Mushrooms

I have never seen such a lovely collection and variety of mushrooms- all inedible or poisonous! Bugger.

How cool are all of these?! There must be about 13 different kinds we have found so far. Pity we can't eat any. These orange tufts really looked like fairies should be close by but as it happens we did pind a pixi!

The above pic is of the Carob tree's flowers- very odd. They grow all over the trunk and thick branches directly and lots of them turn into pods. There seem to be 2 distinct shapes - male and female I suppose.




Can you see how all the trees and grass are bending? Man the wind can blow around here! This was today when we had planned to put up the bird netting to defend the veggies from the swarm of mousebirds which eat everything. We could barely walk, let alone put up netting. Hoping to get this done tomorrow to save our crop of green peppers, the last of the yellow tomatoes and would you believe, the purple cauliflowers are just sticks left in the ground? The birds ate every leaf! I don't even want to plant out the cabbages, brocolli and watercress.

The Supermoon, new test field

The Super moon- and a monkey up way too late!

"Now what can I eat before it has a chance to get to leave the garden?"
Leeks on his right, rhubarb and cauliflower on the left.
"Hmm, nothing here. Where are the tomatoes, carrots, beans and baby spinach?"
The worst critter to attack my garden yet!

Jan "scratching" the surface of a small test field. We then used another plough to make just 3 mounds, leaving enough space for the tractor to drive between. We will plant in the mounds immediately (long term crops and eventhough the soil is horrible) and continue to doctor the bits in between with all manner of worm wee, compost, cut grass, horse manure, compost tea etc. Once the soil is looking a bit better, I will post pics of before and after and what we did.
Dogs waiting patiently for some horse play.

These are the few very valuable rainbow corn seeds I got from Linda at Sought After Seedlings. Hopefully next year we will actually eat some! In front are beetroot and garlic and in the foreground some wheat I got from Lesotho. I have kept it for several years as seed wheat. See- if you store it properly, it can last a long time.
In the tyre is a sprouted potato from my kitchen.

Di & Ness- aren't you proud?! This is Tarrence- our tractor. Max was so chuffed. And 4 years old. We've made it this far, I think we'll be ok now.

or not (on the winter rain that is)

So I have waited for this elusive rain to plant my little bags of winter wheat but 2mm does not count as rain in my books. Yesterday, I thought forget this, I'll water it a bit. Off I go to plant. I learnt a valuable lesson about farm life and long term thinking even with the seemingly small stuff.

Remember I said I have got a few bales of straw from my neighbour who farms conventionally? Well, there were lots of seeds in it and I let them grow and the birds ate them and dropped lots. Now that I want to plant my heirloom seed, I can't. There are still so many seeds sprouting and growing of the hybrid (probably GM) stuff. What a bummer! I don't want to mix my nice stuff with that junk. Who knew there would still be some many seeds growing.

So the lesson is- BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND.

I don't have a lot of the heirloom seeds so I guess I will have to plant small handfuls in bags or pots in my greenhouse. At least then they won't cross pollinate and I can still at least double my seed crop. Not ideal.

Next problem to solve (beginning with the end in mind), is how will I harvest thresh, winnow and clean these lovely seeds?

Winter rain started today...

And I am not quite ready! I am supposed to plant my wheat (heirloom non-gm seeds from a new supplier) now but feel my soil still needs some work. I think I am going to have to plant it and doctor the soil as it grows. Not the best solution but rather that than no planting at all.

Jan mowed a small field for me to prepare for spring planting- well done Jannie on figuring out how to attach the mower to the tractor and then how to do a great job.
Next on top of all that grass and weeds, goes all the lovely horse poo I can collect. Love that job. Feels like I am collecting treasure. On top of that goes a spray concoction of humic acid, worm wee and compost tea. Real muti! And finally on top of that goes cut grass from our yard. This is my basic plan to fix the hard pan which is supposed to be our growing land.

I suppose that sounds simplistic but I only did part of that in the veggie garden and it has worked so well. This has got to be better. When the weeds come up, we will cut them before they flower and then lightly turn it all in and begin the whole process again. I will take some photos of the soil before and after.

Fire up old Tarrance the tractor Jannie. Let's do another field before the rain makes it too wet!

hmmm. now about that dodgy driveway in the rain...

New things- chicks and the veg garden

This the veg garden as we began around November/December. And the pic that follows was taken today. I was very pleased that my father-in-law was happy with my soil progress. He does soil testing by mail and did mine for me. Great that he can see the change already.

Here are the girls! Our future egg layers- albeit only in spring! Their names are Hope, Mimi, Pearl, Annie & April. Don't ask me, ask Max!

Planting Day

Today is Planting Day but it is so hot here (32 in the shade at 11am) so we started early and are already done. I planted sage seeds & seedlings, pineapple tops, broccoli seed, carob tree seeds and ginger rhizomes.
That's an odd combination but it's just what needed doing now.

Ginger and horseradish.

 Not sure if this is helping but Max says it is.







Good luck with your planting. I hope you do it in a mindful way that makes your heart sing.

 We raced to get ready for the arrival of our chicks. Jan is taking out barbed wire strands and putting in mesh fencing in this pic. It means 2 gates for Granny to walk through before she can come for dinner!

They are finally in. I doubt we'll get many eggs before winter but at least we have the right creatures for summer.

 We went walking around an area we had not previously explored and found the most wonderful section of river. Max HAD to get naked and have a swim. Little elf in the water! We will need to clear the fallen wattles from this area but it should not take long and it will be such a great picnic area.

 Slavery alive and in practice on the farm! Max and Jan chopped wood and Max's wagon came in useful getting it up the hill.

Below is our first haul of honey from an old hive just left to the wild bees. It was a mission to squeeze it out by hand but we got about 2kgs and a huge ball of wax which is still dripping honey. Apparently this honey is good for a yeast of sort- for mead or bread. Will give that a bash.

It's a very sticky job but at least I did not get stung. And Max had his first piece of really fresh honey in the comb. Delish! He was so chuffed.