Spring

2 October 2023

Spring is officially here :-)

Tomato, zuchinni, pumpkin, kamokamo, beetroot, onion, gherkin seedlings are ready to plant out. The weather can’t quite decide though a few days early Summer like temperatures then back to a run of days with the odd light frost.

Chilli seedlings should be ready to plant out at the end of the month (fingers crossed the weather has settled by then). We have got about 80 different varieties of chillies growing this year ranging from mild Poblano through to some Dragon’s Breath crosses. It will be exciting to try the new chillies as they come on about 30 varieties are new this season.

We are slowly (as seed runs out) taking a new direction this season and moving away from producing the fresh salads. We will concentrate on fresh chillies & chilli based products, offer up a few prayers on the way and hope taking the plunge works.

I have been experimenting with a few honey based products using our chillies etc and honey from a local producer. It has been a massive learning curve working with honey and understanding the science behind why it crystalizes and how to stop that happening in products.

It will be a busy few months ahead with seasonal annual markets coming up plus finishing off developing a few new lines plus turning the chillies left in the freezer into sauce/jam/chutney.

The last year has been really tough so looking forward to Spring being the start of better things :-)

Harvesting Turmeric

The smaller outdoor turmeric plants are being left to grow for another year. The parts we are keeping will be turned into powder etc for our products. Now to prep and feed the beds to replant the “seed” parts of the tubers.

where has the time gone????

Oh my!!! Time has flown since I last updated

Full of big plans to expand our chilli growing we had 500 plants growing and looking really healthy then along with the rest of New Zealand we got the Great Summer that Wasn’t. Lack of sunlight and howling winds resulted in a small, late crop of chillies (saddly not all the ones we had hoped to sell but enough for our products)

We have expanded our range of products to include flavoured salts, rubs, chilli powders as well as our sauces, chutneys & jams. All based around things we grow.

We flew through our last audit for MPI in May and got the go ahead from the auditor to start making apple cider vinegar to use in our products. It will be so good one more ingredient coming off our block of land. There are a couple of other new product in the pipeline that we have the all clear to start producing as well- watch this space :-)

Most of our current sauces are fruit based and range in heat from 0/10 to about 7/10. I am working on a range of hotter sauces and last week made a couple of test batches. One was a sauce made with white chillies & white carrot, the colour is stunning but although it tastes ok I think it still needs a bit of tweaking. The other one was made with chocolate 7 pot chillies, yaki blue chillies, chocolate capsicum, black garlic (which I made) and a bit of balsamic vinegar. I love the flavour but the heat did bring a tear to the eye when I took a big mouthful (I learnt fast small doses only), the lips tingle for a good 15 mins after eating. I am really looking forward to creating some more hotter sauces 8/10 to 10/10 heat range.

I harvested the outdoor turmeric today but left any of the smaller plants to grow for another year. After sorting and separting the bits to use from the bits for planting there will be enough to double what we grow. When I checked the turmeric in the tunnel house growing under the lettuce gullies the tubers were covered in new shoots nearly ready to come through the soil. The mixed up weather has them thinking it is Spring - guess they get to grow for another year as well.

The apple trees loved the extra rain this year and Steve is pressing heaps for juice to make the cider vinegar with plus I have done dehydrators full of apple chips and put some into the freezer to use in our sauces etc.

Winter mode

9 June 2022

We are now officially into Winter and things have slowed down growing. The temperature is all over the place though - some days are fire days and others are T shirt days (no wonder some of the poor plants are confused ) The drought is well and truly broken much to the trees relief.

Steve has been doing losts of prunning and build a mulch mountain for us to use in the gardens. Our son Peter visited and spent a couple of days feeding the mulcher and generally lending a helping hand while he was here :-)

We are slowly building the range of flavoured salts and other dried products as well as introducing a few new sauces. Taste testers are always welcome.

Pictures below

1. the mulch pile growing 2. newly trimed hedges down the drive 3. baby ginger 4. mix of mild chillies

   5. view from the bottom orchard at sundown 6. Naga Peach chilli 7. kumara grown in container in the tunnel house 8. sifting the lemongrass powder

   9. kaffir lime leaf powder 10. mixed yellow super hot chillies freshly ground 11. yellow 7 pot 12. Carolina Reaper chillies drying

   13. mandarin slices dried for the new mandarin salt 14. pea shoots ready to harvest 15. galangal, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, potato onions, turmeric leaf, chilli, garlic, lemongrass all freshly harvested to make chicken parcels wrapped in turmeric leaves for dinner.

Events back on Yahoo!

5 May 2022

Covid has certainly put a spanner in the works for our plans as has the weather.

Start of May and we are still dry our weather station says we have had 0.6ml of rain for the year so far. :-(

This season we have grown nearly 40 varieties of chillies and slowly working out which ones we will continue to grow - could be some new products on the horizon. The chillies planted in beds outside have really suffered getting bashed by three lots of gale force winds but they have come back and are fruiting now.

Our eldest son is up visiting and the boys are busy pruning, hedge trimming, and mulching it all. I have been catching up on weedeating and sorting the chilli plants for winter. The old mushroom house (which is the warmest spot) has been filled with plant that are still fruiting but leaving enough space for starting seed.

The freezers are packed full of plums, tomatoes, apples, feijoas, tomatillos, passionfruit pulp, peaches, crabapple juice and chillies to make sauce etc with over the next year.

We have a few new sauces and rubs to do trial batches of and get a bit of feedback about.

Attended our first event under Orange so looking forward to more as the year continues. I love getting out meeting new people and showcasing our products.

Morphing

The year is nearly done and it is busy around here.

We are morphing slightly - still producing the salad greens but have stopped growing carrots etc for the local farmers markets. We are using the time to build our range of sauce/chutney/jam and our new dehydrated products.

It is exciting using our herbs,chillies, fruit etc to produce a range of flavoured salts, chilli powders, seasoning blends and dry rubs. Lots of trial and error. I am glad we have so many willing taste testers among friends, family and customers.

So far there are 3 flavoured salts loaded on the web site, 2 chilli powders and 1 chilli seasoning blend. We have got chicken rub (3 heat levels cool, spicy & hot) trialed at the local markets and nearly ready for release onto the website. There is a hot version of our habanero /lime salt on the way soon. Most local markets for the last few weeks we have had requests for different flavoured salts and rubs so have lots of options to work through.

This year we are growing 38 varieties of chillies ranging from a mild 2,500 SHU through to firey 2,000,000 SHU. Lots of experimenting this year with chilli flavours - I am so looking forward to it. We have also planted a row of sweet paprika capsicums so we can make our own paprika (the flavour was amazing last time I made it YUMMM)

We have had virtually all the annual markets we had been booked in to attend cancelled due to covid so really hoping that the ones in the new year can go ahead.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

AND

BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR

Spring

Spring has sprung as the saying goes. Fruit trees are in full blossom, the lawns are growing again, seeds in the tunnel house are sprouting and the lettuces have finally caught up with their growing. All in time for lockdown ;-(

Even though we have had no income since lockdown we have quite enjoyed having the time to catch up on jobs around here and even having time to slow down a bit. Really looking forward to when some of our commercial customers can reopen and the local farmer’s markets can start up again.

We have been busy making and testing rubs using our chillies and herbs - just about ready to start producting a few. Will be good to add them to our chilli powder, flavoured salts and seasoning mix we currently produce.

The tui are guarding the kowhai trees now they are in flower and the wood pigeon is back to feed on the new kowhai shoots. There are lots of manarch butterflies around at the moment. Yesterday I was looking at one of the flowering plum trees, it was full of bumblebees, honey bees, 5 monarch butterflies and one yellow admiral butterfly. So cool seeing all the activity.

The first few zuchinni plants are nearly ready to plant out. Tomatoes and chillies got potted up yesterday so things are moving.

We have also been busy making chilli powder, flavoured salts, sauces, drying herbs, etc

AND even had time for Steve to do a bit of wood turning and me some resin work, first in about 6 months :-)

Ups and Downs

14 June 2021

The last few months have been a real mixed bag.

THE UPS

We had amazing results after spraying the apples with an organic treatment for codlin moth, apples for miles this year :-)

Sales of the sauces/chutney/jam have slowly increased.

The extra cillies planted have produced reasonably well.

We got invited to have a stall at Combustion, Wellingtons only spicy foods festival @Brewtown in Upper Hutt. It was an amazing day with some other amazing hot sauce producers from around the region. Can’t wait for next years event, it will be epic.

Adding to our product line we are now registered to make dried chillies, chilli powder, herbs, fruit, vegetables, seasoning mixes. The first 3 products Chilli/Lime Salt, Chilli/Lemon Salt & Solar Flare Seasoning are now loaded on the website.

THE DOWNS

The van we use for markets has broken down twice, needed the windscreen replaced and need the universal joint replaced tomorrow.

The variety of lettuce we usually grow has not been available and the replacement just has not thrived so for the last 6 weeks we have only just had enough to do commercial orders (we have had to put a couple of retail orders on hold for now and only supply the cafes/resaurants). So not enough product to do local markets :-(

So while lots of UPS the last few months have been a bit stressful.

Our new Chilli/Lime Salt, Chilli/Lemon Salt & solar Falare Seasoning. Other than the salt all is grown and processed onsite by us.

Paddock to Plate is our aim with all our products.

April time for a celebration

9 April 2021

We have been flat out harvesting fruit, nuts & chillies. Prepping for Winter, plus making sauce / cchutney / jam.

But time for a bit of a celebration.

This week we got our first 1st place at the Mr Chilli Awards in Australia for our Chilli Chocolate Plum Jam :-)

The Mr Chilli Awards are open to commercial producers from Australia and New Zealand.

I’m not sure how many firms entered this year but in 2020 just over 100 different firms entered the awards so pretty pleased with ourselves.

February already??

15 February 2021

Boy the year is racing away.

It is really dry around the place with a lot of the trees dropping leaves and showing signs of stress.

We are starting to plant extra carrots & beetroot for winter harvesting (long as the weather plays ball). Chillies are planted in every spare bit of garden or tunnel house and today I filled the dehydrator up with the first real harvest of super hot chillies for sauces etc.

Plums & apricots are all harvested but volume way down on last year. But we do have a bumper crop of apples coming on and looks like heaps of feijoas setting.

Hoping to start producing dried chilli products this year (currently working through MPI requirements) watch the web site shop to see what develops.

photos above

1. yellow ghost chillies starting to ripen

2. zucchini in full production

3. baby swiss chard getting harvested for our Bitza Bags

4. carrots - a rainbow of carrot colours are planted and then it is pot luck what gets harvested (usually the coloured carrots are ready before the orange ones)

5. our lone babaco - hanging out to try these, Spring and the bottom fruit should be ripe

6. Valentines Day bit of spice

7. entries for Mr Chilli Awards 2021 posted today

8. outdoor chillies starting to set

Christmas Round-up

25 December 2020

Boy!!! not sure where it went to but the year has been full-on for us.

We decided to take a break over Christmas / New Year this time round, just so we can catch up a bit.

BIG THANK YOU to all our customers for supporting us over the year, hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and good wishes for the new year.

We have been blown away by the on line sales since the episode about us on Country Calendar. Thanks to everyone who has made an order. I have been busy in the kitchen restocking the supply cupboard and will be making the next batch of sauce on Boxing day.

Fruit is starting to ripen and it is time to race and beat the Rosellas to the fruit (little so-and-so imports, it is amazing how fast they can strip a tree of fruit)

We start back with our regular markets on Friday 8th January and this year will also be taking our sauces & art pieces to the Taihape A&P Show 30 January 2021.

pictures above from today

1. Spaghetti squash just starting to change colour.

2. Outdoor turmeric starting to come through.

3. New season fruit forming on the rocotto chilli. (this plant overwintered outside)

4. Passion fruit vines are loaded with fruit this year

5. Loads of grapes setting.

6. Can’t wait to try the cider pears this year in a sauce or chutney.

7. Still got lots of lemons for a new batch of Yellow Fever Chilli Sauce.

8. Carolina Reaper chilli pods starting to form on the new plants.

9. Chilli plants interplanted with marigolds and basil in the tunnel house.

10. View up the hill from the outside beds to the big tunnel house.

11. Zucchini don’t wait for breaks - might be a few batches of chutney & zucchini bread coming up until the next market.

12. Kamokamo are starting to set fruit.

13. Outdoor tomatoes are on the way - most of these will end up as sauce this year I think.

14. Just started harvesting this years plums we will have different varieties coming on until mid February.

15. Yay looks like we might get a crop of hazelnuts this year.

16. Apples are growing fast out first trees will be ready to harvest end of February.

17. The old tunnel house frame. The cover got trashed in 117km winds a couple of years ago so we have wrapped the frame in netting and beans & rocotto chillies are climbing up one side, turmeric is coming down three-quarters of the other side and the rest is taken up with super hot chillies & basil.

18. Hoping all the flowers mean lots of feijoas this year = lots of sauce & chutney :-)

Hmmm Time for an update

4 November 2020

We have had a very busy few months. End of July / start of August we started planting the first round of seeds and chitting potatoes for our Spring planting and then when the weather co-operated prepared beds for all the seedlings to go in.

Hedges have been trimmed and all the prunnings mulched for use in the garden beds, tomatoes are now outside with all the spare plants sold, climbing beans are just starting to flower and we have picked our first zucchini (I feel a loaf of zucchini bread coming on soon). Potatoes are growing strongly and new potatoes will be ready about the start of December. Kamokamo and spaghetti squash are starting to set fruit so fingers crossed will have good crops of these.

Chillies are in the middle of getting potted up or planted out (spare plants will get sold in a few weeks time). This year we are growing Carolina Reaper, yellow 7-pot, yellow Trinidad Scorpion Moruga, Yellow & red Ghost, Thai Super Hot, Cayenne, Jalapeno & Rocotto. I am so impressed our Rocotto chillies came through winter fruiting the whole way and are now looking good, think I will get a few more going.

We have started a new pop up weekly stall in the Hokowhitu Village carpark every Sunday 9.00am -11.00am and a new Farmers Market has started 1st Sunday of every month at the Summerhill shopping centre - I think we are close to maximum production now for our microgreens.

Most of the indoor food and craft markets we do have been cancelled this year due to covid but the NZ Hot Sauce Festival was finally able to go ahead last weekend. It was amazing fun catching up with people and getting feedback on our sauces etc AND TO TOP IT OFF WE GOT 3RD PLACE FOR OUR Silent assassin (A.K.A. Jeff’s Favourite) Chilli Sauce in the XXX Fruit Sauce Category for the first round of Mr Chilli in New Zealand.

Country Calendar spent 5 days filming and the episode is due for screening 6 December 2020.

The seasons march on

6 July 2020

So much for saying we will slow down and get a break over winter. Has turned out to be more wishful thinking.

We have started removing the grass pathways between the garden beds by the tunnel house. When done, this will leave one big bed but we will be able to fit in about another 8 possibly 9 crop rows, so will be well worth the effort.

Garlic is about knee-high now and hopefully we will get a rust free crop this year with the new way of planting. (it will so good to actually have enough to sell again this year along with the elephant garlic.

Almond flowers are just starting to open and catkins forming on the hazelnuts.

We have started our weekly stall at Hokowhitu Village and will trial this for 6mths to see how it goes. Salad leaf mixes, microgreens and carrots are still the backbone of our fresh produce with seasonal additions as they come on. Our range of award winning sauce, chutney & jam is available at all markets we attend.

We have planted our first 396 chilli seeds (mainly super hots) for the season more to be done in a few weeks. Hope to get enough started this year for our sauce requirements, sell a few seedlings over spring and sell a few ripe pods during the year as well.

We have applied to book a table at this years NZ Hot Sauce Festival 31 October in Auckland so hopefully will have our chill range up there. I am currently working on a new sauce using only yellow pods - aim is to have a super hot sauce with a great base flavour, I might need a few taste testers though because I can’t handle it too hot LOL :-)

Only a few weeks to go and it will be time to start planting our zucchini etc seed - boy the year has flown.

winter has arrived

Temperatures have dropped and things have slowed down growing.

Microgreens are taking a few days longer to grow so have had to change the planting schedule. We plant twice a week now that we have started a weekly stall at the Hokowhitu Village every Sunday (still plant for Friday restaurant deliveries and Feilding Farmers Market)

It is time to trim the chilli plants I want to over winter and start thinking about planting seed for next years new plants. We are slowly making our way around the flower beds up by the house mulching before the spring bulbs take over (they seem to get put at the bottom of the to do list, income producing beds first priority)

I have been given some more garlic to plant so must get on and make a new bed up for it.

How things change

27 May 2020

Boy. What a difference a week can make.

Steve and I are taking a break this weekend, time to recharge before our latest change starts.

We have stopped doing the home deliveries now as there is just not enough hours in the day and customers seem to prefer catching up at the markets.

Restaurant orders are slowly coming back in, Feilding Farmers Market has restarted as has the monthly Hokowhitu Farmers Market and we are finally starting our weekly stall in the Hokowhitu Village carpark on 7 June.

Garlic is growing nicely but we still need to net it so the birds don’t keep digging it up for us.

Steve has finished prepping the next bed for carbon cropping over winter, it already has a nice blanket of leaves on one end.

I have spent a few nights in the shed and nearly finished another serving board, started on some ginko leaf pendants (I was asked if I could do some with plain leaves so am trying a few different styles) and even had a go for the first time in a about 6 mths cutting and shaping some more pieces of stone to use.

A busy week

5 May 2020

The week has been full on.

We had the biggest number of of orders for home deliveries of veges this week. If orders keep growing we might have to look at doing two runs in a day. Been nice to see one of the cafes we supply salad & edible flowers to re-open for contactless pick up.

Orders for Sauce from the web site have been trickling in as well as going out with the vege orders. It has been cool catching up with customers who have used the phone number on the jars to track us down and make new orders (next run of labels must add web site info as well).

More beds have been dug over and tarped for winter, these will be ready to plant in Spring (tarps stop the weeds growing over winter and protect the soil from heavy rain). Some of the beds have been planted with a mixture of broad beans, peas etc as green mulch crops to help feed the soil.

The kitchen has been busy with batches of crab apple jelly and Silent Assassin Sauce (AKA Jeff’s Favourite). Silent Assassin is a rich Black Boy Peach & Plum based sauce with a Carolina Reaper heat blast, it just needs to be left for about 6 weeks to mature then we are ready to start selling it. Because it sold so fast last year I had wanted to get commercially designed labels for the bottles this year but with so much closed over lockdown have had to make them on our home computer again (oh well hopefully next batch I’ll have new labels for).

Big excitement over the weekend (1-3 May) Mr Chilli Awards in Sydney Australia were announced. Over 100 commercial firms from across Australia & New Zealand competed this year and we got placed 2nd in two categories. 🥰🥳

Ghostly Chilly Plum Sauce 2nd in extra hot with flavour category (2018 got 2nd in same category, 2019 got 2nd in Chilli Chompers Global Hot Sauce Awards)

&

Horowhenua Heat got 2nd in the chutney mild heat category (2019 got 2nd in same category)

We finally got some rain yesterday 👏👏👏 the ground is still so dusty and dry we really need it.

A weeks break from deliveries

27/04/2020

We took last Friday off from doing deliveries to recharge our batteries a wee bit. Yes well that was the theory. Funny there are still all the jobs that need doing and we got heaps done. Steve finished the bubbler he has been building to wash the fruit and veges in - we gave it a test run on the crab apples I harvested. It saved me so much time in washing the fruit. So of course with fruit washed it was time to make crab apple jelly YUMM. Plain crab apple, crab apple with red currents and crab apple with thyme plus of course chilli versions of each. The red current & crab apple would be amazing with chicken.

Steve has also done a some re-fencing and more prep of gardens to tarp for winter.

All the fully mature pumpkins are in and the last of the spaghetti squash. I cleaned off the bed where the spaghetti squash grew this year and have started making the mound that will compost down for them to grow in next season. I can see yams forming on the plants so first frost and they will be ready to harvest.

I had to lift a piece of yacon that had strayed from its bed and the tubers are forming quite nicely under it -still about a month off harvest time though.

We still get 4-5 saffron flowers each day so are slowly adding to the container of dried saffron threads for this season.

Carolina Reaper Chillies and Ghost Chillies are still in full production so have got Black Boy Peaches and Plums out of the freezer for a new batch of Silent Assassin Sauce (AKA Geff’s Favourite) this sauce is powered by Carolina Reapers and just so rich and hot and yumm - last year 70 bottles of this sauce sold out in about 6 weeks.

Looking forward to Level 3 tomorrow so we can start filling orders from the web site again.

Covid 19 Lockdown

Microgreens that the hens enjoyed once the restaurants, cafes & farmers markets closed down.

20 April 2020

It has been very surreal these last few weeks during Level 4 lockdown.

We made the decision to combine with another stallholder from the Feilding Farmer’s market and have been making weekly vege box deliveries mainly to regular and high risk customers in Feilding and Palmerston North. Because we are so small the number of deliveries we can manage each week is fairly small. Requests as word of mouth has spread far outways our ability to supply. It has been a rapid learning curve developing systems to keep everyone safe plus admin to track the deliveries. Going forward we will continue with deliveries until the Farmers Markets open again but are looking at doing vege box deliveries of seasonal produce as part of our regular weekly business.

We should have been starting with our first stand alone stall in the Hokowhitu Village carpark on 5th April but due to the lockdown haven’t started these yet. Hopefully with the right processes in place we might be able to get these going sooner than the full Farmers Markets are able to resume - maybe level 2 depending on the restrictions.

With restaurants, cafes and markets closed we are only growing and selling about a quarter of the salad greens, microgreens etc as part of the Friday deliveries. Still less time planting and processing has been a good chance for us to catch up on a few jobs around the property eg hedges, preparing gardens for winter tarping etc. I have also had time to finally put some of our art pieces on the website store 🤗