The New Arrivals

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Posted on May 3, 2014

On Thursday evening there was a card in our mailbox advising that there was a large parcel at the Post Office for us to collect. We collected the box early on Friday morning before we went to work. It was our fruit trees that we ordered online from Daley’s Nursery. We ordered 12 blueberry bushes and a passionfruit vine.

Here is the box after I had slit one side open (as suggested in the attached instructions). The plants were well-packed and in excellent condition. Once again, we followed the directions and removed all of the wrapping and put them out in full sun.

We watered them well and have placed them in the area where they will be planted – hopefully tomorrow. It may be a bit difficult to see in the photo but I had already placed rocks to mark where we are going to plant them so it will be a relatively simple matter of digging the holes. The ground is quite soft as we have had some rain. Blueberries thrive in a slightly acidic soil. I have never actually tested the pH of our soil but the other indicator is that azaleas and camellias grow really well in our area and they like very similar conditions.

We have four other blueberry shrubs which are in the area which is now the chicken run. You can read about them in this previous post. We did not give them as much care as they probably needed but we still managed to harvest about 1.5kg of berries this summer. That was predominantly from 2 shrubs. We have now pruned them quite hard and mulched them thoroughly.

The other exciting news is that we have completely finished fencing the vegetable garden area.

As well as the completed fencing you may also be able to see the black hoops over the garden bed in the distance. This is some large poly pipe which I am planning to use as a frame for some exclusion netting to keep the white cabbage moth off the broccoli, kale, cabbages and cauliflower. I am looking at buying the vege netting from Green Harvest. We are fortunate that this business is located in Maleny so we are able to place our order online and then pick it up in person.

The chickens are rather unhappy that they are now permanently excluded from the garden area and all of the freshly dug soil and earthworms.

Weekend Work & Chicken Wings

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Posted on April 30, 2014

It is Wednesday already and it is nearly a week since my last post. I have been busy doing things instead of writing and unfortunately have not always had the camera handy. However, here are a few photos of some of the things we did on the weekend.

The existing blueberry bushes have been pruned, enclosed with wire surrounds and mulched thoroughly. These bushes have been in for several years but are now in the wrong place as they are located within the new chicken run. I previously had the entire area enclosed to prevent the chickens from digging around them and exposing the roots but I decided that individual enclosures were a better idea.

The fencing around the perimeter of the vegetable gardens is almost complete. I the meantime I have temporarily closed off the last bit to exclude the chickens. This meant that I was able to prepare a new garden bed and be safe in the knowledge that it would not be dug up immediately by the marauding feathered army. The rock edging is made from some of the hundreds of rocks that litter our property. The bed is inside the fence nearest to the house so I plan to make this into a herb garden.

Finally, I clipped the wings of the chickens in order to make sure that they could not fly over the 1200mm fence into the vegie garden. I had wanted to do this for ages but never felt quite brave enough. With some advice from an online forum, a Youtube video and The Duke to hold the chicken I was able to clip the flight feathers on one wing of each chicken. The exercise seems to have been successful as there has been no more instances of flying over fences.

Finally – A Fence

Birthday Business

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Posted on April 20, 2014

Today is my birthday. No particular milestone but time to reflect on the year that has passed and look forward to the year ahead. I have been blessed with lots of lovely messages from family and friends.

Our wedding anniversary was a couple of weeks ago and we did not have a particular celebration for either event. However, in the past fortnight we have had a picnic with family, been to the movies twice and eaten out at our local Italian restaurant.

Today we spent the time together working in the garden – re-arranging, planting and naturally planning the next project. My brain works faster than my hands!

I did stop and make lunch which was as good as any cafe offering and the view from the deck is pretty special, too.

I hope you are having a relaxing Easter break.

Foodie Friday – Kids in the Kitchen

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Posted on April 12, 2014

I didn’t get back to post this last night. Miss O and Izz have been staying for a couple of days so the food focus has clearly been about them. They enjoyed shopping at Simply Good yesterday and discussing many of the different fruits, nuts and grains that we bought. Miss O was keen to practise her recently acquired spelling skills to read the names of the ingredients on the storage buckets and fill them up when we arrived home.

They picked pumpkins and tomatoes as well as collecting eggs. It is great to see them understanding where their food comes from. 4 year old Izz wanted an anatomy lesson on how the eggs get out of the chickens!!

Tomorrow we are going to a picnic with extended family so I made some choc fruit nut balls and Miss O helped by rolling the balls in the coconut.

Apologies for the brevity of this post but I have been working on our Ireland itinerary and looking at ferry timetables and rental car details.

Ashes to Ashes, Branches to Mulch

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Posted on April 6, 2014

We collect all of the fallen branches on our land for firewood, so today The Duke spent some time cutting up some more logs that were stacked and waiting to be cut.

Here are some of them cut and waiting to be stacked in the woodshed.

The mulcher which you can also see in the photograph also got a workout as we mulched several piles of smaller branches as well as some palm fronds and rotting branches. As always, nothing is wasted so some of the mulch was added to one of the raised garden beds that we are filling and the rest will be spread under the native shrubs which are planted along part of the front boundary. The mulch keeps the weeds mostly under control.

Next, we headed over to the area near the vegetable gardens. There was more debris to mulch, including the remnants of the corn stalks.

While the Duke and Psycho Dog were hard at work, I turned my attention to the new garden bed I built yesterday. I needed a bit more mulch and soil to fill it up and then I planted some Purple King climbing beans and radishes.

It is along the outside of the chicken run so the fence will provide an excellent trellis for the beans. I grew these beans a few months ago and had an absolutely fantastic crop so decided to grow them again. I added a couple of star pickets and some wire to enclose the bed so that the chickens cannot dig it up when they are free-ranging. I was just putting the finishing touches to the wire surround as the first drops of rain fell late this afternoon. We had a tremendous thunderstorm with some huge bolts of lightening very close by but were lucky not to lose power.

Finally, just to prove that our garden is decorative as well as functional, here is a photo of the roses flowering in the front garden.

Tonight I am going to make some decisions about my 33 items for the round of Project 333 which began on April 1st. I have kept track of what I have worn so far this month and will include them in the tally. I hope to share the details of my choices with you tomorrow.

Foodie Friday – Fit for the County Fair?

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Posted on April 4, 2014

Just a reminder that real food comes from real dirt. We never actually set out to grow pumpkins – they come up self-sown in the compost and some are more successful than others. This is by far the largest I have ever grown. I picked it today and it weighs 8.7 kg or 19.2 pounds.

I placed a 2 litre ice-cream container beside it in the photo for comparison. This will make a lot of pumpkin soup!

Foodie Friday – No Recipe Needed

Foodie Friday – Keeping it Local

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Posted on March 15, 2014

I am sure it is still Friday somewhere – my apologies for the lateness of this post – it is Saturday morning here.

How do we feed ourselves? Food prices keep increasing, labelling laws are ambiguous, processed foods contain unfamiliar additives and food allergies appear to be on the rise. Add to this, a desire to eat organically-grown food which I believe is better for my health and the health of the planet and it starts to feel a bit overwhelming. While we are at it, the wasteful packaging needs to be minimised as well as transport costs, both monetary and environmental. Don’t forget ‘food security’ – the latest catch-cry. This is the ability for us, as a nation, to feed ourselves in the event of natural disasters or major changes to the world order.

Have you thrown up your hands in despair? Fear not. You can begin to solve all of these issues with a single action – grow some of your own food.

The Duke and I have a somewhat neglected but productive garden which sometimes surprises us with its bounty. We both work full-time and have minimal time to spend on tending a garden. We try to grow some annual vegetables but the real secret is in growing trees and perennials. We have an avocado, peach, fig and several citrus trees. There are blueberry bushes as well as self sown cherry tomatoes and pumpkins. The clump of parsley has been in one spot for so long that it has a stalk that looks like the trunk of a tree.

It may seem obvious but it is also important to eat (or preserve) what you grow. Do not let the harvest go to waste.

Keep your eyes open for food producing plants in your neighbourhood that are not being harvested. Don’t be afraid to ask if you may have some. There are many reasons that people do not harvest – lack of time, knowledge or health are but a few.

The last few weeks we have had access to the following (either fresh or frozen) from our own property or nearby – corn, blueberries, avocadoes, mangoes, figs, lemons, beans, pumpkins, and pineapples. At times I have felt overwhelmed by the excess on the kitchen bench but I have endeavoured to make sure it was used or stored for later use.

Last weekend I kept track of what we ate.

SATURDAY

Breakfast – buckwheat blueberry pancakes

Lunch – platter of cheese, cherry tomatoes, avocado, dried figs and mango chutney

Dinner – Salmon with mango salsa and vegetables – everything came from the garden except the salmon and onion which I used in the salsa.

SUNDAY

Breakfast – mango and pineapple smoothie

Lunch – Pumpkin soup

Dinner – grilled chicken with cherry tomatoes and mango/avocado salad

We certainly will never be completely self-sufficient but being able to produce at least some of the food that we eat goes a long way to addressing the myriad of issues that I identified in the first paragraph. Eating local food also gives you an appreciation for what is in season in your area. I really look forward to the new crop of things such as figs which have a short season. We eat them constantly while in season then it is but a distant memory until next year.

You do not need a huge amount of space and even though you could not grow some of the thing that we do in your climate, the reverse is also true. What do you grow?