The sun has returned and though the nights are still cold, everyone seems to be basking in the warmth of spring, especially our cats. Our winter vegetables have mostly been eaten, apart from a come remaining leeks and Daikon radish, which we'll soon pickle. We've sown our spring and summer seeds from beetroots, cucumber, tomatoes and eggplants to a whole variety of flowers. We've also tried to get ahead a little by planting purchased seedlings of eggplant and capsicum into 40L bags on our back patio.

After many of the struggles with last year's summer growing season, from drought, to bug infestations, one of the lessons for this year is that diversifying our options means mitigating the likelihood of heartbreak. Anyone who has grown a garden and met challenge after challenge, knows what I mean, particularly when those challenges are systemic - whether to do with climate or soil - things that are not quickly amended. Getting no produce after so much time and effort is a de-moralising experience, so we're spreading our eggs!

There are other big lessons also taking shape in our māra. Namely, the reminder that food harvesting is the last step in a series of wider relationships that need to be well aligned to result in bountiful harvests. We're talking about the alignment of the māra with the sun, wind, its orientation on the whenua and to flows of water, the ability of the soil to hold water, to feed microorganisms, and many many other things. This kind of alignment takes time to work through, and to repatriate, especially where colonisation has wreaked havoc on those relationships. Since arriving here in Whangarei a year ago, too little topsoil, heavy clay, summer droughts and flooding winters, we have decided to call in the tuakana. Literally, we are calling on the trees to provide the much needed shade, soil aeration, water management and heat distribution that our māra desperately needs.

We have been thinking for a long time about the ways that natural environments like forests are often separated from gardens. The "cultivated" and the "wild" seen as opposing forces. But the more we see our annuals struggling, the clearer it has become that they need their tuakana. Slow growing, deeply penetrating, tall growing trees are the elders that hold space for more tender annuals to come and go, and with a little luck, to flourish. I'm sure theres a whakatauki in there somewhere! This is certainly not a new idea, but it does reflect our learning on this particular whenua which continues to remind us, with every wetā that enters our home, and every ruru that calls through the night, that we are living in what used to be (and that wants to be again) a forest.

So, watch this space and we'll let you know how it goes!