OBSERVATIONS:
The SEGT came and went and my garden was about as busy as last time – I’d guess around 40 visitors in about 20 groups (some individuals, some families). Most people who turned up seemed to be very interested, but a few people came and vanished without saying more than ‘hi’, if that. I hope they found something of interest at other gardens.
The weather abruptly turned cold at the equinox. There was a sudden drop in temperature to below 20C, and we had a sequence of nights at 13C. This has occasioned a need to ‘harden off’ our cheepies. More on that in the next section.
That said, the shade patterns across the garden are shifting, and I’m keeping an eye on where the sun is shifting. Not htat it seems to matter to the pumpkins – March appears to have been their month. The early Musquee de Provence looks like it’s going to be the one and only of its type, but there was another one (nice, plump, not very lobed) which I was growing and I had to cut down because it started moulding from the bottom. However, once baked with a miso-soy glaze, it was DELICIOUS and now I know how to eat my pumpkins! Another ‘plump-not-lobed’ one seems to be growing quite happily away right now.
More pumpkins are churning out – these ones start off in the shape of patty-pan squash and then seem to get bigger. How much bigger I don’t exactly know because none of them seem to have gotten to a big size, but there’s at least two of them ripening.
And the backyard is full of the modified butternut – the one that climbs all over the trees and produces something like a cross between a butternut and a trombocino. They dry well and keep well.
I really need to see about getting a keep-cupboard.
Also: we finally have a solar battery! Now to get on a solar program that actually gives us a decent return...
CHOOKS:
Right, so the big news in the last month has been about the chooks. But I haven’t posted about it because…well, it’s pretty sad. March was a lot.
We got two new tiny chickens – Nien-goh (new year cake) and Jima-wu (black sesame) – and they were doing fine for about ten days in our care. We called them the Tweety Sweeties, because they were very adorable, but also very chirpy. And then we think they got a bacterial gut infection due to damp grass we put in their cage with them. They started pooping very red, and not eating very much, and since the deterioration began on a Friday over a weekend, we couldn’t get them to the care they needed until Monday. They got thinner and stopped eating or drinking and we tried to feed them nice tidbits but they just weren’t eating at all. We finally got them to the vet on Monday but Nien-go was smaller and thinner and the emergency care came too late. She died that night.
Jima-wu continued on as a solo chook for about a week. We kept her inside the house, in a cage, so we could medicate and feed her as needed. Then I made a decision to get a couple more chooks from a (more) local breeder. Enter Jindoy and Hangyan – a cream legbar and a leghorn cross. They’re about a week older than Jima-wu, larger and leggy, and after the first day, we put them and Jima-wu into the same day cage, then took them out at night.
And then Jindoy and Hangyan started showing signs of red in their poop and…
We took them to the vet (great moogly googly, these chickens are expensive) and the diagnosis this time was coccidiosis. So they got amprolium in their water, and a ‘food boob’ (crop) check before bedtime. After five days they seemed to be going fine, and so we started putting them out into the yard with the coop where they’re going to be spending the next couple of months getting used to living outside. For the first few days, we put them outside during the day and brought them in at night. And then we started leaving them out at night.
Jima-wu was not happy! As I recounted, she’s been an indoors-at-night chook as long as she’s been here. There’s been much piteous cheeping from down in the yard for the last couple of nights since we started leaving them down there, but they seem to be mostly resigned to it.
Anyway, the two newbies are still a little spooked, but Jima-wu is reasonably friendly, although still not that the ‘hop up on your lap’ stage. I’m working on that with treats…
COMPOST:
I dismantled the two rightmost compost bays in the hope that the solar battery would be able to go in that spot, but there wasn't enough space for them. (They're large batteries!) So now I have the choice on whether to put the compost back, or else work out somewhere else to build them, or remake them in a different way or…
TBH, it's a pretty convenient place for them to go: out of the way, out of sight, in the midpoint between the chook yards and the chook coop, and somewhere nearish for the chipper to plug in and be used.
I also have to turn the composts more often, and for the current compost, I need to chip the branches I've got, trim some more, chip them, and add them all to the present compost.
Also have been wondering about making the sides of the compost bays with the metal shed panels I have from a shed teardown several years ago. It might make shovelling/forking it out easier with the panels.
Several composts are in process. The square one near the fence, the leafmulch in the PSN display composting, the composting bay. They might need to be turfed out/remixed, and the chipmulch mixed in with chicken poop for composting.
PREPARING:
I need a bed for the new brassicas to go into. They're still strengthening as seedlings, but when they're done they're going to need somewhere to go.
My first instinct is to put them in the TRIANGLE GARDEN again. Or the DRIVEWAY BED. Maybe run the chooks through both sections for a while? That'll be later on in the year, I think - in full winter, once the Sweeties have acclimatised.
More soil is required. See COMPOSTS.
SEEDING:
Need to plant more brassicas, leafy greens, onions, beetroot and other root vegies: turnips, sweded, rutabagas, etc.
QuestioPlanted out one set of GARLIC into one corner of the Water-Ups wicking beds.
PLANTING OUT:
Planted out one set of GARLIC into one corner of the Water-Ups wicking beds.
Need to plant out the BANANA I got from Cecelia. Plan is to set a compost bay in the middle of the circle (netting wire around the base) and add the BANANA to the edge (and mulch it).
Planted out and mulched the GALANGAL I got from Passionfruit Garden along the lattice fence on the other side of the solar battery.
Need to plant out the BANANA I got from Cecelia. Plan is to set a compost bay in the middle of the circle (netting wire around the base) and add the BANANA to the edge (and mulch it).
SEED SAVING:
Seed saved the WATERMELON from Zdenka. POPPIES (from somewhere).
HARVEST and PRESERVING:
Mangoes are delicious. We sliced open the watermelon and it was pretty good. I've pickled a bunch of cucumbers and I fear there are a bunch more coming! And there was a very nice chocolate CAPSICUM from the Old Capsicum plant on the ASPARAGUS STEPS
Picked the remaining persimmons - there were about fifty of them. Sliced and dried a bunch of them (using the battery overnight to dry them was AWESOME) and I'm going to slice and dry some more. Or get B2 to do it since she's off work today.
FEEDING:
Regularly feeding the brassicas in the WaterUps beds.
PRUNING:
All the trees. Priority: the dual stone, the persimmon, the pomegranate, the apple espalier.
Need to borrow back neighbour's battery-op chainsaw.
THOUGHTS:
Plant more: ONIONS, GARLIC, GINGER, GALANGAL
A cabinet for keeping harvests.
- looking at one in Pennant Hills - an old tallboy. It's close and it's convenient. I need to contact the woman to see if I can get it into my car - that'll be the tricky part.
A polycarbonate greenhouse.
- found one on FB, but the guy is a bit snarky, possibly because he's had too many "is this still available" questions and not enough decent responses. It's a decent greenhyouse, but it can't be taken apart, and it doesn't seem to have shelves so I'd have to provide those myself...
