When the weather gets colder, I will be buying seedy fat balls from the Lyttelton farmers market to hang out on the bird table I made. I also put out seeds, grains and water. But in the meantime I am happy to let the birds fatten up on the sunflower seeds from the heads I saved. I think next year I will grow a lot more sunflowers as I love the look of them and I love watching the birds.
Living in New Zealand: Pies are an Important Fast Food and Essential on Road Trips
Before I came to New Zealand, I very rarely ate pies, especially savoury pies. But savoury pies are some of the best fast food you can get here. We're really lucky in that we have an artisan pie shop in Lyttelton itself. Our friend Craig is the pie maker extraordinaire at Hope River Pies and sells them out of his commercial kitchen on Norwich Quay on Thursdays and Fridays (and some Sundays). He also sells at many of the farmers markets in Christchurch, including the Lyttelton farmers market. His pies are great, especially as he does a lot of vegetarian and vegan pies.
But when I am on the road, I sometimes cheat on Craig to stop for a pie elsewhere.
Most of those pies just fill a hole, but I can recommend the pies at the cafe in Hampden, Otago and now at the pie shop in Sheffield, Canterbury. This is a traditional place for my friend Crispin to stop when he heads out to his family’s bach on the West Coast. That was where we were heading a couple of weeks ago to do some work on the bach. A pie is just the ticket when you are on a long road trip.
Living in New Zealand: An Overnight Tramp to Spurs Hut Near Fairlie in Canterbury
An easy overnight hike to Spurs hut in Canterbury. This DOC hut is basic and you need to take water and possibly firewood.
Read MoreNew Zealand Garden Diary: Happy Trees, Including Fred the Fig
Growing figs, feijoas and olives in New Zealand
Read MoreNew Zealand Garden Diary: Brassicas and Pests
It is cooling off now in Lyttelton, New Zealand and that means NO MORE CABBAGE WHITE BUTTERFLIES! Hooray!
And a gardening program I watch (Gardening Australia) suggested using vegemite in snail traps. Apparently it is the yeasty smell they are attacted to in beer traps. I hate using good beer in traps, so I’m trying a sugary yeast solution. We’ll see if it works.
Living in New Zealand: Names of Ships That Visit Lyttelton
Some other interesting ship names seen in the port of Lyttelton
Living in New Zealand: It's Not 100% Pure Like the Advertisements Say
One of my favourite wild places to go near Christchurch is Birdlings Flat. It is very wild beach with a significant undertow and you can't swim there. But it is wonderfully scenic in a bleak way. A bit like Chesil Beach in Dorset.
Te Roto o Wairewa/Lake Forsyth is just beside the beach. It has been dangerous for years, but for a different reason. Nitrate run-off from agricultural land that feeds into the waterways that's ending the lake cause toxic algal blooms. It's too dangerous to even walk your dog your dog there.
The saddest thing is that this isn't the only lake or river that is in this condition. All over New Zealand the pressure of intensive agriculture is ruining the waterways, making rivers that kids played in a generation ago unswimmable now.. Some farmers are doing something to stop it (by fencing stock out of rivers, planting at the edges of waterways to soak up any run-off and reducing stock and chemical levels to prevent excess nitrates reaching the water). Unfortunately a lot of farmers are either ignorant of what they need to do or more concerned about profit.
Update: we walked up the Opuha river in Canterbury. A dry summer has been compounded by intensive agriculture and over-extraction of water. The river is very low and to add insult to injury we saw cows walking in and out of it and every feeder stream we crossed was full of cowshit.
Update: Shortly after I posted this, a report highlighted the trouble the NZ environment is in: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/18/decades-of-denial-major-report-finds-new-zealands-environment-is-in-serious-trouble