Lessons and Yolks

Well, first an update on the Monster Monster egg. Yep, she was a double yolker all right!

We got a yummy lunch of scrambled eggs on toast (sorry Frugalites - it was bought bread - but a local baker!!) out of this and just one more egg - for the two of us. Oh and sorry - I forgot to take photos of it once it was all cooked up. My God it was good though. So thank you Keema and keep up the good work.  She's only missed one day since that post - all pretty consistent around the 78g mark. The other two lay about 5 a week each. I'm keeping a tally so I can look back over the years. We got about 51/2 dozen in September. You can see how I'm progressing in my quest to build a food forest too by clicking on the Harvest Diary tab at the top of this page :)

And now for the lessons. Every journey towards growing your own food is full of lessons, and I've just learnt a big one. Don't let your seed trays dry out and DO use good seed raising mix.  All of the gardening gurus in books and in Blogland say so, but little Miss Greenie got a bit over-confident didn't she?

You might remember me blogging about asking my daughter to make a mercy dash to check on the chooks and water the seedlings?  Well, if they were already seedlings they made it, and if they were in the good seed raising mix in the bucket - they came up anyway, but those I potted with a mix of seed raising mix, and soil from the gardener - NADA!  Well, that's unfair, I have three rockmelons, two sweetcorn, two zucchini (but I don't reckon one of them will last) a couple of struggling leeks and a few purple Basil - oh! a one tomato! That's it - out of 20 punnets!

I'm bowed but not beaten. So, all that soil will be unceremoniously tossed into a little nook in the garden to see if anything eventuates. Meantime, I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

This time, I'm going to plant some in punnets and some straight into the ground - and see what happens.  This can be the beginning of my planting diary, which I will also put on the tabs at the top so you can see what's happening.

Wish me luck! I've heard from a few blog-friends, like Our Gang of 7 and Outback Tania that they struggle too with planting seeds into punnets. What about you - any secrets to share?

Take care
Greenie x

On Skeletons and Cold Weather

Given that it's lunch-time and still only 4 degrees outside - I thought I'd make a pictorial record of the development of the garden over the past few years.  We had an extension to the house done a few years ago that caused total devastation to the garden.

We were lucky enough to have a bit left over after the extension, so we got the garden landscaped, and paving put in so that my son, who was in a wheelchair could get around the whole area. Sadly, my lovely boy died a couple of years ago, but I'll always remember him whizzing about the paths in his chair and laughing that we could play cricket on the lawn again now!
Since then, I've been planting and getting the chooks to help me improve the soil. I've got about 20 types of fruit:

• Apples (x4)
• Apricot
• Avocadoes
• Blueberries (x5)
• Boysenberries (too many to count)
• Feijoa (x2)
• Gooseberries (x2)
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi-Fruit
• Lemon
• Mandarin (x6)
• Nectarine (x2)
• Orange
• Olive (x2)
• Peach
• Pear
• Quince
• Raspberries (x4)
• Rhubarb
• Strawberries (x23)

With the help of the Sustainable Gardener (the world's best gardener!), who employs young disabled people to help tend a whole bunch of gardens around Canberra, the garden now looks like this:

As you can see, still plenty of work to do, but the skeleton is in place, and things are starting to come along.  In the veggie patch there is:

• Brussels sprouts
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Onions
• Celeriac
• Celery
• Leeks

And two lots of silverbeet in two other garden beds. Shallots, garlic and asparagus in large numbers dotted along a number of the borders.  Loads of comfrey, as well as parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage and chives. Oh! and an almond tree with two types of almond on it.  The chooks' Day Facility is currently on the (alleged) lawn because it's so full of weeds that I figured this would be good green feed for them while the red peas from all the pea straw mulch take off in the other beds. I was going to construct a bit of a run for them so they could get at the weeds and frost-affected tomatoes (we were away when the frosts came), but its sooo cold out there!  Poor darlings are a bit fed up, but they'll eat more of the grass weeds in the lawn this way, and I'll get their run made for them over the next few days.  Something must be working though, because I got a perfect day yesterday - 3 eggs!
I'd love to hear your comments on how you think our little food forest is developing. What's happening in your garden? Post a comment and link back to your blog or drop your photos right in.
Talk soon - Greenie x

The Monster Egg

 

Finally, I managed to work out how to post the picture of Keema's egg onto the blog.  Hint: Blogger isn't very iPad friendly! I'll learn! I also managed to plant up 12 punnets with seeds and put into the mini-greenhouse I have.  I planted:

• silverbeet
• sugarbeet
• beetroot (seeds from a very kind woman on the Earth Garden Path who was sharing)
• turnip
• swede
• onions (x2)
• leek
• lettuce
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• pak choi

I planted some parsnip seeds in front of the apple tree, but they should have been planted by May according to the packet so I don't know if they'll grow.

And, I planted out 20 strawberries and a bunch of onion seedlings I had.

I loosened the bottom edge of my chook tractor so that I can move it sometime this week. It's not the most stable chook tractor in the world but it keeps the girls happy and I can walk inside it, so it meets all the immediate needs. I can't carry heavy weights anymore, so I need something lightweight and mobile - but sturdy would be a bonus.  Maybe photos of that next post!

I'm wondering now whether to go for a small mobile nesting box, or to stick with the large floor size of this tractor so I can lock them in there to deter the pesky (but very cute) little male cat who's moved in next door and who spooks them by chasing them.  My previous girl, Bella, would have pecked at him and put him in his place, but these girls are all scaredy-cats (pardon the pun!).

After a nasty experience with a fox a couple of years ago, we installed Guantanamo Chook - a secure facility complete with wire floor that we lock the girls into at night, so I don't need the chook tractor to house them.  And I have a couple of lengths of chicken wire (and bird netting) fence so that I can limit their foraging habits to the parts of the garden I want them to dig up during the day. So the only dilemma is to keep them safe from cats - and maybe dogs while also having the easy mobility I need now.  Any ideas? I'll receive all suggestions - and feel free to post photos or links.

I've been dreaming of something high off the ground, rather like the Milkwood rawbale house but on a much smaller scale and on wheels, with a handle - like from an old pram - so that I can wheel it into position, erect the fencing, block the wheels with a couple of bricks and we're set for another couple of weeks.  Imagination - plenty - skills and materials - a bit limited!

Hope you enjoy the photo of the egg - I expect Miss Keema will be exhausted today after that mammoth effort yesterday!

Talk again soon
Greenie x

Heeeeeer'es Greenie!

Well, hello everyone. After following a whole bunch of gardening, Permaculture and self-sufficiency type blogs over the past few years, I've finally taken the plunge and started one myself!

The clincher came late this afternoon when I checked for eggs and discovered that Keema, my big beautiful black Australorp had laid a whopping 90g egg! We've been getting low to mid 80 grammers ever since they came back onto the lay a few weeks ago - in the middle of winter. I was expecting to have to wait until Spring because they just never got back into laying after their moult in February and March. But about the 1st July - freezing cold - that old familiar sound - weening and whining - and the - an egg! Production has been steadily increasing.

I have three girls, 2 Light Sussex, Lacey and Minnie the Moocher, and the big Australorp, Keema. I started out with Cagney and Lacey, after the female detectives, but Cagney turned out to be James Cagney, and had to be sold off to a very appreciative Sri Lankan family to become Cagney Curry! Keema after the very beautiful and slightly cool detective on the wire.

When Minnie came along I just knew she was never going to cut it as a detective. She had been repeatedly montered by a rooster in her original home - so much so that she had no feathers on her back. Unfortunately, my girls did not welcome her with open arms, offer support or sympathy. No, no, no - they victimized her further and pecked at her bare patch, and made her sleep in a nesting box on her own. So there was no chance of a female detective's name. When she was let out with the rest of the girls, she would just mooch about on her own, staying pretty close to home, and trying not to be noticed by the others so she'd get pecked at again. So, Minnie the Moocher she became, and Minnie the Moocher she has stayed.

Over time, she has been accepted into the flock, and she kicked up a hell of a row when Miss Moneypenny (literally)fell off her perch. So now we're back to 3 girls. I'd like more, but I'm not sure another single is a good way to go. I keep secretly hoping one of them will go brooch so I can get some fertile eggs and see what happens but no luck last Spring ...

Anyway, here's the egg that finally tipped me over the edge into Blogging Land! Hmm, it won't let me upload from iPad so you'll have to wait till tomorrow for the photo and the next exciting installment.

Talk soon!
Greenie x