After all the blood, sweat and tears to clear up and organise the barn it’s a total pleasure to be in there. Gone are the days when I take one step in the door and dump stuff wherever there was a space. Now everything has it’s “proper”... Understanding the ins and outs of growing food is seeming less daunting every day. There are still plenty of surprises, lessons to learn and mistakes to put down to bitter experience but I don’t feel so overwhelmed. Except when it comes to growing fruit. ... In the productivity stakes I was rocking and rolling today. Work, shop, errands and then back home to dig up a few spuds for our dinner. As I scuttled off with my bucket of earthy potatoes there were screams of “pick me” coming from almost every other... Sometimes it takes me a little longer than most people to catch on. But once I do there is now stopping me. Last year I took a nervous step into jam making. This year I was determined to get jamming again. OK, I admit, the strawberry season was all but over... The last two weeks have thrown wild extremes of weather at us – wind (read that as howling gales), rain (read that as downpours) and sun (read as, well that round heat generator in the sky). Nothing new you might think for someone living in the Wellington...