The driest summer on record

Because I love gardens, we'd bought about four trailer loads of plants with us much to poor Ken's exasperation. I think he thought I had accidentally bought out one of the local garden centres; I do know Bunnings had a very good Christmas via my bank card!
Everything from mountain pawpaws to hydrangeas, roses to passion fruit vines. And of course, as those who know me know that vegetable gardens are my passion, so for some weeks before hand, all that could be grown in a container was!

Those who live on lifestyle blocks also know that the list of things today's "To-Do" runs to an exercise book rather than a page. We had to build a fence around the bus to ensure our dogs were kept securely in (and, after seeing my young lettuces mowed down in one night, the rabbits out!); Ken was out in business on his own and finding that he was being called in to do jobs here there and everywhere from the first week on.
And of course, as mentioned in an earlier post, we had only just discovered how much work the soil needed to get it up to full production.
To that end, I decided I wanted to set up potager gardens of the old fashioned variety, but as summer was starting to get going in earnest, I needed to do it a little differently than we have in the past.
Ken, by this time had discovered a long abandoned and rather large mulch pile just 'a bit down the road', made from a combination of pine and ponga bark which had rotted down almost to soil. So, we put in cardboard on the grass with lawnclippings, then saturated that before putting in over five trailerloads of this black magic. On top of that went potting mix, garden mix, some sheep pellets - and because potting mix and mulch inevitably need more nitrogen, some nitrophoska and some of Tui's excellent vio tech, which my trees also got every fortnight or so during the summer.

Oh and I also used verrmicast, which I got off Graeme Reid in Pongakawa who makes the stuff - brilliant as it is.
The water line had been split into two, one for the housebus and one for the orchard. But as summer rolled on and January turned into the driest month on record with just 8mm of the average 77mm of rain fall and February looking to follow suit with just half a day's rain to date, the water tank in the bus was being filled and the other hose used for the garden almost full time. In trying to keep the gardens and the trees in the orchard as moist as they needed to be it brought in stark relief just how dire the circumstances are for farmers at the moment. While we are on unmetered town supply, most farmers are not and the crisp, crackling grass that snaps off under your feet is similar to what I used to see in Australian droughts 20 years ago. These pictures are of our neighbours land, which has brought a few problems for us, as he isn't a farmer - and the land has not been looked after for a number of years now. On the other hand, our land is green - and his dozen beef two year olds are becoming insistent as to which side of the fence they want to be on!