late March

Life is kicking my ass again. As usual. I'm in the middle of the PDC with Limestone and it's really good. I'm not sure it's teaching me anything I didn't know, but it's reinforcing what I already did, and giving me the opportunity to see, think, reorient, and reassess my own permaculture methods and

CHOOKS

Seem a lot happier since the red mites problem was dealt with. Now I just have to clean out the underpart of their coop. And build them a new coop.

PRUNING & PREPARING

Pruned down the Dual Plum and 4-Apple, the Dual Plum needs a bit more work. And I need something to chip the damn branches with. Haven't quite gotten my chipper blades sorted out yet.

PLANTING

Haven't planted anything, although the PLUM-STONE is ready for it.

POLLINATION & RIPENING

Driveway pumpkins and melons are actually growing and flowering now, might get a couple of late ones. Need to remember to mark the pumpkin seeds as 'LATE' because it never takes off until late summer.

HARVEST

CORN - Country Gentleman type, I think.

NOTES

A Crop Swap on the first weekend in April, I believe. Eden Gardens. Could be good...
Lemongrass
comfrey
glass gem corn seeds
banana pups
turmeric (orange)
pineapple sage/mexican tarragon
mulberry

Dear Diary: quiet week

It seems La Nina is going to hang around for a couple of months - probably until May. By the time it moves on, then we're likely to have hit 'winter' in Sydney, which is...rain and grey days and temps under 20C... So they say the first good stretch of clear days is unlikely to be until around August.

That's a fair clip away. Guess we'll be dealing with mould growing on everything in the house for a while yet.

CHOOKS

I need to put a roof on the far chook pen, give them somewhere dryish in the rain. It won't hold out in the full blown downpour that we've been having, but it seems that this damp and rainy is going to go on for months.

I sprayed the coop with Coopex (permethrin) and while I'm quite satisfied with the results (omg, all the mites, holy cow) it's a little daunting to realise just how bad the mite problem was. It's also made me resolve to never do another wooden coop. Metal coops/sheds all the way from hereon in! I should probably spray the small triangle coop, too. The main issue with the permethrin is that apparently it doesn't break down which...is a bit worrying!

PLANNING for PLANTING

Garlic
Onions
carrots
beetroot
leeks
broccoli
potatoes

I haven't actually done any winter prep. Been too busy trying to manage the bug situation.

PRUNING AND SPRAYING

Majorly carved down the DUAL PLUM and the 4-APPLE, but I think the DONUT PEACH still needs work and possibly the AVOCADO. There's a 'chipper day' up in Westleigh where you can take your branches for chipping and even get the chips back. I kind of wish they had one like Ryde council does, which is where you put out your stuff for chipping and they bring the chipping machine around and give you the chips back. So much more convenient. I have a lot of material to get chipped...

Going to need a decent break in the weather to get the copper sulfate and lime sulfate spraying done.

HARVEST

A few tomatoes, nice and big, if not pretty.

NOTES

Permaculture Design Course: Weekend 1

Permaculture Design Statement (draft)

Our garden is productive and abundant, a neighbourhood icon and influence, abundant and intriguing. It's a space I take pride in and enjoyment in working in. I enjoy the bounty grown in it, the animals that live there, and consider it somewhere I want to be in to read or pray or reflect. My garden is a green paradise in the midst of a straitlaced suburbia. Retrosuburbia in action. The house is comfortable in all rooms and all seasons, with sufficient space for entertaining, enterprise, and storage, as well as living areas, and a preparation area for food coming in from the garden.

Maybe needs more feeling words?

What do I want to feel in my garden? Pride and satisfaction. I want a change from my house spaces and the structures there. I'd like to have somewhere to relax a little, but mostly to produce food in-season and store it out of season, and for other people to take an example from. I want people to be able to say "maybe I can't do all of that, but I can do this one little bit". Or for neighbourhood people to be able to contribute to it or work out how to do their own.

I definitely want a smoother transition from the garden to the house - preparation spaces and storage spaces.

ETA:

Final:

Our garden is productive and abundant, a neighbourhood icon and influence, abundant to the knowing eye and intriguing to those who haven't been taught to see. It's a space I take pride in and which I enjoy working in. It provides my household bounty in a steady supply of eggs, and year-round vegies, and provides for the animals that live there. I consider it somewhere I want to be in to read or pray or reflect.

My garden is a green paradise in the midst of a straitlaced suburbia, a hub of connection in a disconnected city: retrosuburbia in action. Our house is comfortable in all seasons, using minimal energy, with sufficient space for entertaining, enterprise, and storage, as well as for resting and relaxing in the slower spaces of life and living.

HAVE
land - one sixth acre
3 br house (1960s fibro cement over wooden frame, wooden floors)
chickens
fruit trees (15)
vegetable beds (10)
compost bays (2)
contemplation chair
3500L water tank
lawn space
solar panels

NEED
solar battery
annual beds in front yard
verge garden
more water management
solid chookhouse
cold cupboard
electric bicycle
renovation and retrofit for energy management
replace gas with induction
greywater processing

WANT
front yard mandala
humanure
permie neighbours (other permies in street)
reconfiguration of driveway and garden orientations

I may have to rejig what are needs and wants

B1: wants a house that comfortable in all rooms in all seasons, with good energy management, and space

the rain steady drumming on the roof above my head...

With all the floods up and down the east coast of Australia, I'm fine, my family's fine, all the friends I know in the hardest hit areas are alive and well and their houses have been spared.

I give grateful thanks for that providence.

Doesn't change that a lot of other people are now stuck without homes, many of them without hope, and they're not getting much encouragement or hope or leadership from the parties in power who believe in hauling oneself up by one's own bootstraps, never mind if you're barefoot.

Mostly, at my place, it's rain. Endless rain - and it may be May, or even later, before we see a significant break in the weather. But all I need is a few days between downpours and I think I can manage this.

Right now, the watertank is 95-100% full and keeps getting filled.

In between storms I'm pumping the excess into this bin.

And in the bottom of the bin is a pump that's pumping the water up to the 'triangle orchard/garden':

It's complicated and not a great way to do it, but the bin is there anyway to deal with the runoff from the eaves (the gutter above it has something in it that blocks the rain; this has been a problem for two years. And the water goes into the garden and the soil absorbs it. I'll take it.

Dear Diary (with pics!): 3rd-4th March

CHOOKS

Chooks are SUUUUUUPER sodden thx to the rain, but they should be somewhat less-eaten by mites, thx to me entirely removing the 'base' of the roosting zone:

It's a bit chillier for their underskirts, maybe, but their feathers are made to keep them pretty well through very cold climates, so long as they're not sodden. And the space is still security-enclosed against foxes and other predators, which is the main protective thing.

But I did also get Coopex, which is permethrin, which is not ideal but somewhat necessary. A couple of the chooks are really reluctant to go into the coop at night, most likely on account of the mites, and it's going to need some long-term management.

I need to decide whether to spray it down with water, let it dry, then spray it down with coopex. I've dusted the inside with diatomaceous earth, and I'm wondering if the coopex will work through the DE.

PRUNING & PREPARING

Everything needs pruning. Especially the comfrey and the fruit trees:

*sigh* But everything's utterly sodden right now.

HARVEST

Last of the apples gone:

And the parentals have a bucketload of bunya pine cones:

I'm still trying to get rid of the bunya nuts; got a lot of interest, but nobody wants to come out while it's raining.

NOTES

We've had a couple of weeks of on-and-off rain, and then the last four days it's been steady and significant. Flooding all up and down the east coast, from Sydney up to the Sunshine Coast. There's flooding in low-lying areas of Sydney, particularly the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain (now full of houses) Even friends whose water-management systems are considerably better than mine are reporting runoff from their properties.

One of the plans for this year is to put a water management system in place: greywater management, at the very least. If I'd arranged to run the rainwater tank to the toilet, then at least we'd be using the collected water in the tank. It's presently ridiculously high, and gets topped up with every slighty-greater-than-a-sprinkle-of-rain. It's a bit stressful.

The entire property is sodden at this point: the water's seeped into the soil and everything squishes under your feet. It's going to need a few days of no rain to solidify things up - but that's not predicted for another two weeks. Actually, the low pressure system has been forecast for 'two weeks ahead' for the last week. It never seems to end, it's always predicted to run for another two weeks.

Let's hope not...