Friday, July 29, 2011

Fruit tree maintenance






I have a few fruit trees in the paddock at the rear of our block, well 2 Plum trees, 2 Apple, a Lemon a Lime, 2 Pear Trees, 2 Apricot and 1 Nectarine - the other died. So 11 in total, and the all need to be weeded every year around Spring time. I decided to get in early this year and weed during the Winter, as the soil would be wetter and in theory the weeds easier to pull.

Its hard work as the paddock pretty much doesn't get mowed near those fruit trees and the grass by Spring is waist high. Some of the weeds needed the Folk but most with pure Sue aggression were tugged from that ground shaken and thrown into the chicken pen. The pile has been high, the chickens have been busy fossicking for worms and eating the greenest leaves. I re-use all my rabbit wood shavings and of course there is the bonus of their poo being mixed in and I spread it all around the trees, I am hoping with all that rabbit urine it isn't going to be too strong for the trees, but so far the ones I did last month have no new weeds coming though and with luck they will be getting nutrients from the manure for a nice Spring fruit crop!

My pictures are in reverse the bottom one is the unweeded, then weeded then mulched, sorry about that order, blogspot must be having a bad hair day!!

Potatoes and the Veggie Plot.







Last weekend I planted some Desiree Potato's and thought I would share the pictures, I brought 10 potatoes and were able to cut the tubers in half some into 1/4's to make around 40 tubers to plant. Its always important to buy the virus free seed, usually easily obtainable from your local nursery. I had a gift voucher from my birthday so even cheaper I didn't have to pay a cent!! The total cost would have been around $8 though and I anticipate getting over 150 potatoes in total, just a guess though, we did do so well with the potato's last year I thought it needed to be done again although this time we have chosen to plant them in a wine barrell and some smaller pots, I really hope that works alright as if will definantly get drier in Summer, I plan to mulch with some pea straw though as a back up.

Although have taken some pictures of the rest of the veggie garden, the rocket is very slow, no idea why it always grows so well in the veggie beds, it's over further to the East in a old trough and it's possibly not getting quiet as much sun as when in the veggie bed. The Spinach is also a bit slow and the Cress and it's the same deal also planted in a similar spot. The Broccoli is getting there, and looking forward to getting a good crop of that, and the onions are looking healthy too.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

A new fence and Lemons!





I can't believe it's actually nearly August and Ive blogged so little this year! Its been such a busy year with my youngest going off to school and now having all 3 boys at Primary School for 1 year until the eldest moves onto high school next year I actually thought I would have a ton more time and get out into the garden more!!!

I also work part time as a Remedial Massage Therapist and work did manage to get a little busier then dropped off again about a month ago, my husband as well as working full time as a Firefighter also runs a web based business selling weather meters and other safety and fire gear and needed an Admin person to help him out after 9 years in the business, the past few have taken off and he's super busy so I am now helping him out, helping at the school in my youngest childs class listening to the preps read, and caring for 2 new litters in the Rabbitry with 11 kits in total and consequently little gardening has been done!

I did however manage to get into the garden this weekend with the lovely weather and managed to plant some daffodils, Freesia's, Ranancula's - those things remind me of teeny spiders and some Hyacinths all over the garden, 25 tulips in pots that have been chilling in the crisper for the past 2 weeks, some were starting to go a bit mouldy so not so sure about their ability for flowering, built a fence to utilise a garden bed in front of the chook yard, this bed the dogs were jumping on and the wire covering the chooks window was getting bent so it needed a plan and I figured why not use the bed! I moved some Rhubarb out of a large pot where is never seemed to do any good into the bed 3 large corms and then planted some Broccoli (a punnets worth) around the Rhubarb as these two are companion plants. Then we built a super study fence from some old wire we had lying around to contain my free ranging rabbit Pepa.

On that note and we never did get that wire up against the front fence Pepa has now been missing for 3 weeks, we are sad he is gone for sure but I am also glad we let him roam for 3 years after all he really hated being caged and had a great life even though by our standards it was short.

Also planted a few packets of sweet peas and a couple of Daphne plants - yes I love scents!

I noticed also this weekend that finally we have a few Lemons on the tree - oh joy I think I have been waiting about 4 years!! I have also got some distorted and claw like Lemons which means there is a mite on the tree damaging the buds as they form although I am still going to eat the lemons though, should still be able to use some of it.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

May 2011 - The Veggie Garden-Cottage Garden





Well finally after carting over tons of Horse manure from a neighbour, adding gypsum and cow manure and a dash of rabbit poo and then letting the rain do it's job, more turning and breaking down the horse manure - someone please remind me to mow the darn stuff first to make it little more fine and workable next time I do this!!!
It's ready! One more rake over with he metal rake and ready for planting, all aligned with the moon planting guide all set!

Ive planted some red onions a couple of weeks ago for this season as they did well last year, Carrots, Turnips a special thin sort though more like a Carrot, a red Turnip also long and thin, Broccoli, loads of it, Rocket, Cress, gourmet Lettuce and some White Pak Choy and snow pea's. Many have been planted as seeds so won't see much action for awhile in this cold weather.

Also planted a few Polyunthus flowers for the front and need to plant up some pansies in some hanging baskets, and that's pretty much my Winter planting done.

I brought some Daffodils to plant after being thoroughly sure I planted and entire 2 beds last year after being really impressed with a friends Daffodils she grows in wine barrels. They never came up, Jordan my eldest son tells me my free ranging rabbit went around and systematically ate every single one as they came up and the tuber!!!! So this year he is I am desperately hoping he will stay in the back paddock to do his free ranging and I can actually grow some! Otherwise I may have to invest in some small wine barrels myself that are too tall for bunnies to raid!

News From the Rabbi try - we had 8 about 9 weeks ago some lovely kits born as Ive mentioned they are all in loving new homes now, which is fantastic, Siam is looking to mate again, I am fairly sure I will be only be breeding twice a year from the Does so she's going to have to wait awhile.

Soon I need to go and poach some leaves from the gutter, sounds awful but we have massive old street trees here in Ballarat and although I live in a very old street this was the miners cottage part of Ballarat and we don't have the lovely large old trees so I need to travel to central Ballarat and find a nice old large tree to rake and take - I always ask the owner first - they generally look at me like I am nuts, can live with that, lol, then the kids and I all help to get at least 4 large garbage bags of leaves for the compost bins. I have this feeling that oak leaves are the best for composting but its something I learnt during Horticulture and I can't remember why that was - maybe some research to do prior to collecting! A subject for the next blog!!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Re-using rabbit waste and rusty ornaments





Had a busy week here with my 2 does Ambika and Sian in the maternity pens, they have each had a litter of kits Sian 4 babies and Ambika 5, the kits are now in their
3-4th week and they are VERY lively little beings! Sians seem to be the more outgoing but Ambika's although a bit more shy now they will certainly come out of themselves by the time they are sold. Took Sians and her kits to the school this week to show the preps in my youngest sons class and the grade 3/4's in my middle sons class, I love showing the kids our pets and seeing their little faces light up when they see babies, gentle handling and lots of it is good for the kits too, although I didn't let the kids hold them they are too young and fragile.

I have had to clean these guys out every 2-3 days especially Sian's pen which also has her daughter from the previous litter so twice the waste! The kits are starting to come out of the nest and venture to the food bowl and water bottle so opening the pen is hard as it's raised and they come close to toppling out each time! I cannot wait to shift them all back to their pen outdoors, I am concerned by the amount of mozzies we still have here though we really need a good cold snap to get rid of them, I don't want to risk the litter getting Myxo.

I have the perfect use for the huge amount of wood shavings/straw and rabbit poo though, I put the whole lot neat onto the garden, I had just weeded the lot over the past 2 weeks and it's not only fantastic mulch but awesome fertiliser too! Doesn't smell the best when I initially apply it but give it a week or so the smell is fine and it looks great!

I love rust, I don't know why, it just reminds me of the past I think, here are a couple of rusty ornaments I have hanging around, I also have a really old bullock wheel in the garden and some old frames and a gate leaning against the fence that has been burnt too in a fire at an old house to give it the added look of rustic, I guess they suite our home which is cottage and was built 1890.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Chickens/veggiebeds and the woodfire






I am slowly starting to suspect that Chick Chick my little chick born late last year from Rocky the Hamburg and Henry the Cochin is actually not a hen but rather a little cockeral!! Last week we noticed the chickens had scaley legs and Id not treated for worms for a while either or mites so I teamed up Ken Jordan and once it got dark for easy access to the girls as there are all roosting and I prepared a syringe with garlic water, Ivomectin in another syringe and a massive tub of Vaseline and lavender. One by one we plucked Henry and his girls off their perches to be given garlic via their mouth, Ivomection on the back of their necks and have Vaseline smothered all over their legs. This suffocates any mites that might be there.

I noticed at the time that Chick Chick had awfully long rear feathers and seemed to be beginning to grow leg spurs. Also saw on Henry he's snapped a spur off and the other one is literally inches long! Thank goodness he's a friendly Rooster! So Chick Chick's days here will be numbered unfortunately as we did try having 2 Roosters once and it was just too noisy, I would love to be tough enough to eat him that is real self sustainability but we can't eat our pets so usually with any Roosters I breed I find homes for them they also won't eat them. Last time Henry's son went to a lovely couple out at Stawell who were vegetarians and had a large property with many Roosters and hens all free ranging. Hopefully I can be lucky enough to find another such family.

In the veggie garden I have completely removed everything bar a few celery plants for the rabbits from the beds. I plan to order some sheep manure they sell large bags up here for around $3.50 per bag the bags are the 40kg feed ones, I was planning on this during this week but unfortunately Ken has started lighting the fire on these cold nights and my Saturday paper with the add in it has been re-used! I will smother the beds with this and then leave for a couple of weeks before planting Winter crops hopefully sometime around the end of April.

We have been busy buying up wood, there was also an add in the paper about cutting your own for about $12.50 per trailer which is very good as we are paying $65m2 for common wood and about $100m2 for redgum and box, we need those thicker slower burning woods in mid-Winter up here because it gets so cold.

Speaking of wood and burning I am always looking for ways to light the fire without having to use firelighters. We use pine cones, gather any small sticks on bush walks and also stuff our toilet rolls with the lint from the dryer and the shredded paper from the fax and scrap paper.
But recently I pulled all the Sunflowers out of the ground and had them all stacked on the trailer and Brahma my Rhodesian Ridgeback pup got to one and must have chewed the stalk and either his throat go irritated or some got a bit stuck because he had a cough for 1 day. In researching the plant and if anything could be dangerous for him I came across a site that mentioned all the uses for Sunflowers there are quite a few and one was that you dry out he flower heads and use as firelighters, of course the seeds are full of Sunflower oil which is going to be pretty flammable so off to the trailer the next day and Ive cut all the heads off and am in the process of drying them all. Can't wait to see how well it works, very hard to store thought as EVERY critter wants to eat them from the bugs to the mice!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Dog Poo Compost





Today I decided the time was right to uncover the cake of dog poo compost I have been collecting for about the past 9 months. I stopped using the compost bin and starting adding to much larger one. We have an awful lot to collect each day with a Rhodesian Ridgeback, Golden Retriever and Border Collie.

I also added straw from the chook pen to the pile and old leaves, but mostly it was dog poo I then left the top open to collect the rain and left for a good 6 months and then turned it probably every 3 months.

There was pretty much no smell after the first 3 months and the end result is a lovely rich loamy type of compost, it was full of worms you may be able to see some when Ive put it in the wheelbarrow. I am not quiet game to throw directly on the veggie patch but I have added to my building compost pile, which currently has rabbit waste, straw and compost mush from the house - peelings and anything really the chooks, rabbits and worm farm won't eat.

Check out the end result for yourself I am really pleased with it. pity we can't do the same with human waste easily, I am not yet game for that though!

Just remember if your ever composting dog poo and you've just wormed the dogs, it WILL kill all the worms in the compost too. I pretty much added for so long it didn't seem to effect it too badly possibly I added some composting worms after the worming of the dogs, just something to remember.