Food and work are both abundant here!

Today I picked up a third of a bucket of hazelnuts. Also brought in our first sweet corn which was utterly delicious. We now have quite a few peaches dropping. The seedling by the gate has a huge crop and they are a sweet white fleshed freestone. Still the plums are plentiful and we hope to give them all away before the birds finally discover them.

Otaki has been glorious weather today, lots were at the beach. I lay under a chestnut tree on an old wide stretcher we have, (we nearly threw it out many times and now it has a use) with a wonderful pillow. It was marvellous in the shade. Malcolm often goes to the native bush area on such days to work in the shade weeding the path.

This weekend we have had visitors as well as on Friday. Tomorrow we visit another organic orchard to get some ideas. Today we attended the Tree Crop Association for a demonstration on summer pruning and on arrival home discover we have plenty of plums, two apricots and a cherry which all need pruning, not to mention the gooseberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants that still haven't been pruned. Today we called at an organic chicken orchard and bought some wonderful chicken manure soil, which I spread under six of our citrus. Then realised three more were to be done, so we will have to get some more. Also bought some amazing organic duck eggs which we had for dinner.

The pears are still dropping and we race the birds to them, particularly young blackbirds which spend ages eating one pear. Other jobs we need doing are planting tree lucerne to attract the bush pigeons in the bush and underplanting of all the trees with various herbs, particularly those with long roots like coriander, parsley. We think we will plant comfrey under the feijoas at the back avoiding tansy as it is can be difficult for those with allergies like me. Most locals don't complain about comfrey being invasive. One said you just mow them down anyway if you have them under apples.

I sprayed the broccoli with rhubarb juice today. We have so much more spraying of fruit trees to do with Organic 100, the seaweed and fish waste product we bought from Agrissentials, and also stilll have to scatter rock dust over more than half the property before the soil gets too cold. We heard stories of potato and carrot growers further north who were getting great results with rock dust and getting an edge on their competitors that way. This morning I sprayed the cherry with Neem oil before breakfast because it had bad pear slug and I hadn't noticed it until last Friday.

Malcolm has been clearing out the dead flower heads from the borders and discovering old tires underneath.

We are thinking of getting kunekune pigs but first of all have to buy some electric fencing. Also we may get ducks or geese.

We sure need help on this property and will soon buy a tripod orchard ladder. We have some wonderful tools now and the good new mulcher is there waiting to be used. It looks as though the mowing is now imminent after the rain. People from the Tree Crops Association told us today they lusted after our mower, it is a Wilson, the best.