Oh, for ranting out loud!

Lately, I feel like the longer I'm away from society, the crazier it seems to be getting. I don't often get swept up in news on the telly or on the radio, or outraged by the latest issues. There's no areal for the TV, and I don't listen to the radio. It's pretty hard to get a good signal, so I gave up a couple of years ago. When I do step out into the "real world", it's a bit shocking.

Marty and I visited my Mum the other day (it's been a long while since we have been there, but she's moving interstate, and I needed to say goodbye). We saw multiple small trucks spraying chemicals, blanket spraying anything within a metre or two on the side of the road. That's a lot of chemicals, not to mention the money, and of course, those weeds will be back and they can do it all over again. No design, no plan, just keep doing the same thing over and over.. what's that the definition of again? Insanity? No, these days it's the definition of keeping the system going, people get paid, everyone's happy.

There are (big expensive) signs on the side of the road warning people to prune and clean up their fruit trees to prevent fruit fly. I have been asked lately if we get fruit fly by people I talk to when shopping in town. It seems to be on people's minds, so I imagine there's quite a campaign, although I don't see it. So, here's my answer.

NO! I don't have a fruit fly problem.

At first, I thought it was because of the frosts, but I think I'm not giving my local bird population enough credit.

Our fruit trees have been here longer than Marty and I have. They're pretty healthy despite neglect over the years, and produce great fruit and don't suffer disease. The ground under them is wild, with herbs, grasses, and mess. Some of the fruit decays on the ground and on the tree, year after year I suppose, for much longer than we've been here. Yet, still no fruit fly.

Yes, people around us have fruit fly problems, so I've heard. They've also got kids, dogs, cats and lawns. I imagine that doesn't leave much for the choughs to pick through, if they're not scared away by the pets. The choughs perform the functions of chickens in a permaculture design, except they feed themselves, breed successfully every year, and are well adapted to living in this environment. This year, the choughs have two babies, and they're spending a lot of time handing around the garden, turning over every leaf and stick. Straw flies through the air and holes are dug, it's a "mess", just the way they like it. You'd have to be a lucky fruit fly larvae to survive all those beaks searching for you!

The mummified fruit on the trees is taken one at a time throughout winter by the butcher birds. Horrible name they have been given.. I absolutely love them! Their song is something else, and they're so intelligent! They take a mummified fruit on the wing, grabbing it with their foot and transferring it to their beaks mid flight! I adored watching it from the loungeroom window. They then take that fruit and find a fork in a log or other such thing we've got lying around, and wedge it in there and peck it apart. I imagine it's quite sweet tasting! It's just dried fruit, after all.

I'm hearing about people getting into trouble and being threatened with fines, if they don't clean up their trees.. prune, pick up fruit, make it clean and neat. There's no way I'll be able to explain to someone "in authority" that no, there aren't any fruit fly issues here, that the wild birds keep the balance, and it's the simplification of our environment that's causing the pest problems in the first place. I can't express myself well when under pressure, so I feel like I have to express it now, before anything like that happens. I know it won't make a difference to the outcome, but I need to get this out there!

Spraying, pruning, netting the trees, mowing and cleaning right up to the trunk of the fruit tree. Those are the problems, not the solutions. Simplifying the environment, trying to control every single thing, and with our human brains already trying to do so many other things, what makes us think we could possibly imagine all the outcomes of everything we do? It's taken me over 3 years to see what's actually happening with just this one system here. This land is my teacher. Mother nature knows what she's doing. We just gotta stop trying to control everything, stop interfering, and get out of the way.

Sure, we don't get every peach that each tree produces. We don't get a perfect crop from every tree every year. There are at least 7 peach trees, so there is plenty enough for us to enjoy sweet juicy fruit in the summertime, the birds and other animals get more than enough, too. It's more akin to foraging than it is to an orchard. Sure, it's not a commercial venture, but it's not suppose to be. It's worked for probably over a decade, and continues to work today, and unless some "authority" trespasses onto our land and tries to tell me to clean it up, I imagine it'll continue to work for many seasons to come.

Springtime 2018

In my own garden-version of no-kill cropping, I have experimented with all kinds of ways to keep from ripping weeds out of the soil, while attempting to keep my preferred plants sunlit. I find my old hand sickle far too large to use between plants. I have tried my garden knife (called a Hori hori) but it isn't sharp enough to cut grass and weeds cleanly without ripping. I then tried taking flowering seed heads off the grass with my hands. That doesn't work well when the grass lets go of the soil instead of the flower. So, I found some old grass shears that were probably in a bunch of old gardening tools, won for a few dollars at a clearing sale years ago. They're old, but in good condition, although my hand is definitely getting stronger using these shears! There's a pinch spot you have to be careful of, and a glove is useful. The cut is much nicer though, clean, and accurate. If I accidentally cut off some garlic leaves, at least I know the garlic isn't completely done for!

However, I did leave it a little late to find the best tool for the job. The grasses are flowering and dropping pollen with every snip, which makes for a sneezing, eye-watering experience. Still, everything that is cut stays where it falls, and it's fast and much easier than pulling and ripping. It's quiet, clean (no dirt flying anywhere, no dirt under my fingernails!) and I feel better not killing.
On the other hand, I understand there's a satisfaction in taking out the frustrations of life by pulling weeds, and yes, the grass are annuals and are going to die once they've flowered anyway, but this way, a living root stays in the soil as long as possible. That's the main thing. I'm going to keep going with this and see what happens.

I've been keeping the mono garlic neat and trimmed using the shears for longer than the kitchen garden beds. I simply trim back the grass around the garlic, let the grass lay where it fall, and rake the leaves and mulch back over the bed. I rake the leaves and mulch back about once a week at the moment, because the choughs are extremely diligent (but not neat) about their bug control duties.

Did I mention that I added a couple of extra hoops to the shade-house? They're a bit bigger than the original hoops, which might need to be fixed before the shadecloth goes on, but it doesn't bother me if it looks a little funny. What is funny is when birds like kookaburras or ravens or choughs try and land on the slippery hoops, wings and tail waving all around trying to keep from falling off. Well, it's either funny or I'm starting to loose it out here on my own. :)

Speaking of loosing it, I am really glad that snakes can't hear. I think they'd be offended at the scream that I let out when I see one! Honestly, I can't help myself! They're so beautiful, and after I've screamed, I usually try and get a little look at their shimmering golden brown colour. Being an Eastern Brown, I don't get closer, and every time I see one, it gets away from me as quickly as possible, which is really quick!
Almost everyone I've met around here kill snakes on sight. It's not legal, it's not ethical, it's not necessary. Well, maybe if I sprout a tail and get really small and fuzzy all of a sudden. They eat mice, not people. :p

The water tanks are about half way full. The house tank is 22,500L (5,000 gal) so, maybe 10,000L (2000 gal) full, and the structure tank (pictured above) is 10,000L, so another 5,000L (1000 gal) worth in there. The structure tank fills up faster than the house tank when it rains, and I wanted to access that water for use in the food gardens before it had a chance to overflow. I started digging the ground with a mattock to bury the water line (important as the tractors and cars drive over this spot occasionally). I found the mattock to be .. well, I'm sure you can imagine, even after a rain, the mattock makes that dull thud on the ground and little old me didn't bother doing that for too long. I found the broadfork to be an excellent tool to use instead! It went in to the soil much deeper and kept the soil in big chunks. I lay the blueline in and rolled the chunks back over the top of the pipe. Easy, even for me!

And finally, in keeping in the spirit of being nicer to the soil, I bring you seed balls version 2.0. The no-clay version.
I planted some bean seeds last month. It was a bit too cold to plant, but about 4 or 5 plants are still alive today. I re-seeded the spots that didn't make it, but this time I encased about 3 or 4 bean seeds into a ball of worm castings, and planted the whole thing. Our worm farm has been doing really well and we have enough castings to put them to good use in the garden at last. I almost can't wait to see if it works! The castings should help give them a good start, and I'm also adding dolomite to the soil around any other seedlings that I transplant. If things keep going well, and we get some more rain, we should have a really interesting growing season ahead. With all the researching, reading and educational and inspirational podcasts I've been listening to, I've been looking forward to putting it all into practice. Still, it's only spring, and when the dry, windy 40°C plus (104°F plus) weather hits, this positive attitude could very well wither and die like the grass in the paddock. Speaking of the paddock, I had read that one of the best ways to mulch (we do it with the mulching mower on the back of the tractor), is to cut it before the pollen falls from the grasses. That way, green premium hay is dropped onto the ground before the summer heat. I really enjoy "mowing", and because I cut high, and the grass isn't thick due to the lack of rain over winter, it was quite easy to do. I cut less than half the grasses, and will cut a little more soon, although I maintain quite a lot of long, wild areas to keep insects and other critters happy.

Until next time!