Blog rebirth

I was about to start a new blog. It's been years since I've had the time, in fact its scary to consider how fast life is going. 

Finding this again though has been lovely, to look back and see how much we've learned and experimented. 

Lots has happened in the gap. Lots of hard stuff, the life stuff. I'm grateful in retrospect that this space was reserved for the nice things though, and in all honesty know that we're older but wiser for it all. I've learned to make peace with things and know that they've made our family stronger as a unit. 

We're in such a different spot now. Time to continue celebrating life now I have the time and headspace to do so.

The Chook's Slater Storage Unit

I LOVE this time of the year!
This weekend saw the chook pen get a bit of TLC.  The marri trees which were felled last year were finally dragged out - their leaves had dried and fallen making excellent bug forage spots.
I made 2 new log piles, one on top of a small mulch pit. In a few months I'll dismantle them, giving the chooks a super bug feast treat!

A New Chapter

It's been a long time since I've blogged.

Our lives have changed significantly with the passing of a couple of years, as has the garden.

Happily BOTH are doing better than they ever have, thanks to lots of inputs and energy, and we're ready to take on some new challenges.

The vegie patch has proved successful and I seem to have a better idea of what I'm doing. The soil has improved greatly over the past few years and the plants grow quicker, healthier and more resistant to pests.

We keep wanting to eat only from the garden, and while for the first time ever this year we've certainly had HEAPS of food (enough to fill 3 freezer drawers!) we haven't eaten solely from the garden.

I'm challenging us to obtain all our fruit and veg from the garden during the school holidays, starting this October. We may have to supplement potatoes and onions in October as they won't be as bountiful as our demand, but the summer holidays should be doable.

One thing I've finally learnt is that abundance requires a huge amount of planning, a good amount of time earlier. Planning and seeing things through in an organised, methodical way isn't something that comes easily to me. I get bored, lose interest, forget....  attributes I used to berate myself for but I've stopped letting this get in the way of trying things. Better to to give things a go, and enjoy small wins than not start anything for fear of not seeing it through. The journey is what's important, more so than the destination.

So Cwm Goch Chronicles is getting a much-needed reboot as I will need somewhere to plan and schedule plantings.
I've downloaded what looks to be a wonderful garden planner from Family Food Garden on Etsy.
Tomorrow, I'll take photos of the garden as it's been a long time since the photos here have been updated. Lots of changes to see. Here's an aerial shot in the interim.

Excited at starting something again.

Super Simple Rosemary Propagation

It amazes me that plants like rosemary can fetch such a high price in nurseries. It is so easy to propagate. A few minutes to prepare, a few weeks to start growing and you can have yourself the beginnings of a whole hedge if you want!

Rosemary cuttings (take 10cm cuttings of soft new tips) grows very easily simply stuck in a jar of water and left on the window sill. People say these sorts of 'water roots' aren't as strong as the sort you get from planting in the ground, but if you want a year round guaranteed method, it's the easiest. Once they've formed 2cm long white roots dangling from the base, you simply pop them into a pot or directly in place in the garden. Rosemary is most vigorous in the warmer months so don't be disappointed if you plant these in winter and find they are slow to take off. They soon will as the temperatures rise.

Another easy method is to look for parts of the main plant which have been resting on the ground. Often the plant will start to root at this point (and you can deliberately force this to happen by pinning a piece of the large plant down onto the ground and covering it a little, then wait a month or so).

When I was pruning our path clear today, I notice a few spots which had reached the ground in this way. Here is one.










And you can see, that gently lifting the part that had contact with the ground reveals some roots.

I cut this section free of the main plant...

and then trimmed the top and side to make a neater shape above the roots.




 Next, I potted it up and gave it a quick water. There! All done!

So simple, and within a few weeks new growth will be apparent.
I will prune the new growth and keep in the pot for a a bit longer until I know the roots have really taken hold.


Then it will either go into the ground or be given away. So simple!

Happy Geese Season Means Swales!

It's 'Happy Geese Season' here at Cwm Goch (you probably know it as Autumn) and this past week has given us an abundance of beautiful rain with surprisingly mild temperatures. So despite being rundown with a bug, I managed to get out with younger munchkin and together we quickly built a small swale to catch the significant amount of water which was collecting down the drive.

A swale is basically a ditch which you would dig on contour in order to catch the water and hold it,  instead of allowing it to run off. I won't go into much detail because I've posted about this before. If you aren't familiar with swales there is a lot of good info here: How to build a swale on contour successfully - Permaculturenews.org
Suffice to say, our aim was to help the water gathering in large pools to wash down where we wanted it to go.

To do this, ditches were made going down the hill (making it easier for the water to flow downhill where it naturally wanted to go) and then a swale was dug across the hill on contour to catch that water in a location we wanted it to stay.  See pics.

 This photo was taken from the high point (the large driveway puddles are behind me). You can see we've guided 2 streams in to join at a fork and continue down hill. When it was raining hard, the water was moving through this very swiftly.

The joined ditch moves on another couple of metres (6ft) and parts in front of the netted plum tree you can see in the centre of the photo. We deliberately made the downhill ditches very skinny to reduce absorption and therefore loss. Then we reach a T-junction. The picture to the left shows how some of the water gathers to the right while some of it continues to the left, past this tree.

And that's because we wanted the bulk of the water to make it further down to our 2 citrus trees (a navel orange and mandarin - see right)

I wasn't brave (silly) enough to take the camera out in the pouring rain so I'm afraid you won't get a shot of the swales being full but you can see where it filled to by the darker silt marks.

A lot of water fell this week and it's reassuring to know that instead of running off to nowhere, we've caught it and it's now being stored underground right where our trees need it.
We dug a similar system at the top of our food forest, but the swale is a bigger, deeper pit. It's right at the top corner, so hopefully all the winter catchment will support some good spring growth as none of food forest trees in the top section get watered, ever. They are hardy varieties like pear, nectarine, mulberry, nashi pear, pomegranate and almond, which helps and whilst they had some water in their first 2 years, now they're on their own - with winter rainfall only. The hope is that as they grow their canopy will provide more shade, reducing evaporation and the area should become lush over time.

Will post pics of the big ditch filling up later in the season. Have a great week! Enjoy the rain if you're getting some. :)

Farm Favourites - Perennial Leek

I LOVE leeks. Being from a European background, we ate them as a vegetable, cooked down to a soft mush in butter, salt and pepper - but who can afford to do that these days when a single leek is $3?!
And who can bear to wait the 10 months it takes to grow a few beauties in the garden? Not me.

So here's the solution, perennial leeks.

They grow easily, will stay around all year if kept watered in summer and those that don't, come up again in autumn once the weather gets cooler and there have been a few rains. The ones in the picture to the left have just sprouted a couple of weeks ago so are only small. They will get to full leek size if left to grow. They prefer a well-drained, rich soil, but will tolerate poor soils just as easily. You can harvest them early to add flavour to a dish or wait until they're thicker. If you want a longer white stem (favoured by the French and Belgians), bury them very deep to blanch the stalk as it grows and continue to mound it up. 

These spread from a central leek. You cut the fattest and leave the others to grow. Personally, I want thousands in my garden,a never ending supply of glorious leek, so for the past 3 years I've been separating them to make new plants. Here's how...

First, carefully lift the clump with a small trowel. You must lift them, as pulling individuals will result in them breaking - they are fragile when young.

Shake the dirt off gently and you'll see that the base is where all the smaller bulbs are formed. Carefully separate the smaller leeks. 

And voila! A new leek plant to put into the bed. This baby will grow, thicken and divide again within a year. So easy! So delicious!

Happy gardening! :)

Step Forward in Time

It's a wonderful thing, to have friends who remind, inspire and motivate you to rekindle things when they've gone by the wayside.
The Crone (of Wit's End fame) is one of those. She's firing up her blog again and in doing so has reminded me that I enjoyed blogging and have let it go.
And my feelings around that are an indicator of how much growing has happened inside and out over the past 2 years. Where once I would have felt guilt and berated myself for evidence of yet another thing I have failed to do, lacked discipline on etc, now I can smile and expect that my blog will have rests over the duration of its life, just as we all need to let things rest and pick them up again when our fancy and appropriate energy levels allow.
Amazing what a diagnosis or three will do. Family issues will be left alone here, as that is a topic for another blog altogether. Suffice to say, that wonderful changes have happened which are making all our lives easier and happier. This blog however, is not my journey but Cwm Goch's. And though small, the steps towards the Grand Plan are in constant motion.

So here are some things which have changed, grown or been learnt since our last chat.


POND
This is the highlight of our food forest. Home to tadpoles, frogs, various naturally occurring invertebrates and now 4 koi (a gift from my parents for my 40th).
It is the place I come to at the end of a hard day to sit on the tiny pallet deck with a glass of wine and a handful of koi food. Best thing I ever built. And it is little, 1.5 x 2.5m or thereabouts, it just always looks a lot bigger in the photos.
Here's the growth.

Summer 2014                                                                 Autumn 2016

It also has a small waterfall to aerate the water for the koi, but it keeps getting clogged. Haven't worked out a solution to this yet. It has a filter but there's so much slime it clogs within 24hours. Might need to encase the pump in a box that rests on the slime so the base isn't stirred. 

Buddha has also found a more fitting home, under the loquat tree which I hope will one day stretch out over the pond and provide shade on the pathway beneath it. This tree grew from a seed dropped by a bird, which grew into a small plant and which I subsequently transplanted here.

So for anyone wondering, yes, you can grow loquat trees from seed.

Food Forest

Slowly but surely the food forest is starting to feel like a forest.

There are spaces within it which are shaded, and the children have to come and 'find' me when I'm in it because there is no longer a clear view through the place.

 I had given up on under-storey for a while as the plants would die every summer, beaten by our 40+ degree days which fried everything that wasn't heavily shaded.
Things are getting to a point though where with a few strategically located toughies (arrowroot, pigeon pea etc) I'm considering trying this again.











(Bare ground - though well mulched now - ready for under-storey planting in the upcoming spring).

Also a video I watched on forest agronomy showed just how thick they were laying the 'chop and drop'. It was 30-40cm. I tried this on a small section beneath our jaboticaba (which has stayed at the 1.2m mark for 3 years) and it positively thrived during the hottest part of our summer - putting on new growth and growing!

Jaboticaba - 1.4m (Note thick mulch)

I've mulched before, but the difference this time was the thickness and the layering of green and brown - basically in situ compost layering. Not thick enough to get hot like compost (a good thing as this would have harmed the plant, no doubt) but thick enough to hold moisture and thrive with a good deep watering once every week/fortnight. Amazing given our hot summers.

This is the other side of the bare patch. Hoping to fill the space under and around the apple tree at some point. Chop and drop ongoing in this space in the hope that it will break down and create humous.



So that's the food forest, lots of growth and lots more shade, but just as many patches which need work.

Successes

Ice-cream Bean Tree
The ice-cream bean tree has finally produced pods!!!! We are just waiting on them to plump up a little  more before we try them. I've read that the seeds will sprout if placed immediately into soil so that's what will be happening as I'd like a few more of these. They are good shade trees and will grow tall enough to form canopy. Most of my food forest trees are mid-storey (peaches and such) so a few taller specimens will be welcome to form more layers and denser shade.

Pecan Tree

The pecan tree also has 3 nuts on it for the first time ever. When we shifted these bricks from the verandah area I repurposed them for a seat around the tree. It will be lovely to sit in the shade of a huge tree one day (and eat the nuts - yum!)

Panama Gold Passionfruit

Remember the old acacia that snapped and died? I convinced the husband to leave it as a frame for a passionfruit vine. Well, it took a couple of years but this summer/autumn we've had our first crop. They are delicious! And the high growing place means they are safe from foraging children who like to pick things before they're ripe and before I ever get a taste.

Feijoa

Semi-successful.
They've grown a bit and given us a handful of fruit, but to be honest I was expecting more from them by now. 

Maybe exponential growth will see us have more next year.

And that red-tipped plant is the Brazilian Cherry - barely budged in size or status since I planted it. Proof that I'm an optimist and useful for very little else.

Current Projects

French Bio-intensive plot

Inspired by our cousin whom we've shared our bottom paddock with so she can start up a market garden, I've made some 'market garden' style beds closer to the house for our own use.

This came about from my annoyance at buying vegies. It seems stupid given that we have so much space, yet our plantings in the past still only offer side dishes to supplement a meal or two a week at best. Our fruit supply gives us dessert most nights if we choose, but vegies have eluded us.

Hopefully, these beds will change this somewhat.

Seed raising

Past failures had me leave this for a while but the amount of seedlings we need for the bio-intensive beds far exceeds what I'm prepared to pay for so I'm having another go.

What I've learnt is that choosing the strongest seedlings, pricking them out and transplanting them to a second deeper container (which allows the roots to grow longer) means they take less time to grow once transplanted into the ground while taking up less resources and time to care for them in the interim.
Well, that's what the literature says, we'll see if it all works out, but it's looking good so far.

These spinach seedlings have been pricked out and will be moved into the beds in a couple of weeks.

Beside them are youngberries ready for a seed swap or to give to a friend, and my first try at pigeon peas which I'm hoping to grow for shelter and food.

And that's enough for one post. A pretty good catch-up on the whole methinks.

Good to be back, now to head over to Wit's End and see what's happening there...

The forest survived....just.

Well it's 6 months again since the last post. Lots of work was done during long service, areas paved, things pruned etc. But the garden ended up being left to fend for itself. We had such a hot, long and dry summer that it became apparent that I was wasting time and water watering everyday. Things would fry anyway.

So it was left, and now with a cool change in the air, I've finally felt encouraged enough to go out and assess the damage.
It's not as bad as I thought. Yes, some things have perished but those that have survived are now rearing to go with a bit of water and more tempered air. So I've divided all that survived - lemongrass, sugar cane, arrowroot, Jerusalem artichokes, a tiny banana and replanted them around the pond where it hurt most to see bare and brown patches. This time next year, it should at least look a little greener.

Now that I'm back to watering, the feijoa and loquat beside the pond have grown a little. The eggplant, worthless as it is for food because of the borers, will stay as shelter for the smaller things around it, and I've lanted potatoes in the newest beds hoping they'll help break up the soil there.

Everything got given a good mulching of sawdust and some bentonite (again). I just read that it takes 7 years before soil is stable enough to hold on to it's amendments. Some time to go.
Now, just 2 cool weeks later, the place is looking greener. The parsley and fennel seeds I threw everywhere have started to come up, as have the potatoes. The rhubarb crown I divided last year and thought I'd killed over summer have resprouted - Yay! And garlic chives and perennial leeks, along with the odd left behind garlic bulb have sprouted out of nowhere.

This past weekend saw the building of a small roof tile wall along the walk to the chookpen.

Its intention down the track (if I build it higher) is to keep animals out, but in the meantime animals are being locked out of the walled area as it's formed the perfect area for a long garden bed. This is where I've planted lettuces, more lemon grass, rhubarb, silverbeet, leeks, artichokes, some spuds and cabbages. A mix of things, but predominantly, things that by the end of the season will fill a space and be drought tolerant as the only water these will be getting in ths summer will be rain water stored from the garden shed roof. I have a theory that things grow better in rain water because there are no chemicals in it to kill the soil microbes. Will see if these things grow any differently. Have also planted climbing peas to go over the arch.

Another new experiment is a deep litter system in our chook pen. I've been mucking out every week or so and it's hard work and still seems to smell and get messy quick. This could be the perfect solution.

The idea is to create 'deep litter' in the pen which the chooks will scratch through and aerate. All I have to do is top up the litter each week and in 6 months the microbes within the bottom layers should have been working away and leave me with beautiful composty mulch and no smell. Seems too good to be true doesn't it. Less work, more rewards?

My deep litter consists of a sprinkle of garden lime, pine needles, gum leaves (or any others lying around) and straw. Chooks have an absolute ball scratching around in it. Very happy chooks indeed.

Will see what happens.

It feels good to be getting enthused again, but I'm desperately aware that what the garden needs is canopy. Plants, however well mulched, cannot thrive when their soil is scorched and the air around them is baking them. Shade is what we need, and it's frustrating how slow that progress is. Nothing else for it but time.

Back from the dead?

It's been ages since I've blogged. Going back to work more days this year has killed off any free time I might have had. And I haven't enjoyed it, but that's life.
But the good news is..... long service leave is just around the corner!!! I will have 3 glorious months to potter in the garden, get to all those jobs around the house that have been on the back burner for ages and generally reconnect with the things I've missed.
I am going to make a few years worth of soap, fill my freezer, grow enough tomatoes to have some stored for next winter, clean windows, pave, play guitar and piano (badly, I'll admit) and most importantly in between that spend heaps of quality time with my family. Hubby has his LSL at the same time, so we'll be dropping kid off to school and revelling in 6 glorious hours of 'quiet' time where we can get some serious work done on the place everyday!!!

Seriously, you have NO idea how excited. Bliss. :)

And it will mean more posts around here for a while too. The place has changed so much. It's lovely to look back through old posts and see it all.
Having neglected the place for 6 months - completely neglected - I went in last weekend and ripped out weeds in an attempt to reinstate paths through the place. Amazingly, things are still there. Sweet potatoes have tiny leaves sprouting, awakened by the odd days of warm weather we've had, strawberry plants are still in place, pepinoes have gone wild and needed serious culling, the hazelnuts are resprouting, tiny unidentified seedlings (that clearly aren't weeds) are popping up. All without any care for half a year. Yep, the 'food forest' nature of our patch is starting to take off. Very pleased to see it can survive without me.

Photos to come.

Pond Update

I've just been glancing back through the last post. It was just 8 months ago that our beautiful pond was a hole in the ground. I can't quite believe it! Here it is now.

We forget, amidst the work, that we are making progress. This is reminder to me.

Food Pond Part 1

We have 2 small ponds which we built over the last couple of years for fish and frogs. This week I got onto our first 'serious' pond which will be an experimental aquaculture pond.

I had dug out the hole a couple of months ago, but we had to wait for the budget to build up to get the liner. It's not cheap, but hopefully will last. Anyway, I thought I'd share what we're doing and how in case it's useful to someone else out there.

THE PLAN: Having read about 'natural pools' which are all the rave in the UK and US I wanted to reproduce something like that for fish. The idea with a natural pool is that if the ratio of plants to exposed surface water area is correct, the pool doesn't need filtration or aeration. Now, this may be different here in Oz as we have far more sun which means more potential algae growth etc, but the idea intrigues me. And I wonder if we may be able to grow some trout - not heaps, just 10 or so in a pond that exists this way. There are many times in the garden where I've broken the 'rules' so to speak, because the books said X wouldn't grow in spot Y. And they did. So I'm giving this a shot - worst case scenario, it doesn't work and I put in a pump.

THE METHOD
 I should add a disclaimer - I'm no expert at pond building. This is just the technique that has worked for us (having built a few I've had a little bit of practice) and as for the actual management of the pond and trout we're planning to put into it...... well that will be an experiment so stay tuned!

Ok so first - I dug a large hole! (Obviously!) Not just a hole though, a kidney sort of shape with a deep well in one end, and a 'shelf' that runs along the edge along a lot of the pond.
This provides different depths throughout the pond, and the ledge is where the plants will sit.

I cleared the bottom of the vegetation that had grown there over the last month or so. Apparently when it rots it can produce gases which will cause bubbles and your lining to rise down the track. If you dig your pond and line it straight away though, you won't have to worry about this step.

Next, I lined the bottom of the hole with newspaper and old bits of carpet. This is to prevent any sharp stones or sticks on the bottom making a hole in the lining. I feel pretty confident walking in the pond if I have to now, as the bottom is padded.

Then the liner goes in. I used a 0.7mm EPDM liner. This stuff is TOUGH! We have it in the other ponds and it has withstood a kelpie, a dobermann and geese with their claws. It's very rubbery and stretches. I wouldn't recommend using plain black plastic in Oz. The sun will break it down too quickly, and holes happen too easily. You don't want to be draining your pond to patch it if you can help it.

Fill the pond slowly. The ledge, I filled with fine gravel to anchor plants like water cress etc. Some gravel will be put in the bottom to do the same for bigger plants. NO soil goes in the water. This means the plants will clean the water because they will have to obtain ALL their nutrients from it alone.

Keep filling, levelling as you go if you're like me and didn't use a spirit level. There are some good diagrams which show cross sections of a pond if you look up 'frog pond' in Google images.

Just a tip: When you place your rocks around the pond, either choose large ones whose weight will ensure they don't shift, or make a small depression under the rear half of them so they don't go sliding into the pond when kids, dogs or anything else steps or leans on them. They need to be solid and well locked in. It's worth taking the time to do this bit right, for safety and also to stop rocks falling in and potentially damaging your lining.

Once the water reaches the bottom of the rocks, I fold up the lining behind them to make a higher lip, and fill some more so the rocks are partly submerged. I learnt from the other ponds that if you don't do this, then a bit of evaporation will have your rocks sitting proud of the water and your liner showing. Better to have them deeper to begin with so the pond always looks nice!

Heap dirt up behind the liner fold to hold the lip in place, then cover with rocks, dirt etc. Landscape the edge as desired.

I have made an entrance point to the pond which is shallower, and the double ledge acts as shallow stairs. This is for me to get in if I have to, as well as being helpful to the ducks and frogs.

There is also a runoff point on one side of the pond, which will drain excess water in the case of a downpour and direct it to the garden below.

Part 2 in a few days when the rest is done!

Swale in Action!

I was at work today while it poured, but Hubby thought of me and send me pics of the swale!

 

It's deeper at one end, which I actually don't feel is a real problem but I might try to even it out a little more.

 You don't appreciate the amount of water that runs off until you catch it. Seriously stoked about this!

A few weeks time and this place should start looking quite different.

Sweet Potato Harvest

What joy! Dug a hole today for a Pitaya and discovered a decent sized tuber. So we thought we'd dig up the small patch of sweet potatoes. What a haul!
These have got to be my new favourite veg. Looking forward to dinner tomorrow night!