Dear Diary - 3rd June

WEATHER

FRICKING FREEZING MR BIGGLESWORTH (5C-8C)

CHOOKS

Noticed some reluctance to roost: have Alphamite watered last night

In triangle orchard, have done a decent job of scratching things up, particularly on south side

No laying

Scraped off some of the chook poop to the floor, need to scrape the floor off and bin/box for fertilising

PRUNING & PREPARING

Cream-coloured potatoes to be planted in triangle bed with mustards/radish/turnips as green mulch - a la Limestone Pumpkins-to-Potatoes

Limestone Pumpkins-to-Potatoes
1. pull up pumpkin vines and leaves, put down over beds - chop and drop (early june)
2. cover vines with decomposed chook manures and leafmulch (early june)
3. seed potatoes laid in two rows, one either side of mound, on top of manure and leafmulch, then covered by hay mulch (early june)
4. loose hay mulch applied as cover (early june)
5. compost strips applied along centre of mound at depth of mulch, planted out with cover crops and green maure (early june)
6. Once cover crops/green manure mature, pull-and-drop while still young (late august?)
7. Mulch around young potato plants (late august), laying potato plants in towards middle (where pull-and-drop happened), can also scavenger.
8 Prepare for pumpkins/squash - fill dug out 'pods' with compost for seedlings (early sept)
9. Plant out pumpkin seedings in pods. (sept)
10. Pumpkins will start taking over (~Oct)

Video link here.

PLANTING

Those damn brassicas!

RIPENING

A handful of kumquats, a handful of oranges

HARVEST

Oranges, maybe?

NOTES

Permabee next weekend (11th June) will involve:
- trimming down fruit trees (dual stone, peach-neko, plum, donut peach)
- digging up some badly-placed trees (lemon, lychee, kumquat - multi-citrus? kaffir lime?) and putting into pots
- trimming down and pulling out perennial shrubs (salvias, thai basil, mexican tarragon, lavender) and putting into pots
- digging out compost bays and sieving the contents for use
- digging up and dividing rhizomes (arrowroot)
- chipping the trimmings and building into a compost pile.