dear diary: 24th November

Initial posts were about the 15th November, ETAs and thereafter are as ofthe 23rd.

WEATHER: Warm and fairly dry, although we areapparently set for a week of rain beginning Sunday.

ETA: the week of rain keeps getting pushed back,but as of the 23rd, it looks like it's going to be cloudy with spotty rain fora while, and then major rain next week when I'm leaving Sydney.

CHOOKS: Mites in the coop. Not blood ones (yet),so far as I can tell, but definitely there. I've been giving the chooksAlphaMites water to keep them mite-free, but that doesn't mean that the mitesaren't surviving in the coop off rodents, etc. Wondering if I should spray thecoop again - last time I had to do that I think was 2021 and I kind of had to wait for a space between the rain when it was hot enough that the coop woulddry in a day. Also, I'm not a fan of spraying the coop. That time it wasnecessary - blood mites everywhere - but it was a last-ditchresort. Since then, I've mostly relied on the AlphaMites solution to make the chooks unpalateable to the mites, but I don't think that actually kills themites, just means the chooks don't get sucked on by them.

ETA: Alphamited the chooks for the next fewdays. One of sister's vet friends suggested double-sided stickytape on the ends of the roosts to catch any mites.

COMPOST: The last one got burrowed by rats. Theplastic surrounding the compost bays aren't tacked down at the bottom, so thecompost keeps pushing through (probably aided by the rats). I'll need to dig it out and redo it. As in dig all of it out, probably let the area dry off, thenaffix the plastic down properly. Ugh.

ETA: Have dug the compost out, now need to findtime to tack down the plastic (might require the addition of a wooden slatalong the bottom back face), and remake the compost for decomposing while I'maway. Hopefully without rats.

PREPARING: Watering system for MANGO at the veryleast. Also, netting the MANGO. Dug a worm trench for Turfan Depression Melons(cf. One Good Square gardening)

ETA: MANGO is netted. Have raked the jacarandaand flametree flowers around its base for decomposing, to add soil fertility.Might need to get some chook poop in there. And I think I'm going to bewatering around the mango for the next couple of days from the tank. Both touse up the tank water and to keep the mango going.

PLANTING: None of the melons are geminating.Only a couple of the pumpkins are. I don't know why - I've got them in a nicewarm space, lots of water. Did they rot? Did the rats get them? I even have agood space for them, with a trench full of worm castings ready to feed them! 

ETA: some of the melons have germinated (oneALLSWEET, a couple of WARPAINT), and some of the pumpkins (EBISU, MUSQUEE DEPROVENCE). Have planted the pumpkins in The Trench, and put the ALLSWEET in thevegepod (I feel like I should dig out a space for an olla in there), and there's more space for the WARPAINTs in The Trench, or I could put them in lastyear's 'winter tomato' bed. (Would need some serious feeding, though.)

Reading back on the 'Turfan Depression' idea in Lolo Houbein's bookOne Magic Square, she does a lot more than just wormcastings, but manures and compost and seaweed solution and weed teas. It'sserious stuff. 

Ah well. I won't be around to do all that feeding, but I can dowhat I can before I go away.

I sowed some ZUCCHINI through the APPLE-2STONE bed while I was atit (tricolour, under the APPLE ESPALIER), along with a bunch of legumes.However I don't know if they will actually take. I think it's doubtful - directplanting often doesn't go anywhere much for my garden.

PLANTING OUT: Still have RADISHES, BEETROOT andother vegies to plant out: the big question is probablywhere. At this point, I think it's just 'anywhere thatthere's space' .

HARVEST: last of the stone fruit - peaches andnectarines. Also MUSHROOMS. Got a couple of mushroom 'logs' from a friend in aswap. They were secondhand - already spawned at least once, but she said theymight have a bit of life in them. And once they were spent, you could just tossthem into the compost. Anyway, I did the watering thing, and they're producingquite nicely! 

Now, I gotta work out what to do with them while I'm away.

FEEDING: Pumpkins and melons and corn to be fed

PRUNING: All the fruit trees could do with agood hard prune before I go away. Cut down the branches - especially all thenew ones. But I probably won't manage the time.

OBSERVATIONS: MANGOes are growing but a bitwrinkly. Possums have been deterred from remaining gold PEACHes with a cage.

THOUGHTS:

Going to have to dig up the front bed at some point, mostly to getthe mugwort out. Damn stuff is everywhere and probably all linked up together.

TO DO:

1. Feed all melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant,corn
2. Take off chook tractor and plant out bed.
3. Plant out RADISHES, BEETS, etc.
4. Make a leaf-mulch (again, properly, in theblack compost frame)
5. Cut off the netting over the chicken coop
6. Trim down the sunflower.7. Plant the space for small native birds

SEGT 2023

Just opened on the Saturday again - I knew I couldn't do both, it would just hve been too much. As it was, just opening Saturday was pretty huge.

It's a big day, lots of visitors. Again, there was some rain, but it was spattery and scattered and most people were quite happy about it all.

I was more prepared for this one, having contacted my peeps six weeks in advance to get some people to do garden admin - write names, check tickets. So I also had company for the entire day - at least one person around for every hour of the trail that my garden was open.

The season worked out really well - the garden beds weren't as heavily filled as they could have been, but the fruit trees were in full flow. I gave away nectarines and peaches quite freely - it saved me having to eat or process them myself! And it was lovely to see people appreciate the difference between 'sweet' fruit and 'tasty' fruit. The fruit was more 'tasty' than 'sweet' but it was still sweet enough!

I set up the chooken tractor to display the chook tunnels. People really liked the tunnels, particularly the part where they realised the benefits in having the perimeter tunnels - the combination of maintaining the edges of the garden, along with giving the chickens a nice space to move through, and saving me the energy of having to move them through the garden myself.

Oh, and I did get the benches done before the SEGT!

And the one under the avo.

All in all, I think it was a very successful day for me. And then I went out on the Trail with my friend, K, who helped me put the original wooden garden beds together back in 2021.

Anyway, now the whole garden has to survive the summer. Okay, so it's just December that it has to manage, but things are going to get pretty hot, and the root growth during December is what's going to make the big difference on whether it holds on in January.

That'll be an interesting month since I'm going away.

One thing I did just after the SEGT is create a 'Turfan Depression' trench - dug a trench in the bed between the ESPALIER APPLES and the DUAL STONE, and filled it with the worm castings and half-composted bits from one of the wormfarm boxes. The plan is to get some melon/pumpkin seeds in there and let 'em rip. That's supposed to be how it's done in the arid lands where melons were first grown; I just have to get some of the damn seeds to actually sprout! SO DAMN DIFFICULT.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks are getting the garden into 'survive the summer' mode. I'll be gone all of December and about a third of January, and B1 isn't going to have the energy or inclination to do more than feed and water the chooks, so the rest of the garden's survival will be up to a teensy bit of watering and a lot of prep.

We'll see how it goes!