Mega catch-up!

I haven't blogged since Marty started working in town full time. It's been a whole different routine, it takes me a while to adjust! (3 months?!)

 The frost has been a bit harsh this year. Plants that have otherwise survived many other years suffered this year. It was only a week between there being morning frosts and 30°C (86°F) weather with strong northerly winds. You have to be tough to survive that kind of thing.

I mustered up the courage to use the Kubota to dig out some more of the north of the house. It's a little scary doing things like that alone, out where no-one can hear you scream.. ok, it's not space or anything!

Using the front end loader on the tractor, I was digging down and managed to get the backhoe stuck on the higher ground and the back wheels of the tractor spinning in the air. That was a little scary! Lifting the backhoe worked, although the pins that held it in place were tight due to the force. Oops.

I was really relieved to put it away and be done with it all. Any more adjustments can be made with a shovel! The Kubota is pretty awesome and powerful, and I couldn't have done the job without it, especially with the peppercorn tree roots all over the place.

This year I'll be covering the soil with cardboard and straw to help protect the ground from storing the sun's heat. Eventually it'll be an enclosed glass house, but in the meantime it's keeping the water and soil from building up around the house.

We finally got around to making a cage like the one we had in Stawell. It's super handy for de-brooding chooks, and for caring for sick or injured ones too.

Poor old Little Roo was the first to spend time in there. I suspect she was egg bound, and this way we were able to easily administer caster oil and vitamins to her. She perked up for a while, but when it became clear that she wasn't able to pass the egg and she was getting worse again, we put her to sleep.

It's like I've heard, the favourites and named birds tend to live the shortest lives. Little Roo was a rare character, and she has place in our hearts and memories.

Then all of a sudden everything is blooming and bees are going crazy with all the flowers to choose from. The wattles and the almond trees are always first to bloom, and this year the chaenomeles went crazy too.

I have been reading the Square Foot Gardening method, and while I don't exactly have perfect square foot sections in the shadehouse, it still works, and I learned a lot from the book. I have onions at the far end, beetroot next, maybe some garlic down the left side (I found them in a seed tray which was over-run with weeds, the tag too faded to read), I have more beetroot under the fowlers jars which have just popped-up today, and some carrot seeds under the hessian which stays moist with a Wobble-Tee on a timer near-by, and the worms are loving it under there! There's just enough room to get my foot between the beds, but I can reach easily to the middle of the bed. Weeding has been easy so far, but I don't expect my luck to hold out! The running grasses are just waiting for warmer weather.

I've got 2 more beds to prepare like this, one for fruits and flowers like tomatoes and cucumber, the other for legumes like beans and maybe some peas too. They've been resting under straw since winter and should be pretty nice by now. The leafy bed has a couple of broccoli plants producing now, and a cabbage starting to get growing, and two silverbeet plants who were planted in slightly the wrong place for the system, and I would have removed them if they weren't so very tasty still. Next year I'll switch it up for crop rotation purposes. It's fairly small, but hopefully productive and manageable too.

I've been playing with irrigation in the shadehouse. I had trouble finding much information about irrigation with tank water and no pump. I already knew that Wobble-Tee was an option since I've used one before, but all my garden beds are long, not round! I decided to try a dripper hose and a low pressure garden timer. The dripper hose dribbled water in one spot, slowly dripped in a few others, and did nothing for most of the rest. In order to see if the problem was the garden timer, I plugged in a Wobble-Tee and turned it on. I tried this set-up in the kitchen garden a couple of years back with a normal mechanical timer. The Wobble-Tee didn't work at all, the timer had reduced the little pressure we get down to a dribble. No such issue this time, in fact, it worked amazing because of the slightly lower location to the kitchen garden! So, the timer is a winner, and so is the Wobble-Tee!

I've moved the drip line down to the huglebed to see if being lower again might help - but if not, I didn't spend too much money finding out at least. (It will probably be on the Permie "Giving table" soon, I imagine!) I have to run the plumbing down there next, which shouldn't be too hard, then I can test it out.

The garden tap has been replaced with a ball-valve tap to maximise the pressure and to make it easier to turn on and off. I love how it's a 1/4 turn to open and close it, especially if I've gotten distracted and the watering can is almost full. That happens more than I care to admit!

It has been a pretty dry winter here, and I fear for the summer. I have a huge list of things to do that should help keep us all a little cooler. It's my main priority now, apart from trying to keep everything going, and making life as easy as I can for Marty, who's working hard to pay for it all. :)

Perfect weather

It's absolutely beautiful! Every day is 23°-25° (73°F-77°F). We had a little rain, and everything is fast becoming green. It's a lovely time to be working outside, so we have been gardening. The hugelkultur bed got a good compost and manure layer as well as some lime. The asparagus that survived (all 5 of them) are sending up new shoots now. Completely the wrong time of year, but they're making hay while the sun is shining I suppose. Two out of four apple trees are alive, which is amazing, and the figs that popped-up on their own are thriving. It's going to be an interesting spot in a few more years.

Huglekulture bed with a loquat in the foreground

Amish Rockmelon, uhh.. cantaloupe?
I got some seeds because I thought Marty might like them, so I tried them out this year in the shadehouse. Planted between the beans, they've been easy to grow, not overly thirsty either. The first ripe fruit was left on the vine too long because the seed packet said to wait until the stem was brown before picking. We waited, the fruit turned yellow-ish, smelled amazing, but still the stem was green. Just when I couldn't take it anymore, it was too late!
The second one was picked today, it smells ready..

Home grown Amish rockmelon on the left,
honeydew melon from the health food shop on the right

Inside the Amish rockmelon

It tasted ready too, probably the best melon I've had, however I'm not a melon fan.. but..
Marty loved it! That makes me very happy! I've saved the seeds for next year, I'll definitely grow it again.

The beans weren't as much a success, I grew snake beans this year. They grew fine for a time, producing a handful of beans, then the older leaves became mottled with yellow, the younger leaves became small and deformed, and the beans themselves became small and deformed too. Guessing it's a nutrient deficiency, I looked into our soil test results from a few years ago. Turns out we're lacking a few things, but Molybdenum is missing in action. It's kinda important for beans and all legumes in general. I've since applied a trace mineral product to the beans, but I think they're past due now. Still, it's good to know for the future so we can work on adding Mo, and the other nutrients needed, to the soil.

Summer was very hot, but thankfully short. I'm wondering what this means for winter.

In the meantime, we're enjoying the perfect weather, and wishing everyone a good week.

For the garden!

Marty and I have spent a few days working on an idea I had. Originally, it was suppose to be a simple arch made of weldmesh. Since the area we wanted covering is about 6m (19.5') long, there was nothing simple about getting weldmesh to behave! So, plan B. A custom structure, welded together using our new found welding skills (not so much skill, but perhaps blind faith and more practice).. and we did it!

The poor garden looked like a construction zone for a few days, but it's finally finished, and the grapes are planted, one for each. An early season variety closest to the house called Menindee Seedless, and a late season variety called Crimson Seedless. Since grapes seem to grow without any care here, they should do just fine with a little. The idea is that they help shade the garden just a little more during the summer, and then during winter, drop their leaves and let the light in. Anything that needs more sun than that will be planted in the garden to the north.

The broody Dorking's first time hatching was a success, with 8 cute little chicks being shown off today! Two of them appear to be from Naked Neck mothers, but the rest are full Dorkings. We're both a bit worried about how they'll fare with just the electric fence for protection - birds of prey are still a threat - but even so, considering they were only hatched yesterday they're doing fine so far. It's lovely to see them being able to do what comes naturally!

Just a short clip of extreme cute. :)

The hugle bed is growing great guns but I'm getting too attached to the green manure to chop it down now. :)

And here's a picture of Marty, being awesome and cooking up a storm! The hair and beard are both about to go, since the weather is beautiful right now! I thought you'd like to see it, in all it's glory, before the big chop. :)

Getting warmer..

The hugel bed is growing nicely with all the rain. The asparagus plants are poking their heads up asking "Is it Spring yet?"

The almond trees certainly know it's warming up. They're blooming like crazy and look really happy after the permie group pruned them. The bees are humming away up there happily, and the old flowering broccoli is yesterdays news.

And one more sign of spring - a broody hen is fighting the massive urge to scratch around in the lush green grass and is trying to sit on some eggs. :) We've set up a special area just for her. Here's hoping for good news in roughly 3 weeks..

Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to get a bigger view. :)