Nibbled Earth

15/02/2026

Garden wanderings... keep goin' summer, you can do it!

04/02/2026

Just in case you love hanging out with kakaruai / toutouwai / south Island robins as much as I do...

🐦‍⬛ ⛰️ 🏔 🌳



https://southernlakessanctuary.org.nz/kakaruai-south-island-robin/:~:text=Curious%2C%20bold%20and%20often%20just,bush%20is%20on%20the%20mend.

07/11/2025

Broad beans 🫘 ...mean spring time 🌼
And 'the hungry gap' in the garden for many.

Despite the abundance of flowers and booming new growth, spring is betwixt our booms of winter and summer.

Aka - your winter crops are probably done and the summer ones aren't ready yet.

Fill you tum with leafy greens, broad beans, rhubarb, and those potatoes and pumpkins you stored over winter.

🤔 What are you growing in the 'gap'?

📚 Bonus broad bean nutrition facts:
Good source of:
*Fibre
*Vitamin C
Source of:
*B3 (Niacin)
*B5 (Pantothenic acid)
*Iron

🍴 Eat them fresh when young and tender (straight from the pods while you're standing in the garden!)
🍴 Cook them up in your favourite hotpot
🍴 Lightly steam and add some olive oil, lemon, and pepper
🍴 Cook and and smash them with lemon, smoked paprika, pepper, olive oil, salt, and a bit of tahini

25/10/2025

Sometimes... just stand still and gaze upwards.

Simple things.

NB: This was filmed before the recent crazy 180km/hr winds...
Thinking of you, dear tree whanau.

14/10/2025

🫛 Suburban pea picking from an olive tree 🌳

I love it when I forget what and where I've dropped in some seeds.

Welcome, lil sugar snap pea!

I might have to keep you short, so you don't block all the sun from our juvenile olive tree...

Yay for spring time surprises ☺️

07/10/2025

Homegrown spring salads! 🌱
Fennel, parsley, rocket, lettuces, spinach, chicory...
All from the māra kai 💪🏽 🌿

+ carrots and 'popitas' (popped pumpkin seeds)
From someone else's māra kai

+ olive oil, lemon, and pepper as a simple dressing

(coz organic, homegrown leafy greens are the best and don't need much else!)

--> Boost it up with a poached egg, some cooked chickpeas, or protein-packed addition of your choice 😋

03/10/2025

Tatty time! 🥔🥔🥔
Brooke & I got our paint brushes dirty
and Matt got his gloves dirty.
Teamwork for spud-love in all forms 💚

Our second planting of potatoes is done and dusted
and now I have to find space for the rest of the crops
😁
Luckily it's still early Spring and most of the planties are still seeds or lil seedlings in their pots, snuggled in Deb's House... so I have a *bit* more time.

Thank you to the garden lacky for the bending and digging while the back keeps healing 🕑 🕙 🕚 🕖

18/09/2025

Smells like spring... with nectarines to come
🤞🏼 🌸 🍑

🕙 Ok, now it's night it's about 5°C again!
Hang in there blossoms!!!

Ahh, spring, in all your glorious swings and roundabouts.

13/09/2025

Springtime lunch - homegrown broccoli shoots and flowers, market mushrooms, happy eggs, and goat cheese.

With a good lug of olive oil, of course!

Simple, fresh, wholesome.

Some fresh grated carrot and popped pepitas (pumpkin seeds) to round things off.

Let's say it was an omlette/scramble mix.
Coz... labels. Yeah, nah.
Just good kai (food).

09/09/2025

Bye bye winter... bring on Kōanga!

Ok, well, winter sure is beautiful.
Just look at that ice and those mountains 😍

But this mind and body are busting for kōanga / spring / the time for digging and growing.

Magical to experience and watch the cycles changing across the big ole Earth.

How are you welcoming the change of seasons?

🌏 ☀️ ❄️ 🌏 🌱 🌸

(soon!)

07/09/2025

04/09/2025

Broad beans... na naa na na... you make my heart sing... na naa na na 🎶

You make everything...
Pretty good really.
Except for that bit of rust.
Yeah, should of got to that sooner.

Oh well, I planted them fairly early (lots of wet, cold weather; plus sporadic 'hot' days) and fairly close together (lack of circulation/fresh air).
My bad.

This might compromise a few pods - in taste, size, and I won't be able to save some seeds. And some plants may need to be 'green binned' or properly nuked in a big, hot, killer compost pile.

But a few plants will still be chipper.

And I've got two or three other wee patches.

And maybe four different varieties.

Coz I have a (semi) ordered chaos garden.
And I don't like just single big clusters of the same plants.

Makes for some interesting walks.
And a more diverse and resilient māra.

Come and see sometime 🌻