A Great Find

I have a wonderful service available for all you growing types to use

www.vingerssoiltestlaboratory.yolasite.com

This is my father-in-law's web site for soil testing. He did mine for me and I will be sending him a follow up sample to see how it has changed in the last 6 months.
You should have seen his lovely permaculture garden in Riebeck West. It really was impressive. He even grew such great olives in a very short time. Must have been doing something right.

And I know I have been very slack in updating you about what we have been up to out here, but we have had "things" keeping us busy. I need to finish a pruning task and then I post the before and after pics for you to see.

The Rain we were complaining about has come

Well as the title says...

Before- looking down Oak Alley

 After. Note the very old oak tree we were unable to pull down with the tractor but the wind blew it over for us.










Before at the lunge ring

  During- 8th June 2011

After- 9th June 2011

Below is the drift area. It's like a roughly cobbled road with water over it most of the time but it has it's dry times too.

The pic below is how it normally looks and the one below right was when we thought we'd had a lot of rain.

This was taken this morning. Jan is standing where Max was standing in the last pic and can you see the drift in the distance? It had a standing wave. Anyone for a swim? It was flowing so strongly that standing dead trees were wobbling in it's path. We will not be getting out along our driveway anytime soon either.

Goodbye Greeba

I had to say goodbye to my old lady cat today. Goodbye Greeba- see you on the other side. She was 15 and was named after Greebo in Terry Pratchett's novels. The cat who ate dogs and she did in her day.

I realised on the way to the vet, that it took me as long to get onto the road from our house as it would have taken to drive to the vet in Midrand. And after a chat with someone undergoing hijacking every month in our old street, thank goodness we don't live there anymore. I think I'll stick with the mousebirds that eat all my crops. When the bird netting is finally up, that too will be solved. That is as long as the wind doesn't take that on holiday.

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...