealand - but that’s another story.

The deputy principal was apologetic about the children’s school edibles garden when I went to apply for the job - and then I saw it. The bones of it were fabulous with masses of potential.

Two imposing handmade stone walls on two sides of the garden are made from volcanic stone which is an important characteristic of Mt Eden. One wall is high and invites climbers – plants not children. The soil is rich volcanic too.

The garden had patches planted by a previous children’s gardening group and exploding with large cauliflowers, broccoli, parsley and edible flowers so the overall impression was inspiring. One bed was loaded with buckets of growing salad greens (ready to fundraise the following week at the school fair for $6 each), mature citrus trees with some fruit and potatoes just up. There was timber to make a modest DIY compost heap.

A highlight was an eccentric miniscule round concrete building with a knob on top like a honey pot that had housed swimming pool chemicals – they were going to remove it. “No, please don’t!” It is a whimsical feature of the garden; we will grow climbing edibles like beans and Malabar spinach and turn it into a cute fairy house folly. Or climbing hops could look fabulous too?

Only three trees include a huge old elm tree covered in its soft lime green bracts creates  the obvious spot for an R&R table and chairs, a silver birch tree a little the worse for wear, but fresh green buds just opening and  a pittosporum – not my favorite tree but a tree nevertheless. Untidy rubbish all over the place wasn’t on my radar. We’ll soon deal with that.

A week later an unofficial group came while we waited for the school fair to transpire and school life to settle down. The children were all ages, from several classes and bursting with enthusiasm. The proposed tomato bed was easy to pull weeds out of and at one end two kids added blood and bone and some soil mix in a narrow mound to rev up a tiny patch which was then planted with six donated pea plants by six children as keen as mustard. It’s tricky to spread the favored duties around when there are only six seedlings.  

Another bed was overgrown with weeds in rock hard earth – weeds came out without their roots so large garden forks were employed to dig out huge clods and shake the weeds out of them. This was hard work and not a highlight – helpers mysteriously drifted to other parts of the garden. Several of the children had taken their shoes off and were wielding large garden forks. When I asked about this they conveniently omitted to tell me that they had taken their shoes off at the gate and that is where their shoes still were. One little girl wore jandals. The shoe rules changed the following week - closed in shoes to be worn at all times.

In our first session some areas were vaguely cleared so that the fair visitors the following Saturday would have a better impression. Dead brown grass in neat wide lines around each raised bed sent a non-organic message until the groundsman assured us that the spray he used was organic. 

The pittosporum, albeit imperfect, has disappeared although I asked for it not to be chopped down. Unlike me, I decide to keep my mouth shut and get off to a diplomatic start in what I’m certain will become a superb schoolchildren’s edible garden.

Pot Pourri is defined as ‘a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material’.

Just because it’s winter, and not an ideal time for drying flowers, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make an interesting perfumed selection of other materials to display in a bowl on the coffee table. Choose a mix of textures and colours for variety and buy an essential oil of your choice – here I’ve used a whole 12 ml bottle of Rosemary essential oil.

Nut shells, dried leaves and petals absorb essential oils and retain perfume - avoid using ground spices as they are powdery and make the mix look dusty as well as falling to the bottom of your bowl. You could add dehydrated fruit to this mix too. The cinnamon sticks have been tied in bunches with string.

To supplement the nuts and spices in this mix and also to add a softer and different texture, dried shitake mushrooms and lily petals were bought from an Asian supermarket. Also, fresh lemon verbena leaves were dried – they already have a lovely perfume and soak up oils well - but other dried leaves are fine too. The nuts here are walnuts, almonds in the shell, chestnuts, and eucalyptus gum nuts.

The volume you choose depends on the container you would like to display the pot pourri in. Here it looks lovely in a shallow long wooden tray with t-lights in glass holders interspersed.

Some large impressive leaves turned up uninvited in my vegetable plot. A fellow gardener identified them as Burdock. They grew into huge, grand plants with impressive tall, prickly seeds.

Harvested, the root was so long it didnt leave the earth without snapping off. Ugly too. It still won a prize at a 'Grow and Show' competition 'unusual' category and then was sacrificed as kinpira gobō.

Burdock roots can apparently grow to a metre long. The root has a reputation as a general herbal remedy and is one of the best blood purifiers.

Burdock leaves are beautiful, grey and furry and the young stems are a soft pink/purple colour. Immature flower stalks can be eaten too. The plants are architectural and grand. Like globe artichokes, they would look lovely in a flower garden. They are related to the artichoke. 

The prickly seedheads of burdock are noted for easily catching on to fur and clothing – great for seed dispersal. After taking his dog for a walk one day in the early 1940s, George de Mestral a Swiss inventor, became curious about the seeds of the burdock plant that had attached themselves to his clothes and to his dog's fur. Under a microscope, he noticed the hook-and-loop system that the seeds use to hitchhike on passing animals aiding seed dispersal, and he realised that the same approach could be used to join other things together. The result was Velcro.

The Royal Horticultural Society defines burdock thus – Arctium lappa - Arctiumis from the Greek arktos, (bear) after the rough coated fruits, The common name “burdock” refers to the fruits (burs) , and the large dock like leaves. Lappa is from the Latin lappare, “to seize”, and describes how the burs cling to passing animals. 

Shakespeare called it a weed...

 Crown’d with rank fumitor and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flowers,
Darnel and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
- King Lear

 Burdock is cultivated as a vegetable in Japan where it is known as gobo. A popular Japanese dish is kinpira gobō - julienned or shredded burdock root and carrot, braised with soy sauce, sugar, mirin and/or sake, andsesame oil. I tried it. It was earthy and sweet. The burdock root smelt like Jerusalem artichoke when cut.

Dandelion and burdock is a soft drink that has long been popular in the United Kingdom

At April every year we honour ANZAC – the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

Here’s an idea for a wreath of remembrance that is a little different from our usual tributes on ANZAC day. And of course we have no Flanders poppies flowering at this time of year in New Zealand so green is the main colour with a hint of Aussie red bottle brush and red ribbon.

Plants that remind us of New Zealand used here are Hebe, and pohutukawa. Bottle brush provides a nod to Australia and some flowers are still around in April to provide a little colour.

The pohutukawa is an important symbol for New Zealanders at home and abroad. . In 1941 German Afrika Korps Prisoner of War Camp, army chaplain Ted Forsman composed a pohutukawa carol in which he made reference to ‘your red tufts, our snow’.

Symbolic plants that have meanings significant for ANZAC include bay - the bay tree is a symbol of glory. Rosemary is traditionally an emblem of remembrance. The foliage of the olive is used as the olive tree is traditionally an emblem of peace and  Oak leaves are an emblem of bravery.

The wreath base can be bought online at

www.oceansfloral.co.nz

Microgreens are an ideal way to teach children how to grow and eat fresh leafy vegetables. The plants are completely forgiving, care requires watering only, and they can be used with abandon as there will be masses of tiny leaves to harvest. Because they grow quickly they give instant satisfaction for their effort and hold interest…no time for boredom and giving up. If growing edibles activities are fun and fast chances are that the children growing them will then get involved in preparing and eating the results.

Microgreens are best eaten raw because they are small and delicate and cooking collapses them, although they can be gently stirred into dishes at the last minute. The zesty ones like radish and mustard are perfect for spiking the flavour of a salad of neutral greens. Choose easy, fast-growing vegetables to keep children’s interest. Many edible leaf crops can be grown as microgreens, even vegetables that we normally eat only as root vegetables, such as carrots and radishes.

Radish microgreens (my favourite) are one of the fastest growers; they have long, firm stems and some varieties are rich purple in colour. Their taste may be a bit spicy for some novice palettes. Peas taste like freshly podded peas. Fiji feathers is a good pea choice because it has long wiry tendrils that look fascinating and the whole lot can be eaten. They’re sweet too and grow exuberantly.

It is not necessary to buy ‘kits’ to grow microgreens, but you may choose to do so if you do not have some of the things mentioned on hand. Recycled items are useful.

Spreading seeds generously over moist container mix, covering them over and patting them into place can become a hobby activity rather than a chore for children. Use seed raising mix in small quirky containers, (containers can be shallow) spread seeds on top and water gently. Cover with paper kitchen towels until the seeds have germinated – kids can lift the edges to sneak a peek at progress. The immature leaves are harvested anywhere from a week to two weeks after germination, depending on the type of greens you plant and the season.

Choose pots that will appeal to children – the quirkier the better. They need drainage so you may need to punch holes in the bases. See-through plastic containers are good because the roots can be seen through the sides.

Some container possibilities are

·         Food cans, recycled and painted. Shallow sardine cans are good as very little soil is needed.

·         Cardboard egg trays

·         Asian steam baskets

·         Colanders

·         Plastic pottles with holes punched in the base that will fit inside more attractive holders like salad bowls .

·         Egg shells

·         Plastic scoops from laundry powder

·         Some nurseries have used seed raising trays that would otherwise be thrown out. These may be too large though for children’s use; several smaller pots are better for kids.

·         Old baking pans with holes punched in the bottom are good too.

Small sized tools like eating utensils and accessories are user- friendly for children. Wooden picnic cutlery is safe. Kids love to have their own gear and are hopefully more likely to eat the veggies they produce with their own little set?

Children can experiment with how they would like to prepare the produce. Wraps, Tacos, tortillas, sandwiches or rice paper rolls are great for including cut microgreens.

The photo shows Sierra who had prolific and rapid success growing mustard microgreens on a damp sponge. The sponge was wet and she sprinkled seeds generously over the surface and sprayed gently with water every day.