Jacaranda Carpet

This morning the Jacarandas at the end of the street had carpeted
the grass with blooms.  It took a little coaxing to get Isla to
lie on the dew wet grass but she grudgingly agreed - maybe that's why she's not smiling!

Jacaranda blossom carpet the grass.

Have learned a lesson about warming up the models - this shoot
was impromtu - we had to put down our spoons during breakfast
and run up the street - before the blooms faded in the sun.

Sunday in Spring 2013

The 12 chickens are eager to get out for breakfast and lay their eggs

This is the steel chicken coop - it works really well and keeps them safe at night - plus it is simple to clean.

Here is one of the silver wyandottes I bought from the NSW show - can you tell she is a show bird?

Here is the new laying house for the chickens to lay their eggs
it is an old dog kennel I got from the side of the road.

Look at how the tree ferns shade the egg house!

You can see how the tree ferns are thriving -
they all shed some fronds in the extreme heat over the last week.

Eating Local

Silverbeet seedling

Can you hear that?  The almost imperceptible hum in the background?  That's the garden farm rousing from winter slumber and tingling it's roots and wriggling it's leaves.  Coming back to fecund production.  Which is all quite delightful, but we are going further into the sustainable jigsaw and taking steps towards eating locally.  This means we will wean ourselves off ultra processed franchise foods, lessen our dependence on corporate food staples, and importantly, sustain this buying ethic from here on.

Here's some revolutionary inspiration from Tom Hodgkinson.

"It seems obvious that if we could just extinguish consumer desires and stop shopping, we would get a lot closer to everyday liberty, simply because we wouldn't have to do so much work.  This is not to say that one can't enjoy luxuries, it's just that we shouldn't take them seriously as a kind of goal in life.  Don't make luxury into a meaning."

The interconnectedness of rejecting corporate food, being able to support yourself, and having more time to just be is really so obvious to me.  It is as simple as if you don't update the SUV, you won't have to work weekends, and then you can spend that time with your daughter, so she will grow up feeling valued and loved.  By disentangling ourselves from debt and financial instruments, I will be self determining and that is so empowering.  So, back to the garden and food.

The first step was establishing our garden farm as much as we could to be productive for table food.  Growing your own food can only go so far realistically on a suburban block.  Sure, I have fruit trees, chickens and herbs and vegetables, but eating local is a major step.

 So how do we actually go about this?

The first step is a mind set.  Cut Franchise Food to Zero.  The whole rationale behind the franchise is to replicate systems so that the end product is identical across the entire territory, which is great for corporate measurement, graphs, percentages and reducing the complexity of a small business to a single figure.  This sameness and homogeneity across the brand brings to mind images of chickens pecking at little beige pellets on conveyor belts.  It presents us with no choice so we come to fear the unknown or things that are simply different.  Not good.

So everything from the stationery to the flour to the staff recruitment is managed off site, deals are on a grand national scale and handshakes made by people thousands of miles away from the kitchen, most likely in suits with percentages and margins uppermost in their minds.  The actual couple who run the franchise at the frontline are managers with debt equity in the business, harried by "regional impressive title" reps to maintain standards.

Not much talk of food or flavour going on, let alone where it is farmed, or how it is farmed, or the farm methods.  So we are saying no the McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut etc.  Any franchise that presents reheated ultra processed food has got to go.  Just like going sober and giving up alcohol, I'm quite sure this will be a slow burn, but have major lifestyle impacts on my life.  Let alone the health benefits of not putting that crap into my body.

But I don't want to specifically head off in the direction of health food exactly, not just yet.  What I am saying is when you are out and about and you have the children with you, don't go to a franchise outlet, but instead go to the local burger joint, local charcoal chicken joint or sandwich bar.

This way, you are not supporting the multi-layered faceless corporate edifice, but instead supporting the local most likely husband and wife business, who make their own decisions on buying the food, choosing their suppliers based on local relationships, and are living independently of a franchise system monitoring their business behaviour.  See where I'm heading?

This way, you are supporting a travelling sales rep who visits the stores in his territory, supporting a local property investor who leases the building, supporting local employment that is not part of some huge human resources department, but is based on real face to face negotiation.  The local business negotiates with a local supplier and creates local connections and jobs - all miles away from the wheeling and dealing of the city.

Eating local is the next step.  I'm coming up to that soon, just have to let these thoughts percolate for now.

Morning Light

This is the view from our bedroom verandah, looking East.  I have planted tree ferns right up against the verandah and in the fifth year they are thick and thriving.

The bedroom verandah again, this time looking out over the mist.  See the smooth gums that provide the tall cover for the garden, a dappled light that is not too harsh in the middle of summer.

The lomandra longifolia I planted to out compete the weeds.  This is the steepest part of the property and instead of a formal terrace arrangement (which is too much work and too much money) the grasses will thicken and act as a natural soil holder.  The thick cover of mulch is from the trees above.  You can see the stumps of some dead trees i cut down and other stumps of noxious weed trees.

Looking southwest, you can see all the ferns in place - note how the southerly aspect makes for a naturally protected and damp micro-climate, this is ideal for the ferns.  Plus, there is something rich and timeless about tree ferns - they are lush ad soft and vibrant green when so may other Australian native plants are dull greys and olives.

Looking south, you can see where the 'garden' ends and the bush reserve starts.  I have made steady progress taking out the lantana and bitou bush, although it is a frustratingly slow process doing it alone.  I hope that once the tree ferns are established for a decade or so they will be the understory, with us walking amongst them like umbrellas over our heads.

This is a boulder! Duh!  The backyard is littered with boulders like this, made from a conglomerate of sandstone and green with moss and lichen.  The chickens have made great progress eating their way through the weeds so that the rocks are now visible - it wasn't long ago that they were more like big lumps of green. 

This is the mulch we are planting in.  You can see that it is loose and airy and made of big pieces of organic material.  Over time it breaks down especially when layered with chicken manure.

Here is the top of the cliff, the fall is about five meters.  The rocks make a distinct line between the house and the top garden and the bottom fern garden.  The chickens do not come up past the rock cliff, which is great because many chicken owners have to deal with walking the poo through their house.

Antartic tree ferns - these were slow to get started as bare trunks, especially in the middle of a drought, but they have thickened up nicely.  I just hope the chickens aren't too fastidious around the base because they might fall over.

I love Kentia Palms, they are almost mathematical in their structure and once established look like they have been there for ages.   Here is a detail of a new frond emerging behind.

This is the postcard for our bed and breakfast promotion.  Wouldn't it be great if we could rent our place out whilst we are away on holiday so someone could help with the chooks? 

Something about pictures and a thousand words?  In the early morning half light I took some images and they are very descriptive of where the garden is at in midwinter. 

Mini Citrus Orchard Planting

Oranges, lemons, limes and mandarins - how's that for a little suburban orchard?  Have bought a four citrus over the last week and planted most of them in the backyard - in a sunny, sloping position which was otherwise covered in weeds.  You might recall I planted native grasses all through the weeds to establish and outcompete the weeds, now I am adding an understory of citrus.

This is the Meyer Lemon, full of buds, I think I should remove most of these for the first season so it concentrates on getting good root growth instead of impressing us with fruit then falling over.

The Joppa Orange Citrus x aurantium Joppa is, (according to the label), a Californian juicy variety that has a fine flesh and a rich flavour.  Fruiting mid season, it grows well in coastal areas into a beautiful small tree 3m - 6m.  This is the discount plant a season old, looks like it has been moulting, should be right for spring.

The citrus will be productive because there is so much sun from the northerly aspect, but also because they will be growing in what has been a green waste dump for the past few decades.  So the soil is a deep dark organic humus crawling with life and especially legless lizards!

Can you see the three citrus?  Maybe not yet, but they are there, this is the space I want thick with citrus in the next few years so we can make jams and swap recipes etc like in the olden days.

It is a real shame to cut them up with a shovel, so I am making just one slice of the shovel, then working the soil with my hands to open it up.  The citrus just plop into the hole and then I cover the space with some of the bamboo mulch that I have everywhere.

The citrus I have planted includes a tahitian lime, a mandarin, a joppa orange and a meyer lemon.  I have my eye on some exhausted grafted citrus at a local nursery from last years stock, they are less than half price at $15, but bedraggled and a bit ugly with not many leaves.  But at least they are hardened to local conditions, and not green from being in a greenhouse.
Update: Have been back and bought another mandarin and another orange, this one a washington navel.

Windy Weather not Merewether

As the days start to lengthen, so too does the wind strengthen

As I write this the wind has turned from fresh southerly to strong dry westerly, and it is bending the bamboo. The backyard fills with a tangle of sticks and dead branches after storms, so makes for another thick layer on the compost heap.

Yesterday morning woke to find a large eucalypt leaning against the next door property - it had gently lurched over a few metres with no visible damage except a dented gutter and downpipe. All night the winds had buffeted our homes, but didn't really hear anything that would suggest a tree falling over. Before I had time to take an image the aborists had come and dismantled the tree to a pile of firewood.

Now for the hard part, lugging the wood away from the house into the bush where it can rot. Made a nice flat area for the chickens and the girls to stretch their wings and legs.

Amazing how long you can look at a hill of weeds and think the problem is too big. And by just getting started and breaking the work into separate three hour tasks, how simple it can become. This post is about getting in and tackling the hard tasks that appear overwhelming, and are tempting to ignore. But once you get in and start work it is great to get a result.

Firstly, I marked out the area where I would plant the grasses, and estimated I needed about 16 plants for a dense planting. I had been stumped as to what to plant on the slope, so I had left the weeds and cut it back, or raked it into balls and tried to mulch it every now and then. But it would grow back within a season and I would have to do it all over again.
My new approach is to use the permaculture principle of creating multiple islands of grasses that eventually join up to create a large weed free space like a patchwork.

I dug up grasses from my front yard which I had planted three years ago to fix nitrogen in a weed overgrown garden bed. The grasses have grown thick at the base and have worked really well, so instead of buying more I uprooted them with a fork and split the thicket into individual plants, with roots attached. I cut off the long leaves so reduce stress and planted them directly in amongst the weeds out the backyard.

Third, I dug a hole in the weedmat with a single shovel strike, and pushed the grass into the pocket of soil, then closed it back again.

This aspect is south facing with deep shade and canopy of tall trees. The planting site has a steep slope, loose mulch cover, and rich black compost underneath as it was a dump for grass cuttings and garden waste for years - plus a few frogs! See my left index finger? I reckon this is a pretty big frog - they are usually tiny ones the size of your thumbnail.

It is great to finally make some progress on a difficult site! It is part of the reason we bought the property - or more importantly - why no one else wanted the property, with the steep slope bisecting the backyard. But with some creative garden planting and attention to permaculture, I'm confident I can turn it into a productive space.

Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

Four Bucks for parking - and we're in the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens. A grey Saturday with soaking rain, it was perfect for the girls to try out their new umbrellas. So we headed off in the direction of the arrows and just explored our way around. One thing you know about the HRBG - there are plenty of signs and maps and arrows around the place, so there is no chance of getting lost.

A typical garden room scene

the tree fern room

the grasses have colonised after the lantana was removed

the cacti garden is huge, (in mid winter during rain)

the bromeliad greenhouse

The Botanic Gardens is sited in 140ha just north of Newcastle on the Tomago sandbeds, with wetlands to the north and south. The soil is sandy and supports an open dry forest, which is planted under with various themed rooms. Celebrating 21 years in 2011, the Garden is proudly maintained entirely by volunteers, who have regenerated the native forest from lantana infestation.

As far an attractions go, the Gardens might lack a slick marketing budget, plastic merchandise and over priced entry tickets, but I'm sure that's not the volunteers aspire to. What is in abundance is space, wide walking paths, thick old trees and wildlife.  You can't go past feeling the genuine care and effort that the volunteers put into the gardens.

Pasha Bulker Storm Fours Years On

Four years ago a storm pushed the Pasha Bulker onto Nobbys Beach. It was a bright cold day in June, and we were completely distracted with our pink, wriggling three week old baby girl.

Having just moved house in February, the garden was a tangle of weeds with the storm flattening all but the thickest saplings, and trees.

A total contrast to today - brisk, breezy and blindingly sunny - with the clouds blown out of the sky.

See the sparks flying...

Here's some images from south Bar Beach, could see a whale spraying out the back but couldn't get it on the lens I had with me.  Nothing better than when it's offshore.

In 2007 I was stuck at work overnight, I remember the roads were impassable and cars were piled on top of each other from the force of the water.

Our house was damaged and we got a new courtyard out of it through insurance.  But the sound of the wind was unforgettable.

What is This plant?

Here's a question - have been feeding the chickens this green food and they love it - it grows easily and fast and i have some inkling that it is a native.

Planting Grasses the Permaculture Way

Weeds - gotta love em for their resilience and sheer ability to completely dominate land. I have been reading through about permaculture basic principles and one of ideas is to plant small establishment species first amongst the weeds with as little disturbance as possible. This way the hardy, small, numerous establishment plants get a toehold and effectively create pockets of non weed invaded space. Once these non weed dominated spaces link up and grow, then eventually there is a large space of non weed area and the weed areas have been grown out. As compared with going in and removing all the weeds by hand and then replanting over the top, only for the weeds to just a quickly re-invade and dominate again. So by making minimal earth disturbance there is minimal weed seed germination, or breaking of weeds and cutting transplanting.

This is how the bush looks at chicken height - there is plenty of mulch from leaves and sticks and bark, plus the native ferns, but you can see the tangle of lantana and the wandering jew on the edges.

Here is where the backyard meets the edge of the bushland reserve.  Even though it looks cleared, the lantana to the left of the tree takes only a few weeks in growing season to reclaim the ground.  This is where the native grasses will go so they can compete with the lantana as they grow.

This is keeping the lantana controlled with cutting back and pushing it back down the slope.  But instead of having the lantana infestation, the wandering jew has simply filled the gap, with a thick moist carpet of growth that prevents all but the hardiest of natives seedlings emerging through it.  I am going to plant the native grasses in amongst the wandering jew carpet and see how they survive.

Can you identify this plant?

These beautiful native ferns emerge when the wandering jew is raking up or cleared.  They have a rough leaf with two or three fronds from the rhizome.  I have transplanted some to other parts of the garden years ago and they survived and are growing well.

Will be testing the idea with a area I have cleared and have variously mowed/raked to clear the weeds, and in another area where I will be sticking closely to the plant amongst the weeds idea.

Lomandra longifolia 

Here is an example of a successful native grass (Lomandra longifolia) growing on a nearby property. This means it would most likely grow on my property, and I just happen to have a few dozen established specimens in the front yard acting as wind and sun breaks. So I have dug them and up divided the base of the grasses, using the sustainable idea of using what is available and limiting new inputs.  You can see how the grass is mowed up to the edge of this plant and it still survives.  The Lomandra is virtually indestructible, has few local pests and is definitely preferable to any weeds!  There is plenty of shelter and habitat in the grass thicket for native wildlife and chicken food sources.

Tradescantia albiflora

This is how bad it gets when left undisturbed for several seasons, (possibly years.)  The wandering jew seems to just grow over itself and almost cannibalises itself for nutrients.  The carpet can be rolled up in a single piece so that it makes for easy disposal, but there are millions of micro rootlets and break-off bits to seed the next infestation.

By planting big individual plants directly in amongst the wandering jew, they certainly thrive, but the layer of weeds is a distraction.  Other gardeners take one look and think that the garden needs so much maintenance and upkeep because of the weeds, but if left alone and accepted that the weeds are there, you can see past it and get on with growing other plants.

Once the new plantings plants take hold, they give me a reason to go and tend them and at the same time remove a few more of the weeds.  Over time this is effective and results in a weed-free-oasis where I can plant other desirable species, and so the weeds lose a little more ground.  It is a slow process, but it is a process nonetheless and progress is being made.

A Shovel width swale

Here is a swale I made by simply digging with a trenching shovel and placing the dug soil to the downward slope side of the trench, then moving along.  It is about eight metres long and follows a contour of the property, and after about a year, like this one, it fills with deep mulch and acts as a water re-directing device away from a run off area towards plantings.

This is a future project - I have identified the micro climate as strong morning sun year round, very protected from winds, and with the two boulders to stop erosion/retain heat.  I am proposing a citrus orchard of 4 - 6 trees planted amongst the undergrowth.  I appreciate there is a lot of bracken, weeds and old mulch there.  I have not done any work to this part of the property, as it always looked like simply an overwhelming job to get in and clear it and then have to quickly replant it with desirable species.
So using simple permaculture ideas, I am not going to disturb the existing plants much at all, just plant a two lemons, two limes, two mandarins and two oranges amongst it all.  The weeds will act as a mulch and over time i will get to replace them with something more productive.
This was a real revelation when I read this - about how conventional thinking of clearing, preparation and planting such a huge workload that no one would even attempt it except on a huge budget - hence the spot has remained left to weeds for decades.  But permaculture says go right in, asses the spot for its strengths and just plant what would grow there, and once it is growing the plants will actually change the micro climate themselves.

Here's the first worm the chickens found - I was fooling around down the back and heard a big commotion in the chicken run.  The birds where whirring round and round, like they were being chased by something.
Immediately, like all new chicken owners, I thought the worst and had images of a dog or something.  But no, it was a fat worm, twisting in the beak of a chicken and the other four chasing after her.  You can make out the worm here - it was a major distraction and it took a dozen or shots trying to get the right image.