Kazel's blog

It’s great weather for bugs.  Mozzies and flies love this warm, humid weather.  I want to defend my home from Mozzies like it’s a fortress, and wage war on flies.  It might seem easy to use fly-spray and be done with it, but there are many innocent fatalities when you use weapons of mass destruction like that.  Chemical warfare has no place in my home- not when I am lovingly caring for monarch caterpillars and allowing the praying mantises to hunt where they will. » Read more

I was delighted to go into Opotiki New World recently and find that they are stocking free-range chickens in the fresh poultry section.  This is a real boon for me since I made a pledge last year to not buy chicken again that wasn’t free-range.  Unfortunately, all I could manage to get was whole frozen birds.  I have been very grateful for those, and we had lots of whole roast chicken last year, but I do like to be able to make a stir-fry with chicken breast or bbq the wings or grill legs for dinner.  » Read more

It’s amazing what can happen in a garden in just a few weeks.  We returned from our Christmas holiday to find our house-sitters had done a fabulous job watering the garden and everything seems to be exploding in all directions.  Through the tangle of weeds and if you can get past the rampant pumpkin vines you’ll find my healthiest tomatoes are self-seeded plants in the potato beds.  It figures.  I’m now trying to work out how I can extract the potatoes without disturbing the tomato plants.    » Read more

This column will be taking a break over Christmas.  It’s a pretty busy time in the garden with plenty of watering to be done.  I picked my first cherry tomatoes this week, but I’m not getting the luscious growth I had hoped for yet, so I’ll be out with the liquid manure soon to give them a boost.  » Read more

Something about Christmas shopping fills me with dread.  I think most people from this small town would agree that going into a monstrous shopping centre in a big city is an unpleasant experience.  For me it’s not so much about the people, the jostling for goods, the artificial lights or even the festive Christmas music that ties knots in my innards – it’s the rampant, untamed, unashamed consumerism. » Read more

Jams and Christmas belong together.  When I talk to people about their fondest memories from childhood Christmases getting your very own jar of Nana’s Jam seems high on the list of meaningful treats. » Read more

In her great book called “Food, Not Lawns”, Heather Flores explains how lawns were originally a status symbol of wealth by people who could afford to have grass just for the look of it, at a time when all the poor peasants had to labour in their fields.  » Read more

A year ago I resolved to become entirely self-sufficient in bottled tomatoes.  Tomatoes feature a lot in my cooking, from pasta sauces to butter chicken.  The recycling bin seemed to fill up just with cans from whole peeled tomatoes, so I decided to grow and bottle enough to last me a whole year.  Fresh tomatoes ripened in my garden around Christmas and 55 jars were bottled by the end of March.  Tomatoes ripen gradually and keep well in a fruit-bowl so every week I could simply do five or ten jars at a time.  Each jar was about twice the volume of a tin so I hoped I would have enough. 
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Transition Towns aim to create local resilience.  One way to create that is to put systems in place that keep our community in work and keep our money flowing within the town.  This is part of the reason we have created a Marketplace and launched a regular Saturday Market Day.

Our council is a large employer within the town.   As well as the staff directly involved in the running of the council, there are also the many works that get tendered out. » Read more

I’ve been thinking about what I would plant in a new garden if I was starting from the beginning.  Mostly I’ve been thinking about what I would plant to make sure I liked eating my harvest, but also could make a bit of money selling the surplus at the marketplace.  With Saturday Markets soon to be regular in Opotiki I’m regretting not planning a bit sooner. » Read more