Saturday worked out

Helper turned up and was very helpful. Willing to take direction. Not always thinking about the next step, but a good worker. Glad to have him back if I need more work - and I probably will need help trimming the fruit trees in a few weeks after the leaves have all dropped.

It'll give me time to consider exactly how I want the layout of the trees for next season.

• dig up galangal out of lounge room vegepod
• acquire chainsaw/lopper
• acquire wooden pallets
• spray Slasher weedkiller under frangipani

plans for front lounge bed/tunnel

• dig trench for sugarcane
• chop up sugarcane for planting
• plant sugarcane & galangal

plans for chook yard

• take out sunflower branches
• rake up chook deep litter
• dig up fig, put in black box
• make platform for chook feeder
• dig hole for mulberry along boundary line
• dig hole for kumquat along fenceline (inside)
• (dig hole for apricot, lychee, apple along outside fenceline, staggered with kumquat)

extra things done

• pull out dead apricot
• plant lychee

more thoughts

• blueberries in pots - where could these go?
• still have apricot, apple, kumquat, fig(s), tea bushes, longan, black sapote, ice cream bean (sheesh I have a lot of trees)
• pruning fruit trees after fruiting
• flowering bush/shrub in box on back porch
• assorted plants out back

Plans for Saturday

I have the minister's teenage son coming around to help me do some work on Saturday afternoon. A young strong back, I hope! I remember him as slim and sweet-faced, but that was when he was 13 and boys change a lot as they grow. Anyway.

Prep

• dig up galangal out of lounge room vegepod
• acquire chainsaw/lopper
• acquire wooden pallets
• spray Slasher weedkiller under frangipani

plans for front lounge bed/tunnel

• dig trench for sugarcane
• chop up sugarcane for planting
• plant sugarcane & galangal

plans for chook yard

• take out sunflower branches
• rake up chook deep litter
• dig up fig, put in black box
• make platform for chook feeder
• dig hole for mulberry along boundary line
• dig hole for kumquat along fenceline (inside)
• (dig hole for apricot, lychee, apple along outside fenceline, staggered with kumquat)

plans for fruit trees

• trim dual stone fruit down significantly
• dig out dead apricot

other things

• chip all the waste
• make a compost

No idea if I'll get it all done - I only have him for a couple of hours, but going to give it a red hot go!

Dear Diary: 14th March 2024

OBSERVATIONS & WEATHER:

A few rainy days going forth, I was planning to get a bunch of seedlings in but didn't manage to do so.
Edit: I put a bunch more in just this afternoon in 10-minute spaces of time.

CHOOKS:

Goong is broody. Again. Everyone is laying, just a little irregularly. The chooks are about due for another alpha-miting so they're not putting all their energy into fighting the little buggers off.
Edit: alpha-mited the water

COMPOST:

Sieved about a black box of compost, dumped on the LOWER TRIANGLE bed.

PREPARING:

LOWER TRIANGLE has been covered with chopped bits, bought-compost, and home-compost. This is in prep for...GARLIC, I think. I hope! (I thought I ordered some, but I can't find a record of it and nothing seems to be arriving.)

FRANGIPANI GRASS needs slasher weedkiller on it. Should have done before the rain. (Should have done everything before the rain. ARGH.)

SEEDS:

I received a bunch of winter leafy greens from Digger, haven't planted them out. I planted out a bunch of BEETROOT, SPRING ONION, SPINACH, and I think even KALE seeds the other week, and most of them have germinated and are little sprouty things.

Have the seeds from the Giant Pumpkin Of Longlast and will be sowing them next summer.

PLANTING OUT:

BEETROOT, ONION, SPRING ONION, SPINACH – planting some of these out in the APPLE-CREPE (and I think some in the CREPE-APRICOT, but I think those have died).

WASABI – into a small self-watering pot, I think, at least at first

LOTUS – various pots without holes so they can grow.

HARVEST:

Too late to get the last of the BASIL, but it was purchased, not grown from seed. It lasted all summer and gave us a solid crop, and a supply of BASIL, so I'll say it was a success.

FEEDING:

Should feed the CORN in the CREPE-APRICOT. I'm sure I have some chook manure somwhere.

PRUNING:

Once again, it is late summer/early autumn, and everything needs pruning. It's such a pain. I need to look into a chainsaw or lopper.

The cliveas between the CHERRY and the DONUT PEACH need thinning out. They're beautiful and huge but rather too much.

THOUGHTS:

Need to work out how to manage the chook yard. Needs something that can take a bit of extra nitrogen, particularly along the northern line of the fence. The fig tree isn't doing well because it has too much TO DO

• clear out the pond
• pull TOMATOES and hang in shed
• sow random BRASSICAS (leafy greens) in AVO-SHED
• slasher weedkiller on the Frangipani grass
• pH test the new soil (due to go in the persimmon/dual stone bed) for the GARLIC
• plant FAKE GALANGALalong gutterline in front of house

Improvement Plans for the next 12 mths

metal bed in triangle garden

• Garlic
• Lettuces

IBC Wicking Bed on porch

• Grape
• Passionfruit (??)

Under the Frangipani

* use slasher weedkiller on the space

• freesias
• other bulbs
• meadow seeds
• poppies

Big Vegepod

• Passionfruit up the north side from vegepod?

In front of lounge room chook run

• sugarcane, lemongrass
• ginger, galangal, turmeric
• dahlias in front? Or too close to the grass?
• fig? In a deep pot?

In front of chook yard

• kumquat - citrus, likes rich soil
• mulberry - suitable for chickens to shelter under and eat from
• apricot - likes lighter soil, not clays: build a mound? (needs potassium and phosphorus more than nitrogen), feed once a year in early spring
• black sapote
• lychee - fragile, wants protection

permaculture socials

So it looks like we're actually getting our act together this year and doing some local socials.

A small group of us are also trying to do more small communal things that are permaculture-ish, but not fully organised.

eg. Sunday plum processing. M&K have a couple of plum trees that have been producing great gonzo this year - so many that they simply haven't had the energy to process them. So they invited the local group around to help pick, wash, and process the plums. They got four people to help, plus a neighbour, and since Sunday was crazy hot, we started picking plums around 8am and finished processing around 2pm.

Y'all, we picked 9.5kg of plums, and there were still some on the tree! That's not counting the ones that were lost to mould or blight, or which dropped while we were trying to pick them!

We managed to use about 3kg of it to make jam and chutney, but three groups of us still took about 1kg home each, and they still had plums to process!

They also picked elderberries and made elderberry cordial! So thick and deep purple! And tasty! Very tasty!

This is something I'll definitely something that I'll think about doing next Spring-Summer when the peaches/nectarines are going.

I also have some recipes for plum processing - Chinese Plum Sauce and Spiced Plum Wine...

Dear Diary - planting record

Update: 28th Jan

Sown in black multi-seed-tray in red box, watered with dilute weed tea, undercover.
CABBAGE golden acre
SPINACH English medamies | only one has sprouted
CORN honey and cream | PLANTED OUT 27th Jan - CREPE-APRICOT bed, with weed tea solution
BEANS
CHINESE CABBAGE
BEANS - tiger's eye
CABBAGE ruby ball
BEANS "bush" | GROWING WELL 27th Jan - need to be planted out

Intent is for these to go into the APPLE-CREPE and the PLUM-STONE

Dear Diary: 13th January 2024

OBSERVATIONS:

I came back from holidays and discovered that the garden had essentially gone beserk. Not entirely surprising given the weather was hot and rainy - a combination we haven't seen for a number of years.

It's better than mild-and-rainy which is the summers we've had for the last three years, and also better than the hot-and-dry which was the prediction for this summer and which is bushfire-danger. I mean, there's always bushfire danger here in summer, but it's particularly bad in the El Nino years. That said, 1.48C degrees warming, and Antarctic glaciers melting is bad news for all of us.

CHOOKS:

Chooks have gone through another major mite incident. We ended up having to spray the coop with coopex (industrial strength) because the rest of it wasn't cutting the mustard. I blame the rats. Also, B1 (my sister) did a good job of it, but I'm always a bit anxious about mites transferring. They creep me out, and they stick around forever and it's an absolute PITA.

I tried to get predatory mites, but although we ordered them (along with alphamite solution), they never turned up. *grr* The thing about the predatory mites is that they could be spread through the garden and the compost.

Goongbao is broody again. Pretty as, but broody. Never getting a Wyandotte again. Great mothers, okay layers, but ugh the broody is a PITA.

I've come to realise that the four chooks we own are not "scratchers". Unlike the previous four that we had who would make short work of a green patch, eating every green leaf in sight and digging up the ground quite thoroughly, these four actually prefer the chook pellets we feed them.

Although admittedly they have scratched the APPLE-CREPE down to bare ground, and it's probably ready for something else to grow there (late corn, perhaps this year?) Unfortunately, they also got out several times, scratched up everything I'd planted in the CREPE-APRICOT so there's nothing left there now, and tend to decimate the edible leaves around the place (SILVERBEET in particular). Why can't they like the grass, dammit? Why must they like the human food?

COMPOST:

Last compost I made before leaving is just sitting there. I haven't turned it. I haven't really dared - that way lies mites. I used the chook manures from before B1 sprayed, but it's probably not enough to kill off the mite eggs. Another reason I wanted the predatory mites to deal with the blood mites. (Haven't heard back from the people who were supposed to send the mites but it's still holiday season so no surprise there.) Plenty of COMFREY and I need to make some more weed teas for fertilising things. I haven't dared open the lid of the weed tea I made from the cooch grass. Too many mozzies. *shudder*

PREPARING:

So there are several beds I want to prepare for the wintering crops: primarily GARLIC and POTATOES. They both want rich soil and lots of nutrients, and the beds they're going in (which I still need to decide) are going to need more work.

SEEDING:

Going to plant out a bed tomorrow (before it gets too hot or too rainy, I hope) with a lot of leafy greens, hopefully to be pickable in six weeks. Weather for the next month is likely to be hot and rainy so lots of growing. (Chinese broccoli, green summer cabbage, kale plants, carrots, beetroots, salad greens, Asian greens.)

PLANTING OUT:

Don't think I have anything much to plant out right now - haven't been growing anything while I'm away.

HARVEST:

Starting on the TOMATOES, but a fairly small harvest right now. Still RASPBERRIES, some SILVERBEET (but the chooks got out and decimated it), always the RHUBARB, lots of BASIL right now - the stuff I planted out is going great guns.

FEEDING:

Feed AVO-SHED, feed TOMATOES, feed PUMPKINS (especially the ones under the big leaves). MELONS in lounge room vegepod. MANGO tree!

PRUNING:

EVERYTHING needs pruning. I've already pruned down the vegepod TOMATOES, a lot of the PLUM tree, plenty of the others that are sticking out. But a fairly serious trim is going to be a must in the coming weeks.

Trim down the big-leaved PUMPKIN so the smaller ones can get some sun.

THOUGHTS:

The 'Turfan Depression' PUMPKINS appear to be working - we have at least one very large pumpkin vine, not sure about any pumpkins its producing (or not). There are a number of smaller ones but they're all being crowded out by the big vine! I might have to trim a few leaves to make some space for them. They defiintely need some feeding. 

Melons in the vegepod are growing well, so we'll hope for good things there - must feed and fertilise them decently.

I need  to work out how to make the sweet potatoes do better - Lolo Houbein suggests manures, mix well with the soil, mulch thickly, and keep moist. That might also do well under the MANGO tree.

Found some advice on how to grow apricots so I'm going to have to start work on that pretty soon.