Pretty special peas

Even if you don't have a garden it is possible to enjoy eating vegetables that you have grown in containers - some are just extra tasty when fresh. 

Sugar snap peas are edible podded, or mangetout, peas - meaning you can eat the peas in their pod rather than shelling them out.  I think of them as a crisp sweet treat picked fresh from the plant, and if you have good self-control they are great added raw to salads or cooked in stir fries (but why cook them, I wonder, when they are so nice fresh?).

Instructions for growing peas are readily available, but my approach to growing them is determined by two features of where I live - WIND and precious little  topsoil.  Pea plants are climbing plants - described as having a "vining habit," their tendrils are amazing in their capacity to cling on to anything that helps them reach up to the sun.  However, there is a bush form of the sugar snap pea, and that is what I use - I don't want them growing too high because the wind will just wreck them, and they are ok with being grown in pots. 

Pea plants don't like really hot weather and so are best planted early in the season, with the aim of having lots of production before high summer.  But I plant them when I remember, confident that we will not get too hot in the summer - there is an upside to our less than perfect weather! 

You have to be careful not to disturb their roots when transplanting but I prefer to plant the seeds in starter pots to protect the little plants from snails and wind till they are reasonably robust.  Then I transplant them in groups of 3 or 4 into reasonable sized pots - at least 30cm diameter and around that in depth to give a decent root zone, in a mixture of home-made compost with some commercial potting mixture and a bit of fine pumice added to help with drainage.  While they are more tightly packed together than recommended, they protect and support each other this way.

I can move the pots to keep them in enough sunshine and enough shelter - it's a pay off. 

They will often have less than the recommended minimum six or so hours of sunshine, but still they thrive.  I do have to remember to keep them from drying out - pots and raised beds are much more vulnerable to this.

I think that these pea plants are very attractive with the fresh green leaves and pods and the creamy coloured flowers. The peas are produced in reasonable abundance - you just have to remember to keep watering the plants and picking and enjoying the peas.   Growing for substantial food production is a really different business from my casual approach - but what I do is realistic for me.  While I have managed to improve the soil in some parts of our section, the wind exposure limits what I can plant in those areas, and I am learning to be realistic about what I can hope for, and to enjoy what I can grow. 

And to me these peas are, indeed, pretty special - I recommend them!

New Year's light show

Northerly gales (again!) so no big New Year's Eve fireworks display, for safety reasons.  Still - nature's light show, while not as bright or quite as loud, was impressive.  The late afternoon light at Island Bay was moody and dramatic with the clouds whipped into interesting contrasts and textures.  No sign of the South Island, hiding behind the clouds in the distance, but Taputeranga keeps watch over the bay...

Further along the south coast towards Owhiro Bay, and later at sunset - another light show...

The soft colours of sunset in the golden glow of evening, with contrasting clouds and seagulls seeming to scud along in constant motion - yes, those little dots that look like sensor dust on my coastal photos are the ubiquitous seagulls - a happy constant, the gulls and the beauty of the everchanging vista.

Christmas crimson - pohutukawa flowers

What a sight!  Looking up at the profuse display on a tree that was in full tilt bloom on Christmas Day, the bright side lighting emphasising the texture of the thousands and thousands of red stamens with their little golden tips of pollen.  Every which way you look right now there seems to be another display of rich reds, scarlets or crimsons, catching the light and lighting up the rather greyer days that have followed the record setting sunshine of Christmas Day. 

What a difference a day makes!

Christmas Day - Wellington's hottest one since the 1930's - around 28 degrees C.  And while it is the same part of the coast as yesterday's image, the view is rather different...

In the mid afternoon the light is bright and contrasty, and people are enjoying Princess Bay - some brave souls are swimming (the water is not tropical!), others are paddling and playing at the water's edge, and a kilted and Santa-hatted man is joining them - it appears that his job is done, no parcels to be seen.  Others are enjoying barbecues, snorkelling around the rocks or just sitting and admiring the view.

Light puffy cumulus clouds over the South Island.  The bright blues of a sunny day, evident in the calm sea and the shadows in the distance.  No shrouding of clouds today, quite open and expansive.  Gorgeous.  Appreciation for it all, whatever the weather!

Rolling back

Christmas Eve - the airport has been able to function, but still the fog has lingered over the south coast -  past Island Bay it looks almost overwhelmed by a really thick blanket of dense fog covering the hills.

But we can see Island Bay, and a wider view from Princess Bay shows that the clouds are in retreat, the light is breaking through, and the gloom should be gone for Christmas!

Looking dramatic, but there is light - the south coast, with Taputeranga and the Island Bay hills cleared of the fog and visible in the distance.  Blue skies are appearing - the sombre mood is breaking.

Where's the sun?

Nothing stays the same, certainly not the weather in Wellington.  Remnants of tropical cyclone Evan, which caused death and devastation in Samoa and damage in Fiji, delivered warm moist air over the North Island.  Connecting with cooler southerly air this resulted in a dense mist around the coast - fog actually, since it reduced visibility to less than a kilometre - closing the airport and frustrating the travel plans of people wanting to get away for Christmas.  The bright reds of the pouwhenua (carved marker post) and pohutukawa flowers at Shorland Park in Island Bay were muted by the mist and the hills and houses behind were barely visible shadows.

Shorland Park is across the road from Island Bay beach.  With a children's playground, band rotunda, barbecue and picnic facilities, it is a popular place for people of all ages, and a very good place to enjoy your hot fish and chips from the local shop while admiring the views.  But not with this fog - even the island was hidden from view!

No island, no bay, no distant headlands to be seen.  Nor was there much on offer from humans for the scavenger seagulls on the wall by the beach - no people out and about, only those fishing boats closest in able to be seen, and no fish to be had from them. 

Sigh!

Celebration

It is six months since I started blogging, and I am thoroughly enjoying spending this time putting my attention into not only noticing but also trying to convey some of the wonder, pleasure and privilege of life here on this part of the planet.  My first post was at the time of the winter solstice.  I thought it would be fun to celebrate the six month anniversary - the summer solstice.  We have travelled from the shortest to the longest day here.  I have a bit of trouble picturing it, but the earth is at a tilt in relation to the plane of our solar system and our star - the sun - and so there are differing amounts of sunlight reaching different regions of the earth through the annual orbit around the sun.  An image that captures the figure of eight path of the sun relative to a location on earth over an entire year is called an analemma, and the National Geographic website shows some of these rare images:  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/photogalleries/101228-sun-end-year-analemmas-solstice-eclipse-pictures/#/year-in-picture-analemma-sun-path-first_30693_600x450.jpg  

Well, I couldn't think of how I would convey the idea of summer solstice much better than with the lovely blue skies of a clear sunny day and the rich crimson blooms of pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa), which have been out in abundance.  There was even a waxing half moon - the moon in its first quarter.

While images of pohutukawa in bloom are a bit of a cliche here when used to represent summer or Christmas, they are always a welcome sight, as if the rather elegantly understated pohutukawa trees are bursting in a joyous celebration.

An underwater garden

The tide was out about halfway on the coast by Lyall Bay and there was a colourful display of exposed seaweeds - particularly the green of "sea lettuce" which, as the name suggests, has a very fresh and vibrant colour. 

There was a lot to see - the lumpy rocks, the beach in the distance with the buildings of the two surf lifesaving clubs that are based at Lyall Bay, and lo and behold - an oystercatcher. 

First I saw an all black variable oystercatcher (Haematopus unicolor) foraging amidst the seaweeds...  and then I saw another variable oystercatcher of the "mottled variant" type - it has white speckling as well as glossy black feathers (despite the "unicolor" in its proper name.)  Oystercatchers are very engaging to me with their busy purposeful manner and their rather spectacular long orange beaks and orange rimmed beady eyes.  

But when I got closer my attention was taken by this dense grouping of brown seaweeds - so many different shades and patterns, together a busy rich tapestry just under the shallow water, hinting at the wonderful sights to be seen in this underwater garden that is the ocean.

Take a nice deep breath...

...and relax

aaah...the exquisite rose "Jude the Obscure", bred by David Austin - a stem with its cluster of beautiful flowers, in stages from bud to petal fall, brought inside to enjoy away from the damaging wind.  Although in this image I have used dramatic backlighting, it shows the subtle buff and yellow colouring and the soft cup-shape of the blooms.  Even more exquisite is the perfume - the scent of old roses with a soft fruity note, powerful, sumptuous, calming - and alas, unable to be shared with you. 

The end of the year can be a curiously stressful time in New Zealand - the end of the year for schools and universities, time for summer holidays, Christmas, New Year - all times for celebration and festivity, but we humans evolved to experience any change as stress and we have cultural habits that can make things more demanding and more stressful and less enjoyable than we anticipate.  Fortunately for rose-lover me, the end of the year also brings a magnificence of roses.  Now, roses have a bad rap - lots of people think of them as delicate, needing all kinds of artificial life support, especially feeding and spraying.  Roses bred for their gorgeous flowers at the expense of the robustness of the plant may need lots of coddling.  But rose species can be very tough indeed, and roses which are closer to that essential nature, grown in environments which meet their needs, survive and thrive without special treatment.  In the inhospitable zone called my garden many do very well.  These are never sprayed, never fertilised, and watered judiciously.  They may not have exhibition-type blooms, but I love them.

The pretty pink "Mrs Doreen Pike," also a David Austin rose - perfumed, tough, with characteristics from the coastal rose species Rosa rugosa.  These flowers have been through gale force winds in the last few days, and I have photographed them in what is regarded as the least flattering light - very bright daylight. 

As I did with this image too, appropriately for its name, the rose "Sunlit"...

This is a more modern style rose bred in the 1930's by the Australian rose breeder Alister Clark.  It is not a large bush, unlike many of his roses, but is very robust and seems to be in flower almost all year.  Again, the light is too bright really, and unflattering, but I wanted to share it because it is such a delightful old friend and gives me great pleasure despite the very windy sunny days we are having.

Smoke on the water?

From a distance, I wondered what I was seeing - was that a waterspout forming?  The wind was a very strong northerly and the ocean surface was all churned up and foaming, but quite flat at the same time.  Closer to shore, the water was white with the reflected bright afternoon light, in stark contrast to the shadowed coastal hills by Owhiro Bay.  And against the backdrop of the hills, this was what I saw...

The strong wind funnelling down the valley to Owhiro Bay must have been hitting the water in such a way to cause these tall plumes of sea spray to billow up in the air - you can see houses in the lower right hand corner of the image, so this gives you some idea of the height of the spray.  The way it swelled up then drifted was so reminiscent of smoke, I wondered for a moment whether there was a fire - but no, it was the force of wind on the ocean creating another dramatic spectacle.