dear diary - mid june

WEATHER

Worst of the cold snap seems to be past. Has been some frost on the ground, but otherwise sunny and dry. No rain for about 2-3 weeks. Some of the potted plants have been looking a bit dried out, so having to water them.

CHOOKS

Moved them to the northern stretch between house and driveway, they're making decent inroads on the grass and greens in a couple of days.

Backyard, they're on the CREPE-APRICOT bed, haven't been spending much time there because they've been in the triangle bed. They're stuck in there today (19th June), so hopefully they'll do some decent digging up and sratching away.

Cleared their coop, put the new poop in a bucket and covered it over. Transferred the older poop into another bucket, can't remember what I did with it...

PRUNING & PREPARING

Bee bed needs heavy pruning ready for spring. Fruit trees need a good prune back too. Was going to happen at the permabee but didn't happen because of cancellation. Finding out when next opportunity is and integrating it will be the tricky part.

Started making a leaf-mulch, need to collect more leaves. Perhaps from the house right down the end.

PLANTING

Did the potato-pumpkin bed a la limestone permaculture in the cheap metal bed in the middle of the triangle garden. Purple Congos, and some cream coloured potatoes that sprouted. The chook manure might not have been the most broken down, though.

Planted some of the indeterminate BRASSICAS in the LOUNGE ROOM WICKING bed (kept the EGGPLANT, too), haven't sown any mulch there. Probably should.

RIPENING

ORANGES, KUMQUATS

HARVEST

Oranges? Lettuces need to be eaten, they're crowding out the garlic on that side.

NOTES

Feeling despair about the state of the building economy, the increase in price of housing materials, and the difficulty of getting good workers. Had a chat with a building/housing project manager about our plans, looks like the whole deal will cost double what I thought/hoped if we do it all at once. Issue is that I don't know that we'll be able to do anymore if we don't do it all at once. I'm no longer convinced that we're headed for a crisis, I think we're headed for a collapse. And that's an entirely different set of concerns: some form of self-sufficiency is going to be necessary. I need to talk to Jess and Phil about their renos and what they could and couldn't do. Also need to look at the Undercover Architect 'get started guide' to have a general idea of the what can and can't be done, the things to be concerned about, and how to keep things from getting out of control.