The Professional Countrywoman

19/06/2026

Shortest day approaching here in the southern hemisphere. This is a lovely midwinter sunrise. Colour is accurate too as it’s coming through cloud and a few spots of rain. What’s it like where you are?

18/06/2026

Getting myself organised to make some marmalade. This time it will be good old NZ grapefruit and lemons. Going to try the whole fruit method this time.

It’s still hard to pay for those grapefruit here in the southern part of New Zealand when I used to have trees full of them dropping on the ground. Never mind - I can grow other things now and happy to pay for someone else’s hard work.

If anyone wants a copy of my classic marmalade recipe then just dm me your name and email and I’ll send it to you.

17/06/2026

An autumn corner in the family kitchen garden.

14/06/2026

Fb tells me that it is Lynda Hallinan’s birthday today so this is a timely post. (Happy Birthday!) I was looking for a recipe for something this morning and went straight to this book - which is one of my favourites of all of hers. I was given it for Christmas back in 2012 so it’s an older one now but I love it! Down to earth, hilarious and eminently useful. I was looking for a recipe to do something with my red onions but instead am going to make Torta Di Mele tonight. Such gorgeous pictures, familiar (to kiwis) fruits and veges and plenty of stories. Definitely a keeper.

10/06/2026

I know that dreams ( the kind you have when you are asleep at night) don’t always have major significance ( thank goodness) or can tell you something about yourself if you know how to interpret them.

Anyway I had a dream last night with a bit of a direct message lol. It might have had something to do with me currently reading a book about Carl Jung. Or it could just be that after walking nearly every day for the past 6 months, I had missed a few days in a row.

So in my dream I was supposed to lead a seminar at 4 pm but at 3 pm I was waking up from a nap. Typical anxiety dream. Nothing too weird there. But then I had to go pick up my docs for the course from Penelope ( don’t know what she was doing there) and … I couldn’t FIT THROUGH THE DOOR because I was TOO FAT! I was trying to squeeze around the door in this tiny cupboard space and I’d put on too much weight and couldn’t get around it!

Needless to say I got my sorry a* # out of bed this morning and out the door for my walk..feel so much better now and back on track.

Going to have to join one of my own Tortoise Diet Lite courses I think!

07/06/2026

06/06/2026

This just popped into my feed. Sissinghurst was one of my favourite gardens when I was designing my first big garden. Lovely to see this vegetable garden. I do love lots of small interesting patches within a big garden. That’s something you can do with an inground garden - although I do sometimes mix it up a bit in my raised beds.

30/05/2026

Have you heard about the benefits of Biochar? If you are in the Hawea/Wanaka district and you'd like to see how it's made, and charged. Email [email protected] for more details