Latitude 14 Eastern Australia [Archive] - Permaculture Forums from the Permaculture Research Institute

sun burn

08-06-2010, 08:42 PM

If I use this as a blog, I expect I will be the only person who will read it but I shall do it anyway. You never know.

Tomorrow I will be a mummy! This morning when I left home, I was not expecting. But before I got home from my trip to town I had decided to buy five muscovy ducks which I shall bring home tomorrow. I am so excited. I have been wanting chickens for quite a while. I have been putting it off lately because I wanted my father to build us a henhouse first. But today when I saw the advertisement on the board for the ducks, (which I had also decided I wanted beforehand) I thought well if I come home with ducks, he will have to get on with it. Of course I checked with the current owner of the ducks and he thought they'd be all right without a proper henhouse for a while, unlike chickens. But this afternoon, we rigged up a fenced yard for the ducks in which they will live for a few weeks to get used to their new home before i let them run about.

As a consequence of that visit, I will be getting some banana suckers too. And some sugarcane to plant. (I want to make my own sugarcane juice). And today I brought home a skirt full of passionfruit to eat from the farmers vine. He doesn't like them. I was tempted to bring home the man's dog who was a lovely staffy thing which the farmer doesn't care for much because she's not a working dog. I tried to persuade him to make a friend of her.

What a great day. :-)

Furthermore, this afternoon, during my gardening session i did mighty work felling trees with a little axe. I'm always waiting for my father to get out his chainsaw to deal with the nuisance rubbish trees we have around here. I need them removed to create sunlight. Yesterday i began by trying to ringbark the big branch of a tree that shades our solar hot water system. Winter is upon us and we need more hot water and my father has been too laggardly dealing with this tree that we have talked about for ages that needs lopping down the middle. Somehow i got the idea that, although I couldn't chop it down myself, I could probably kill half of it by ringing barking. He didn't say so but I think my father was impressed. Several others that are doing us no good around the place hit the turf as well.

sun burn

09-06-2010, 07:38 PM

I've got the ducks home now. Everything was going brilliantly until one duck flew out of his pen and we managed to chase it down the street until it disappeared instead of chasing it back to its pen. I've been looking all over but I can't find it. I think i've had my first casualty. Its a consolation that I have a drake who can make babies. Also apparenlty because the weather is cool now I shouldn't have to worry about snakes too much. I hope that true. I hope the snakes stay away long enough for us to build a safe house for them at night.

I also got some sugarcane pieces today and some banana plants.

My neighbour has a big pile of vegetable rubbish which I can have to add to my compost. His business creates the stuff so that's a good find.

I just sad about my duck. I hope we don't lose anymore. I didn't want to clip their wings and now of course I realise it would have been a good idea. We've put a roof on the duck pen so no more will be able to fly out at least.

My zucchini seeds have sprouted already. I must say that was very fast. Only a few days.

ppp

09-06-2010, 08:03 PM

bad luck about the duck.., it probably won't know where to come back to either, since it was so new..
sounds like things are going well! keep it up

eco4560

09-06-2010, 10:34 PM

Hey sun burn - betta watch out - you are officially hooked now. There's no turning back once you start with ducks and compost heaps and growing your own zucchini. You'll never be "normal" again. Welcome to the "edge" with all us other permies!
I got a nice surprise when I got home today - my Mum has dropped by and left me 4 rubbish bags full of coffee grounds and 2 of shredded paper. My brother in law works in a big hospital and scavenges stuff for me and my Mum brings it down when she visits. You should see chooks dust bathing in dry coffee grounds. It's like a Day Spa for my feathered friends!

sun burn

10-06-2010, 01:07 PM

Eco my sister will be home soon and she's always making coffee so i guess i will save her coffee grounds for the chooks that i will be getting.

So yesterday i got the ducks home. Lovely they are but a bit frightened of the move. They've obviously never left home before. We put them in the pen and not so long after one flew out of the pen. I hadn't wanted to cut their wings before because i was afraid of snakes and thought they might need to fly out of the pen to escape. But this was a mistake because now I've lost a duck and secondly its too cold for snakes at this time. Anyhow, I will keep hunting for the lost duck and she might come back. My farmer who sold me the ducks just phoned me today about something else. He said if the duck doesn't come back he'd give me another. Anyway after the ducks flew out we thought we had better cover the pen after all. We put greenhouse mesh on the top and pretty soon i realised what a good solution to snakes it would be. My father agreed and said it would be the cheapest solution also. So that's what I will do when we build a proper hen and duck house. Because we have lots of greenhouse mesh around here. But even if we had to buy it, it seems to be cheaper than wire mesh and its a lot easier to handle.

So when the farmer phoned up just now, we chatted about this and that and we got on to the topic of chickens. He's got lovely black ones. He said he'd breed some up for me. I love it when people give me things. I offered to pay for them but he doesn't mind. He said he only wanted money for the ducks because he'd spent such a fortune on feeding them up.

I bought a back of feed for them yesterday. It cost almost $20 for 25kg. That will only last a month if i don't supplement their diet with fresh things and free range roaming and that is what I intend to do of course. I certainly don't need pets for the sake of pets. These are going to be working ducks and they have to earn their keep!

I can't wait for the beautiful black chooks though.

The farmer also gave me some bits of plants to have a go at. It was wonderful visiting his farm seeing all the wild things he's got over there.

Its so exciting growing things. I am well and truly hook already.

sun burn

10-06-2010, 02:52 PM

I found my lost duck. She was in the creek across the highway. There's a puddle there. What a good girl. I must say it was hard to catch her and I couldn't have done it by myself. But I'm relieved that she's back.

I've thought of names for them all. Bertie is the drake - after Bertie Wooster. The girls are called Mavis, Gertrude, Ethel and I can't decide on the last name yet. It needs to be totally unpretty. So harriet and henrietta and beatrice are out. Can anyone help me with one of those old-fashioned names. What about Maude?

aroideana

10-06-2010, 06:48 PM

Murgatroyd ?

eco4560

10-06-2010, 09:37 PM

What a lucky find! You could call her Miss Marple cos she like a bit of an adventure....

Don Hansford

10-06-2010, 09:50 PM

You might call the runaway "lady gaga" - she's a bit outside the box :D

Don Hansford

10-06-2010, 09:52 PM

Murgatroyd ?

We had a cat called Murgatroyd when I was a wee lad ... just realised how long ago that was :(

sun burn

12-06-2010, 01:59 PM

Thanks for all the input. I'm afriad I have settled for maude because i don't to break the theme. Though I must say, three of the ducks look exactly the same so i don't know how i am going to identify who is who. Maybe after a while they will display some distinguishing personality traits.

I did like the idea of Miss Marple, though. And murgatroyd is definitely unattractive enough to fill the bill.

sun burn

17-06-2010, 07:30 PM

I've started on the duck and hen house. I suppose I should write this post when i've finished rather than at the beginning but there could be benefits.

Its going to be about 3-4 metres square. Does anyone know if i have to keep the ducks and chickens separate?

We are using some heavy duty steel mesh for the walls. Instead of chicken mesh to keep the snakes out, i am going to put shade cloth over it all. I can't imagine the snakes chewing hole in it. The good thing is that there doesn't need to be any posts. The top will have iron sheeting. I will put sawdust on the floor. And try to find a nice big duck bath.

The ducks seem to be settling in. They have their bath every morning. Today i saw two of them in it together! which is quite something as its not a very big tub. In fact, i think there was a little monkey business going on.

The only thing i'm not sure of is how deep to bury the walls. Can snakes dig holes. A neighbour told me i should bury them 1 foot deep. That's damned hard work.

sun burn

03-07-2010, 08:39 PM

Update: I've only minor news to report. I think. I am up to the second planting of vegetables. Most of the seeds in the first round came up. The main failure and the most disappointing to me were the rozellas. I was given the seeds a year ago. I probably need fresh seeds.

Its been interesting to note the difference of growth in the different beds. The best bed by far has been the dinghy bed. The second best bed has been the old burning frond pile. Everything else is muddling along.

Yesterday I was saddened to see that a bandicoot had dug up a squash or pumpkin plant. I was glad that it wasn't actually in a garden bed though. Maybe the little creature will not discover my garden beds for a while yet. The ducks have started trampling on one vege bed in search of munchies but in general I am happy with and loving the ducks.

We've begun having visitors so my work has been interrupted a bit of late.

Work on the chicken house continues.

I had a visitor who has done a permaculture course and she pointed out some pesty problems and discussed treatments. She mentioned something called wettable sulphur for the citrus and all these fungicides that i then went to the gardening australia site to find recipes for but discovered that they are preventatives not treatment.

I did some research on derris dust. Not sure whether i am going to use it or not. I do not find any merit in the notion of its causing parkinsons's disease if what was said about its being tested on rats is the explanation. I would be interested in getting hold of some derris plants perhaps.

Friends have been giving me seeds and plants and so on. How lovely and how unexpected.

I've already used up my first pile of compost. Since its mostly lettuce it breaks down fast.

eco4560

03-07-2010, 08:59 PM

Don't too hung up on pests. If you still get a crop to harvest who cares. And if some critters get to something first consider it chook food with added protein supplements (they LOVE slugs). Just plant more than you think you need to allow for losses and accept them as part of biodiversity. I'm promised that over time my garden will mature and the predators will keep it in balance (only a year old so far so I can't say yet....). But only if you don't kill them first. And make some predator homes - lizards, frogs, and maybe something like the Good Bug mix of plants from Green Harvest for good insects.

sun burn

17-07-2010, 02:58 PM

Yes that's basically what i plan to do eco. Grow more than i need.

Anyhow, progress....

Yesterday I picked my first produce - four little radishes.
The greens are coming along beautifully. All the asian greens. This year has been a wet mild winter, i wonder if this is making a difference to growing veges here.
There are squash, eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes on the vines and the first cucumber is just about ready to pick. I am not sure when i should pick it though. I've heard i shouldn't leave it too long and i don't intend to do that.
The best (most spectacular) bed is the one in the dinghy into which i put a whole barrow full of matured cow manure before planting. All the plants are huge.
A pumpkin collapsed from something the other day but i don't know what. It could be a bacterial wilt thing i read about recently. It happened so suddenly. But so far none of hte other plants have suffered.
I planted a new bed of passionfruit vines a couple of days ago but otherwise i haven't been planting a lot because I want to improve the soil first before growing too much more. I am wondering if i am better off starting everything in seed trays too as some things didn't go in hte ground. I was really disappointed that the silverbeet and spinach didn't come up. The rocket is going quite well. The parsley is hardly moving. Its probably the ground.
I've mulched most of my gardens now. And following Tim Marhsalls tip about sheet composting - which is making compost directly where its going to go which he said is a good thing to do in the tropics.
My sugarcane is all sprouting. I must cover them with compost.
The Banana corms i put in have all come good except for two.
The ducks are doing well though they do make a mess with their feathers. I am collecting their poo everyday to go on the compost heaps.
That about covers it for now i think.

ebunny

18-07-2010, 09:32 AM

Hi Sun Burn

We're both new starters in seems. I got chickens for the first time almost nine months ago. I started with an online chicken coop and then let them free range in the front garden. Mango (I named her that because she looked cool and laid back like the fruit in her first day with us - wouldn't call her than now) found that one of the pailings in the front garden was furthr apart than the others and squeezed through. Fortunately, she hung around the front door until my neighbour spotted her and told us. So I wired up all the bits where I thought she could squeeze through. Then she found she could tunnel under and went visiting the neighbour with chickens two door down (we live in suburban Sydney, so this was no small feet along the road). My neighbour brough her back and I made further adjustments. No escapes since then from Miss Mango.

We've since built a large run so I can start converting the rest of the front garden to a food forest (so I tell myself - probably more akin to a veggie patch but hey...) I let them out just before dusk occassionally to have a bit of a rifle around and not do too much damage to what's there.

I would love to have ducks but no space in this garden sadly. Next time.:)

sun burn

19-07-2010, 09:19 PM

update:

I feel i am graduating from organic growing to permie growing. Today I was hacking up green, note green, palm fronds for my new slow compost pile. I am not putting hydroponics in it, or kitchen veges. I am just putting sticks and green leaves and long grass with the roots still on and stuff like that which will take a while. I've put this compost heap under one our many many poinsettia trees (or is it poinsiana - i get confused). I figure i can't grow veges there so i might as well put a compost heap there and the shade will stop it from drying out and its right near where I will need it anyway.

So today i was back on hte job of thinning out my golden palms when i realised that i could put the green parts on that pile. So i hacked them up with my secateurs. Later I went to have a go at our enormous exora hedge that needs taming. Just to get into it, i had to chop down a number of saplings. Decided I would chop off the green leaves and put htem on the heap. And realised i had some lovely stakes for my tomatoes with what was left. Then i pulled out a piece of brown vine that's been invading the garden for 20 years and of which i haven't yet got on top of. With my permie cap on I wondered what i could do iwth it. Its such a nice looking vine that I've often wished for something else to do with it. Usually thinking about weaving or craftmaking of some sort. But today i cottoned on to the idea of using it instead of wire for my peas to grow up.

A friend just inspired me to start a photoblog of my garden. I think i will do that somewhere. Not sure where yet. I find it difficult to set up these damned blogs. I get frustrated and muddled and tend to give up prematurely. But now that i have a good reason to persist I just might.

mischief

20-07-2010, 03:29 PM

Hi Sun burn,

I'm so jealous.
I wish I lived in the tropics too, oh to be able to grow bananas, that would be fantastic-my absolute favourite.
Actually I do have a banana plant that a neighbour gave me years ago.
I pulled it out and threw it on the compost pile when I realised that it would never fruit and it grew there for years til I moved it elsewhere.
Who knows the earth may tilt and I get to be closer to the equator.
Love what you are doing and I am coming back to see how you are getting on.
I want ducks too, we are supposed to be getting rabbits soon so the ducks will have to wait awhile.

sun burn

20-07-2010, 05:48 PM

Thanks mischief.

Update and ramblings:
Today I spent most of my time on the computer trying to start a blog for my garden. As yet i haven't got far. If you remember that thread somewhere started by someone who thought they were a techno dummy, i was volunteered my own ignorance. I just seem to go about things the wrong way. Luckily i found a 16 year old who is not a techno dunce and gave me a couple of clues to set me straight. Still my first post is not done and i am not sure when it will be complete.

The aim of my blog will be a picture blog rather than lots of writing. I've read enough blogs to know that they are not really diaries and yet that's what I intend to make of mine. I haven't got the time to spend crafting beautiful prose. When i get it up properly, i will post a link.

Back in my garden, I planted a few more seedlings. My seedlings which i've been growing in egg cartons are sometimes a bit tiny to be planting out perhaps. I put the cucumbers straight into the soil. I started another bed by loading it up with unfinished compost (as I don't have any finished) and then mulching it. The compost was so course that i was afraid the seeds might fall right through to the ground below. The pile of compost is a lot higher than the 4cm recommended and I wonder what will happen to these seeds. I sewed beetroot, spring onions, silverbeet and spinach. The last time i sewed silverbeet, beetroot straight into the garden as directed, i got very little result. Will the compost make a difference this time? I added seed raising mix to help prevent the seeds falling to the bottom. I am sure as I go along the results will get better as the ground gets better. But i am curious to see how this second attempt with the same things goes.

Although its mid winter, on a sunny day like today the sun is quite intense and many of the leafy veges wilt. I give them a middle of the day watering, not being too sure whether or not I need to do this. But i wonder what will it be like come October November December when that midday intensity lasts almost all day. Will anything cope?

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already but the ducks are tramping over one of my vege beds and chewing off a lot of things. I can cope so long as they don't find all the other beds because then I'd have to think about fencing them out which I am not keen to do.

sun burn

23-07-2010, 05:37 PM

Update: New info.

Today I went shopping for more soil improvers and bought in addition two rosella plants and a strawberry plant. I don't know how well strawberries will grow here but i'd like to make jam so i thought i'd give it a go.

This morning did some phone research and as a result have decided that i can grow peanuts as my main legume crop. I love peanuts and look forward to have lots of those to harvest. It will be a few months before I plant them though. Its really a few months before I cna plant most things as i am waiting for the rains to do most of the watering. If i plant now I will have a huge task of watering everything myself mostly by hand as a dry spell is just about upon us and it gets very hot.

I phoned a nursery about fruit tress. I don't know how many i can afford to put in this year but i found out that i can expect to pay about $40 per tree. I will draw up a list of things I want to plant and try to figure out where i will put them all and start preparing the ground for them - which means clearing weeds and grass and starting quick compost piles next to the spot.

The nursery also told me a good place to buy seeds locally. Enviromart in Cairns, Aumuller Street which stocks Eden Seeds.

Someone mentioned a permaculture place on the tablelands Kim 4086 8019. I believe they are doing a course in september 5-19 but i don't think i want to do a course yet. Lack of money being the reason. I am not a purist type of person so I have no intention of making a puristical permaculture garden either. But also I don't want to learn about a whole lot of plants that aren't suitable for my area. The tablelands being a different climate to down here on the coast. I think it will be best for me to do my designing and planning from what i can gather from web sources and then consider a coures later if i still have issues to resolve.

sun burn

25-07-2010, 11:54 PM

Update and ramblings:

I haven't got anywhere with my blog yet. Its too technical. I need some assistance and might get my bil to help when he's got time. I am trying with wordpress so if anyone knows anything that might help me get past Step A (signing up and choosing a theme) that could be good.

Today I got a box of pineapple tops. I am thinking of planting them along one of the property boundaries where they can work as a fence against marauding dogs. This supplier will have plenty more boxes so in time if think its working i could have pineapples all around my block. I don't know if that's the best idea but its one idea. Dogs are not a huge problem but they could be when i get my chickens. The other thing about pineapples is that i know that while they are hardy they can be at risk of neglect so i might set up a drip system eventually to take care of the watering. To get them started, i've decided to plant them in pots first and have them ready to plant out sometime during the wet season. I should be able to have enough compost ready for them by then if that's what they need.

Then i went to visit a friend in town for cuttings. I got a car load full of stuff and I can get more whenever i need it. None of it is food plants but just some nice ornamental bushy things. Fairly hardy stuff with a bit of colour in the leaves i think. I've no idea where i will put them but i guess something will come to mind by the time i am ready to plant them.

sun burn

27-07-2010, 10:51 PM

Update:

I've begun hugulkulturing already. I made a bed thats about 30 metres long. It was already a big pile of rotting logs and I added a few more that were lying nearby. this pile has been bugging me for ages and now i know what to do. Only i haven't got any soil to cover it yet, or compost. But i hope by late November I will be able to complete it and plant it up iwth fruit trees.

I put some passionfruits in and hope htey will go up some fairly inimpressive poinsettia trees.

I transplanted the pomegranate for hte second time and put a log in the bottom of the hole along iwth some other goodies.

The rest of the day was spent on making compost. I can see I will be doing this job for the rest of my gardening life.

ebunny

28-07-2010, 10:05 PM

Hey Sun Burn

I hope you've taken 'before" photos because its going to look so different in a years time. Would love to see some pics now as well....

I'm excited because I have my first snow pea. I've got a heap that are in flower, but the first pod is there. Small things.....

sun burn

29-07-2010, 02:35 PM

Ebunny, i've got pics that i took last year. I 've got some from different periods the wet and the dry. Its a very difficult place to photograph but if i am a dramatic transition, it should be obvious.

I have made a start on making it possible to take pictures. I had get the pictures off my card and put them on my external harddrive. Sounds like an easy task but nothing is easy for me when i feel unexcited about it. Slowly does it though and hopefully soon the blog will be going. I have made a somewhat starting realisation though. I must put myself in the pictures otherwise they will be really quite dull. If only i were more beautiful!

I've been told not to plant fruit trees on top of those logs. The septic drain is close by and they will invade the trench. So I will have to plant smaller things instead.

I got a book out of the library on landscaping so I am going to try to come up with a design. I find this type of task overwhelming but i think its got to be done if i don't want to end up with nothing looking sort of garden. As far as permaculture goes, the zone system etc doesn't really help me tackle it on its own. At least htat's how i feel about it. I can't afford to do much in the way of earthworks. Our ground slopes. Its been slightly terraced but there is still a lot of run off in heavy rain. I'd like to dig some ponds but i am not sure if i have to have fencing around them. If so, i'd be very reluctant to put ponds in at all. I am not even sure if holding the water is a great idea here as we get so much i wouldn't want it all to be waterlogged. Perhaps Tropical boy will help me out there.

Yesterday I found a local shop selling eden seeds. The woman was very helpful. She saved me from buying asparagus and artichokes which she said best not to grow down on the coast while up on the tablelands they'd be fine. I did buy some guava and rosella seeds and this morning I planted them in trays. My sister found a good pawpaw and i sewed those in trays too as well as mustard greens.

I started to think that the existing "nursery" might be the best place to make my vegetable garden. The ducks started chewing on my pumpkins and squash so i had to put a fence round them. Luckily there was something ready to hand. Its not very pretty but it will do for now. There's more caterpillar damage in the asian greens today. I didn't find any caterpillars just the egg like things they leave behind. i wonder if i should get rid of those? The dog likes the blood and bone i bought. I will have to hid the bag.

ebunny

01-08-2010, 05:09 PM

Hey Sun Burn

We're up in your part of the world at the moment. I'm a little jealous of the lushness of it all. Today we went to the Daintree Ice Cream factory and tasted macadamia nut and yellow samote ice cream - yum! They have all sorts of exotic fruit trees on their property, with signs... So of course I'm wandering around taking pics for future reference. I was like a kid in a candy store (even after I ate the ice cream).

sun burn

01-08-2010, 10:00 PM

Hi ebunny

well you could stop in and say hi on your way back down if you like. I won't be here on Monday but I think i am at home on Tuesday. I am not too sure. I am supposed to be buying a car so ...

Anyhow you can phone me if you like 4098 5358. I'm not far south of Port Douglas.

Samote or Sapote?

Update:

I should have my chickens in a few more weeks. I've been told the hen is sitting on her eggs now. Let's hop nothing happens this time to upset her. But getting the chook house finished could be tricky as my helper is busy building a house. The snakes have started to show up so it rather matters a bit. It so warm now already. The tomatos are already wilting drastically in the middle of the day and I'm watering twice a day.

On to the bigger picture, i've decided to try to come up with an over all design. I think i mentioned a landscaping book i got from the library. I have to wait until i can get the block put on a scale grid map. Its too difficult planning it other wise.

Meanwhile i just continue to slowly make compost piles and put in a few more vege seedlings here and there.

The eggplants are coming on in numbers that i will struggle to eat. And that's only from two bushes. I was thinking if it turned out that i could only grow tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchinis, capsicums and potatoes (though i can't grow potatos), onions and garlic, i'd be very happy. With this lot, i'd stick to eating a greek diet. Really i don't need all the variety that is possible, although basil and mint, parsley and other herbs are good. But if only i could the damn coriander to go mad. It seems so delicate and slow.

I found this nice book called The Best of Permaculture A collection. I"ve just read a nice article about growing flowers (which i intended to do anyway) for food. But i am glad to read that marigolds repel nematodes so I will grow them around my bananas - in fact, i think I will grow them everywhere. Those that I've planted are doing better than some of the veges. I also learn that i can eat hibiscus flowers.

There's an article about an interesting thing called Kudzu. It seems to be good for absolutely everything. But whether it is too hot here I don't know. Its a legume that is native to Japan and China so its probably a temperate climate thing.

sun burn

07-08-2010, 05:17 PM

Update:

Planning. My thoughts are developing every day but things are being held up becuase i don't yet have a gridded plan of our blcok which i need to commence a good plan. I been taken more by the idea of forest gardens and another good idea called xericulture which is using zones according to water requirements of the plants. Obviously it is similar to the zones in permaculture too. I found an excellent book on tropical food plants called ASIAN HERBS AND VEGETABLES by Penny Woodward. I've got to buy this one. I also got a couple of other good books out from the library. One is water-wise garden by jeffrey hodges and another is Ponds and water features by the Horticultural society.

Today I took a walk around the block tying on white strings to the trees I am pretty sure i want to keep. A lot will have to come and be replaced but not in the immediate future. I've decided to make the "greenhouse" our main vegetable patch and began pulling up the weed mat that's been down for about 20 years. Its not an easy job. I think i am going to plant some non foody coloured shrubbery in a row in front of my rainforest patch and maybe also some coffee. For a long time i've known i needed to do something to provide more screening and sound buffering form the highway. Initially i was going to plant fruit trees there but i think they will be too high adn better off elsewhere. On the highway side of the road I am wondering about putting in some tall bamboos to provide screening on that side. I've wanted bamboo in for a long time but i can't find another suitable side of the block to put it. We've got telephone poles running up two sides of our block.

The ducks had a big barney today. It was the girls giving each other a hard time. The drake, Bertie, basically seemed to be running away most of the time. I'd love to know precisely what it was about and what was going on in their heads. Those girls were being really quite vicious to one another. But hopefully they've kissed and made up by now.

sun burn

09-08-2010, 02:08 AM

Update:

The beginnings of a vision. I mean literally. Late this afternoon i was standing on the new floor of my sister's house that's being built here looking out over our block. The house is situated at the top of the block and catches a lovely breeze. The block slopes down fairly gently facing east. I had just hacked away at a second overgrown Exora which until then had been blocking any view over the block. Wow what a vista! Or rather its going to be a wow vista. Quite a bit is still screened from view but i was getting the picture of how fantastic it could be now that i could see more. And it seemed to me that planting will have to go a certain way to make the most of this position. I do love to be able to look out over things but the way the place has been planted up is like a zillion little stuffy rooms. I am slowly going through pulling out (chopping down with my little axe) anything i deem useless or objectionable. I don't want to have to clear it all at once. I just want space to put in new things. But now i can see that the new things to put in must not obscure the view. It seems crystal clear to me that now i have to plant in a semi-circular pattern out from the eastern verandah with the tallest things at the sides. Yesterday i did not have this awareness in my head at all.

Also i saw that if i chop down all the tall stuff on the right hand border and replant with lower growing shrubs and trees, we will have a wonderful clear view of the hills. At the moment very little of a view is available through that southern side of the block. It is the best side to get this view too as our neighbours have only a bare lawn there and the other two sides of the property have street and telephone poles. I marvel daily now how clever my bil is to have sited the house where it is. Everyone but me would have chosen this position but i had thought a central position for the house would be best. Now i see i'd be wrong. Luckily my opinion was never needed. I won't be living in the house in the long term. I have to live elsewhere on the block but that's ok so long as i can visit the house and be the main gardener. If whatever i do in the next two or threes is good, i don't think anyone will try to challenge me for that position either.

One of the nicest things when looking out eastward is that a row of poinsianna trees (or are they poisettias) not too far away from the house have grown very tall and provide a beautiful canopy which is not very dense. I know I will wish there be more of these. Many more were planted originally but most have not reached these heights because of insufficient water.

Workwise today i began pulling down the shade cloth on the nursery. It grows in a north south direction. With the cloth down, more of the rainforest trees behind are visible. I also began trying to tidy it up more as i've decided to make it my main vegetable garden. Its possible that my sister might want to create her own vege patch nearer her house but she also might just prefer to pick from this one. It doens't matter which.

If i haven't made the picture clear enough, think of something like an amphitheatre and the house as the stage. That is the image i will use to guide me in my garden design.

ebunny

11-08-2010, 06:08 PM

Hi Sun Burn

I haven't been back on until now and only just saw your offer for a visit. Apologies as that would have been great (back home in Sydney now via a work trip to Ballarat where it was very, very cold).

I'm loving your vision by the way. Sounds like you're in a great spot.

sun burn

11-08-2010, 10:47 PM

Nevermind ebunny. If you ever come up again, you can drop in.

Update:

My tomatos, which are have been growing beautifully in the dingy, are under threat. It seems to be something called Bottom End Rot. I've lost a couple so far and hope i've been able to prevent further. It seems to be caused by calcium uptake from the soil and the condition is created by problems with water supply. The problem is the heat, the great transpiration of water from the leaves. I've been watering daily. Yesterday i read it could be caused by either too much water as well as not enough. I am only watering twice when they look as if they might fall over in the middle of the day or would do if i don't water them. I also added some lime to the top of the soil in case there was insufficient calcium in it and finally i mulched it. I don't really think the mulch will do much but you never know.

I will be very sad if all those tomatoes rot before ripening. I want to eat them!

Its pretty plain now that certain sections of where i began my first vege patches are just crummy soil. It wasn't as if it was a secret but i didn't have time to prepare the ground and i wanted to plant things straight away while the cool weather was here. The Asian greens have done pretty well but the rocket is still quite pathetic and yet i thought rocket was really easy to grow. The corn has just started growing ears so i guess pollination has worked there but so far there are no zucchinis on those plants and none of the other curcubits look particularly promising and have been either chewed by the ducks, succumbed to some sort of wilting disease and got the white mould disease.My capsicum seedlings are growing bigger than 2cm either in a tray or the garden bed but the marigolds are steaming along; the okra just stopped growing at about 10 cm and so far the tomatoes here haven't shown any promise. The peas that came up really quickly in the first month are slowly dying and will never amount to anything. Some seeds planted directly into the beds never showed up at all. I ate all the radishes that did mature but that wasn't too many and some never grew a root at all.

Well there are many lessons in all this and i haven't grasped them all yet.

I found a great book on Pests and Diseases and organic cures. It is What Garden Pest or Disease is that? by Judy McMaugh. I haven't had a chance yet to check out the others that were recommended so I don't know which one i'll get just yet. Its handy that the library has one i can borrow anyway. And while I can diagnoise my problems online, this book has preventative medicine as well.

sun burn

21-08-2010, 12:48 AM

... is sitting on the bench until tomorrow morning when I will be able to eat it.

There's something special about the first piece of fruit or vegetable off the first plant you grow of that type. Since i was so worried they'd all succumb to bottom end rot, i am really proud of this tomato and have high hopes it will taste good too. It could be ordinary. The cucumbers although they looked good tasted just like all other cucumbers. But you know what i mean about anticipating a home grown tomato ripened on the vine because we all know how bad they can be from the supermarket.

Well i couldn't eat it yet as i picked it just before going off to work. Thinking we should all sample it after i returned. It hadn't been cut up when i got back and as people were just heading off to bed i thought it best to hold over until tomorrow. Let's hope a rat doesn't find it over night.

As to the rest of the garden. Well I am still waiting for my grid plan so i can start designing. There have been delays, so i am afraid to plant anything now until a proper plan has been drawn.

I've potted up some more cuttings of non-edibles and noticed that most of my earlier batch have taken root and are going strong.

The cassava looks like its going to enjoy where i've put it and the odd bit of rain we've had lately has helped. Things were starting to dry out rapidly but we've had two lots of rain since and its greening up again already. The New Guinea spinach is doing well though that too is still in a box because i don't know where i am going to plant it. I don't know anything about this plant. Its a tropical vegetable and i won't know whether i like eating it until it gets going.

I met an interesting woman at the markets last Sunday. She knew a lot about farming and also about permaculture. She's had a foot in both worlds it seems. She warned me to be careful about some of these tropical plants that sound so promising. She said they can turn into nuisances, though i sort of find it hard to believe that Penny Woodward wouldn't have noticed that when she was researching her book on asian herbs and veges. I think the bigger problem will be sourcing seeds and plants.

The chickens i ordered have hatched but i am going to hold off getting them until more are born as there are not enough in the batch and b) our chicken shed isn't finished yet. The housebuilding that's been going on in the past two months has monopolised the manpower and this woman doesn't know how to build a doorway or manoeuvres sheets of iron up to 8 feet high to make a roof over the pen. I need my father's assistance.

purplepear

21-08-2010, 05:48 AM

I wonder do you have a solution to your blossom end rot Sunburn? It is most often caused by a lack of calcium and to spread some lime or dolomite may help save the rest. We dust with dolomite if we see it coming and water a bit into the soil but not too much.

sun burn

21-08-2010, 01:02 PM

After reading about it, I did a few things. I put some lime on the soil and watered it in. I put down some mulch and i stopped watering twice a day. Just yesterday or the day before i chopped off some of the tomato leaves. I think it is under control now but i am not sure. Of course given all the things i've tried, i am now not sure if any cure is due to one or more remedial factors. But next time I will put lime on the soil. I suspect that was at least part of the problem as i hadn't put any on before. The thing is everything else in the dinghy is growing well and producing healthy vegetables - cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, rocket and even coriander. I've also got small basil in there as well.

So i've eaten hte tomato now. It wasn't the best tomato i have ever had but i suspect this is due to the breed. I don't remember what breed it is. It tasted much like a supermarket tomato. Still i am not complaining too much. It will be nice to have tomatoes ripe from the vine. And i am loving my little cherry tomato. I have a handful whenever i go down to fuss about in the garden. I don't even bother picking htem for salads and i think of them as medicine; A sweet gentle medicine; ie Vitamin C at its very best.

So now the challenge will be to find a good breed of tomato. I've got some grosse lisse in and some roma. They are not doing that well i think as my ground is shit and its not recovered enough yet. But slowly slowly. Future years should be better.

purplepear

22-08-2010, 07:08 AM

It does take time to build good soil. Tomatoes will do well in very rich soil and many old organic gardeners plant them deep into pure fresh cow poo. You could try enriching the planting hole with cow poo or compost while the rest of the soil comes up to scratch

sun burn

24-08-2010, 02:02 AM

Actually purple this bed, in the dinghy, is full of cow poo though not completely fresh. I put in a wheelbarrow full before i planted the seedlings. All the plants went really well. It was interesting to compare how well compared to the the beds i've planted in other parts the garden. I've had very limited success with those others as reported above. Perhaps the best things that i put in the ground were the packet of asian greens - about 5 species and i don't know their names. They all did well straight into the ground but with a few added things. Meanwhile all the rest have have ended up pretty dismal even when they started out well. Last disaster was the ducks eating the corn. I can see i am going to have to keep the ducks well separated from the vege patch and maybe even from most of the garden. I' might have to park them near the pond i will dig and leave them there to become a poo factory. (mostly kidding). They delight me but also cause a bit of heartache. Maybe they will prove themselves more valuable come the wet season and slug invasion.

Because of all this failure, i am not planting much in the way of veges now. I have to watch things. And just work on my compost heaps, my garden plan and growing cuttings. This is going to be a slow thing to get off the ground i can tell.

The next big labour investment i am thinking about will be planting legumes and manure crops but i have to wait for the rains to come. Even with those i don't know if the soil is going to be good enough to support them. At $50 a bag of seed, I am afraid to see a big failure there. I"ve got to figure out the best way to maximise success from those bean seeds. I want to try peanuts, pigeon peas or cow peas, i can do lab lab and soy beans. One of those is a dry season crop i think but for that i will wait till next year.

I've got all these man-type jobs which are bothering me at the moment. Both the mowers need wheel work and one has a starting battery problem. I need my father's cooperation for all of this. He knows how to do it and isn't a very good teacher. The water pipes are busting and leaking all over the place. I know these should be simple to fix but i find myself in knots over them. And i need him to help me finish the chicken shed. He's been busy housebuilding and so i haven't been able to use him much but i really need to get him on side for all the jobs i want done now.

sun burn

31-08-2010, 02:46 AM

Update;

I haven't been doing much of late. But its raining now and the weather is ideal for being out in the garden, ie its cool.

My father had his hand operated on so he is still unable to help me finish the duck pen. However, the ducks having free reign in the garden has started to bother me since they've been eating some plants that i have spent time on and enjoy looking at so i've decided i need to limit their movement after all. I went down the nursery with the intention of starting to dig them a duck pond. I'm going to fence them in with the pond and the banana trees and see how they like it. Anyway i didn't dig 1cm of depth because i had to start by digging out long grass, and removing other garden infrastructure and rubbish first. Next I have to tackle the weedmat and then i can start on the pond.

But anyway, every time i set out to do a chore or start a job, i get distracted by something else i see that needs doing and so i go from one side of the garden to the other doing little bits of lots of thing. I find it hard to be systematic and focused.

With all the rain i am wondering if i should be planting my legumes now or should i wait till the usual time that the rains are supposed to start. I am eager to plant legumes everywhere.

I've just read through Leonie Norrington's tropical food gardens and really enjoyed it. I've made a start to buy some exotic seeds for a wet season vegetable garden, along the lines of the things i read about in Penny Woodwards Asian Herbs and Vegetables.

I've been enjoying eating my tomatoes of late. Its not going to be a bumper crop but what there is are yummy. They are better than store bought after all and i think its about ripening on the vine. Meanwhile the cherries i still eat daily for a dose of vitamin C and simple pleasure.

I've started trying to make a garden design on a grid. I've had to go out and measure things on foot. But its good to get things put down on paper. Unfortunately, apart from the odd pond, I don't see that i can do much in terms of earthworks to slow down the water run off. My father terraced the site when he bought it but it still slopes. There's the odd drain which encourages water to pour off to the sides. I don't even know what would be the best way to tackle the water run off here anyway. Everyone says to slow it down but does that take into account torrential rains for a monsoon. We get 90 inches (i think) here annually and most of it falls in about five months. Actually sometimes most of it falls in one month with the rest spread of the remaining four of the season. At the bottom of the block, there is a large hole in the ground to direct the water runoff under the highway. I am thinking of damming this up in April or May so i can trap any more runoff and use it to irrigate the shrubs i want to put down the front. It would save me having to put in pipe and sprinklers and a lot of bother.

Meanwhile most of my activity has been making compost (i'm starting to tire of carting and chopping stuff) and digging out long grass in preparation for planting the legumes. I"ve also been making cuttings from other tropical inedible shrubs for planting up the boundaries.

sun burn

03-09-2010, 01:55 AM

Update:

I've finally found where the ducks lay their eggs. There were 12 in the nest. I took out 10 and left two. They are beautiful smooth things. My father said, not knowing how long they've been there, best not to eat them in case of salmonella which seems common in duck eggs. On his advice I marked the other two and hope that in the future I will find some more that we can use without fear of poisoning.

mischief

03-09-2010, 05:45 PM

Congrats on your eggs!!!

I find lists are a good way to work out what I want to achieve and from there sort out what I feel up to actually getting done.

sun burn

06-09-2010, 02:30 AM

Mischief i am good at lists too. I have so many files going and a number of diaries on the go, pretty much all reporting the same thing. I can't help myself. I am always looking for the perfect format. Actually what does help is a list telling what to try to do TOMORROW. I did this today and was quite successful at it.

Update:

The last few days my mind has been occuppied with ornamentals. I want my garden to be not just edible but beautiful, not to provide just nourishment for the body but also for the soul. I know some poeple might find enough of that in growing only edibles but I also want a lot of pretty things too. I think i can squeeze them in anyway.

I read most of Tropical Garden Plants with a view to learning the names of the plants i know and have already in the garden. It makes it easier to talk about and share what one is up to. For instance i can say today i dug up and transplanted some Raphis or Lady Palms down to the border of the rainforest patch. I want them to act as a screen. This will take some time to get it thick enough as digging the plants out is hard work. I put seven in today. These pretty palms like shade, they don't grow very tall ( http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1280&bih=626&q=lady+palms&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= ) and I've put them under the rubber tree where nothing much else that's useful will probably grow. That is only one example i can rabbit on about. I have a two page list of things i know by name now that i didn't before.

The family went to the Mossman markets on the weekend where i found some raintree seeds. ( http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bio.miami.edu/mimosa/sam_sam_hab.jpg&imgrefurl=http://bengaloorubanter.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html&usg=__q_tfI52zsEWMtLIOHCi5wb_hftQ=&h=400&w=600&sz=269&hl=en&start=35&zoom=1&tbnid=X02T79bR9NnvqM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=210&prev=/images%3Fq%3Draintrees%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bi h%3D626%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C846&itbs=1&ei=Z8WDTOy0G4WOvQPUodSbBA&iact=rc&dur=1323&oei=YcWDTP_7G4i6vQOaqImKBA&esq=3&page=3&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:35&tx=110&ty=113&biw=1280&bih=626 )I have always loved raintrees for the hugeness and lovely domed canopy. As kids we used to climb in them at school and build cubby houses. Once when i was playing at being a monkey, i fell out of the tree and broke my wrist. Anyway yesterday i was able to pick up some seeds that were lying by the road at the markets. There are about 8-10 lining the northern of the town. The branches are covered in pencil orchids. They are such a glorious sight from beneath. Well, i am fixing to nurture these seeds into lovely little plants and stick them in the ground along hte highway where there should be plenty of room for them to grow and create a canopy. They won't disturb anyones houses or rip up the road but in many years time, they should provide drivers passing by a lot of pleasure.

On the corner of the block i am going to plant a golden shower tree (cassia fistula) which in spring is covered in large racemes of yellow blooms. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://macsystems.com/Jun09-2008.jpg&imgrefurl=http://miamieverydayphoto.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html&usg=__HiQbQ-Bo6LqFgKDd3pYOv3gmTpI=&h=792&w=1408&sz=227&hl=en&start=38&zoom=1&tbnid=5LYLNdfBZO1drM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=212&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgolden%2Bshower%2Btree%26um%3D1%26hl% 3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENAU267%26biw%3D1280 %26bih%3D626%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1016&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=351&vpy=132&dur=4537&hovh=168&hovw=300&tx=195&ty=70&ei=7cWDTK-jBY6OvQPbqKmdBA&oei=18WDTNGdE4uevgPlwbTJAg&esq=6&page=3&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:38&biw=1280&bih=626 The seeds have sprouted and i just have to move them to bigger pots now. We've already got one of these but its totally swallowed up by a fig tree planted not far away from it.

I've been trying to draw up planting plans on a grid of the property so i can figure out where to put the fruit trees as a start. Its a difficult task but i've found that doing that in combo with plant research and mucking about in the garden really helps with the planning and decision process. Ideas emerge. Others you've been mulling reveal their disadvantaages when you're moveing about the garden. Some become clearer. Our block is a corner block. On the northern side along which a road runs, I want to plant all the tall fruit trees, about 11 species 10 metres apart. But they will not provide any screening from the road. There are a couple of mounds built up on either side of the driveway but the plantings have been neglected. While some things have survived, much must have died and there's been mainly long grass providing screening until now. I want to chop out this grass and I have just realised i can plant happy plants as a quick and temporary solution to the screening problem by putting them along the top of the mounds until all the other bushy things along the front side grow up, and they wont be in the way when it comes time to plant the fruit trees. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.leasealeaf.com/images/dracaena_massangeana_fragrans_web2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.leasealeaf.com/index.php%3Fmain_page%3Dindex%26cPath%3D1_12&usg=__DS6FnJqKx0pQ_fbncamIeulYAVM=&h=480&w=640&sz=23&hl=en&start=20&zoom=1&tbnid=kayP8cEc5Lo6-M:&tbnh=147&tbnw=204&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhappy%2Bplants%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26s a%3DN%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENAU267%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3 D626%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C381&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=149&vpy=253&dur=527&hovh=180&hovw=241&tx=100&ty=121&ei=isaDTMKqHI2ovQPTiJWYBA&oei=RcaDTPfYL4OIvgPT9MiKBA&esq=17&page=2&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:20&biw=1280&bih=626 We've already got lots of happy plants around the place and they could do with chopping down to enable lower tops. So I've done that to some today, chopped off the tops and put them into the top of the mounds. They are easy to propagate so I am hoping they will sprout roots right in the garden without losing their leafy tops. There's still more to do. With the other bits i will try to root and shoot them as cuttings. (Happy plants may be about one of the easiest plants to grow and their flowers smell delicious). I am very excited about this little project with the happy plants as our place looks completely wild, but not in a good way, from outside and until recently was like that on the inside too.

The other day i went to town to buy duck food and discuss legumes at the agriculture shop. We've had a bit of rain lately and I was wondering whether I should start planting legumes now. There i met the farmer who i bought my ducks from. He's quite a sweety. He was wearing bare feet, something you don't see much these days but he's a relic, almost as old as my father and his brother gave my father his first job up here, cutting cane when my parents came up to buy a farm when I was just a toddler. Joe, the farmer, thinks it highly amusing that I am growing sugarcane. He told me his wife had recently accidentally killed one of their roosters that had got out by putting it in a feed back and leaving it there for bit too long. They had thought the bags were breathable. Poor thing suffocated. Next week i can get my chickens. Or this week rather as its monday now. (I still haven't finished the chicken pen and will probably do it when they arrive. ) Anyway as a consequence of all that I have decided to concentrate on growing lablab as my main legume. I only learned from Joe that legumes don't like acid soils and so i found a legume that doesn't mind it. Lablab seems good on other fronts too. http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/field/field-crops/forage-fodder/crops/summer-legume-forage I also bought a soil testing kit. I've used it twice and both patches had a pH of 5.5.

So, I've moved the ducks to the nursery. They tend to escape in the mornings to go and lay eggs but i am gradually filling up the gaps. Our fence is still only temporary until i am sure i know where its supposed to go. I will probably leave off digging the pond for a while but they've got enough water to bath in for the moment and because i am down there often, I am always filling it up with fresh water as they tend to empty the baths out when they get in. They started on the banana leaves so I've fenced those off until they get bigger. I had to lift up most of the seedlings as the ducks walk over anything in their path. I thought perhaps that this patch could become the winter vegetable patch, having been fertilised by the ducks all summer but it would still be nice if there was a bit of shade from the western sun. I need to plant a tamarind somewhere and put a peg in the wrong corner this morning. Only after I'd done it did i realise what a mistake it would be to have shade in the south east corner. So now i've got two problems - Where to put the tamarind tree (and the coconuts) and what to plant to provide afternoon shade for the ducks. It has to be something that can tolerate soggy ground, or i have to build a bed above ground for it, as this patch is very wet during the wet season.

sun burn

06-09-2010, 02:24 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2010/07/01/#comments

I've finally given up on a proper blog and started posting pictures to my old photoblog.

The top paragraph is about the picture and a summary of my vegie patch to date which you could skip if you've been reading the above posts.

The Second comment is some background for any readers who come to the blog from outside this forum.
The comment is a recipe for pasta with salad.

mischief

06-09-2010, 02:31 PM

Oh I enjoyed reading about somebody elses doings.
I was hoping you'd come play at Adams' Place (members systems subforum).
Its really interesting seeing what other people are doing and what differculties they have to overcome and how they do it.
Please reconsider.

sun burn

07-09-2010, 02:46 AM

I forgot to post tonight's entry. I thought i had done it. I will have a look at this adam's place subforums thingy. When I've looked, if i am talkign about the same place, I can't see any threads. but wait... I will look again. But i am scattering myself all over.

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2010/09/06/wet-season-vegetable-patch-to-be.html

sun burn

09-09-2010, 09:35 PM

Update:

Wow today was the best $10 bucks i ever spent. The $10 was for a hen but with her came four chicks, a trailer of mill mud, seeds for cumquats and a seville orange, an armful of cuttings for pinto bean, and other asian things. Some sweet potates and a cassava plant which i only decided I would take when i remember how yummy the cassava cakes i had eaten at the markets on Sunday were. Also i got to see some exotic fruit trees in their mature state and eat a fruit i never ate before, and got the seeds from it - a star apple. I can't remember the names of the other things. I will have to look them up. Some pretty trees. One was a type of cherry that the farmer - who was showing and giving me all this bounty - said were delicious. One was lovely tree that begins with G and a german sounding name i think.

I got home, ate a quick lunch and got to work fixing the door on the chicken pen. We haven't put the roof on yet. That's a job for tomorrow. But she won't get rained on. I've made a nest inside a laundry cupboard and mum seems to have accepted it. The kids were put to bed at about 5pm while dad and I were still working.

eco4560

09-09-2010, 10:39 PM

That's a chook and a half that is!

sun burn

09-09-2010, 11:48 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/janec/2010/09/07/last-housebuilding-pics-for-the-mo.html

Link to my sister's photoblog that shows pictures of the house under construction. Its her house not mine but its on this same property that i am gardening on. I will be living in it soon, well before its finished. There are some duck pictures too.

Just click back through the blog by clicking on the top left thumbnail image to see previous entries.

I've done a new post today too but its only pictures of books that i've liked for my gardening project. I took some shots the other day but I think the memory card is ducked cause i wasn't able to download them. I tell you what though, taking preparing pictures for blogging is a mighty time-consuming business. But it's probably worth it. I think i will avoid daily entries.

sun burn

11-09-2010, 10:13 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/09/11/

I've put up a new post about my chickens. I've had them for two days and two nights now. So far so good.

Update on the mandala

Its going to take me at least a week i think to dig out and prepare all the beds. Today i completed one bed after levelling it. I added a mix of lime and dolomite before putting on two wheelbarrows of mill mud and then mulched it. I pointed out my efforts to my father who just looked quizzickly back at me. I had to point out to him that i know it doesn't look any different than before, but that i had done the work. Before i started i threw hay mulch all over the whole space to protect the soil and now the circle is covered in mulch again so it does look the same. I'ts prettier before i add the mulch. I'll show pictures some time later.

I don't know if i've mentioned this before but i am in the process of changing my whole sleep routine to accommodate this gardening life. Now i'm trying to get up at 6 to start work. I stop at 10-11 and break until 2-3pm then back to work until near sunset. In the middle of the day i take a sleep if i can. In a month's time, i'm returning to work (Hopefully) and then may not get much time to work in the afternoon when its cooler. As it, the middle of the day is already too hot to be out working. The hard part is getting up.

sun burn

13-09-2010, 03:08 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/09/12/

Working on the mandala garden beds.

PS. this thread is jumping all over the place. It doesn't seem to have moved permanently to the members forum yet. Can it be moved permanently there?

eco4560

13-09-2010, 03:41 PM

Doh! I just put 2 + 2 and worked out who it was that kept sending me messages on photo blog! You use a different user name. Silly me! For a moment I thought I was being stalked!!

sun burn

13-09-2010, 06:21 PM

LOL. I used to have a separate name for every forum i went on. I will try to find you the link to my photoblog namesake. Hold on...

sun burn

13-09-2010, 06:25 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2007/05/10/ladakh-lamayuru-shangrila.html

sun burn

15-09-2010, 08:01 PM

I"ve been on a two day jaunt around the tablelands. What that means really is i went from Cairns to Kuranda to tolga and back home via Mareeba and Julatten. I visit a couple of friends and raided their gardens for cuttings. I came home with a carful and spent all afternoon today potting up cuttings. Then i had to extend my shadecloth because the heat is sweltering now and very hard on all the plants.

But today I got something that i consider really special. I passed a house with a crimson frangipanni that was just coming into flower. I stopped, went back and asked the owner for cuttings. He said, yeah go for it, take what you want. Great! I even got some for the friends who've been giving me cuttings lately. I must be saving a fortune.

I despair of my chook pen. My father's efforts on the door are completely hopeless. He clearly does not care about the chickens. I know he is capable of doing better but he doesn't seem to be bothered in this case. At some point, i am going to have to take the door off and do it again myself. At least this time I will know what i needs to be done but before I didn't have a clue about how to go about making a door. But for now, I am just trying to plug all the holes to keep out likely snake hunters and even this is taking too much time.

mischief

16-09-2010, 03:42 PM

Just give it a go.
If it falls down then it falls down.
It probably wont and will 'do' til you can be bothered to have another go at it.
You never learn if you dont try.

Grahame

16-09-2010, 04:32 PM

Yeah, I just did some fencing and somehow one post is way out of line with the rest. The perfectionist in me contemplated digging it out and resetting it. But in the end I figured that was valuable time, the fence was already functional, and within no time the grape vines will be covering all evidence of imperfection. I will probably never think about it again after that. But it really did bug me there for a while. You know how when you do some new work and you like to look at it, go out after dinner and look at it again and then check on it the first thing next morning? Once that phase is over and you move on to the next job, you usually never think about it again. ;)

sun burn

16-09-2010, 08:30 PM

This is not a petty matter. Its a matter of life and death. If it was only about having a nice door or not, i wouldn't bother so much. But if the snakes can get in, they can eat my chickens. I would feel bad if a snake ate my chickens, or even one of them.

eco4560

16-09-2010, 10:54 PM

Ahh sunburn - methinks there is more going on here... The door is just a metaphor for some issue between you and your dad. You don't have to share what it is here, but I reckon if you have a sit down and think about why it is getting you so hot under the collar you'll work out what the connection is.
What I did with mine (and I can't guarantee that it is snake proof but so far it has worked) - I had some of the PVC piping that I used for the dome left over, so I measured up a piece and cut it to be about 10 cm longer than the bottom of the door opening in the dome. I then got out the roll of bird wire and fortunately the width of it was just a bit more than the height of the door opening. I cut off a piece the same length as the PVC piping and fixed the piping to the bottom by rolling the wire over the pipe and "sewing" in place with tie wire - like making a pocket for a rod like you would for a curtain. Then I "sewed" the free edge of the wire to the top of the door opening - which is smaller than the bottom, so I made a few pleats in the wire to take some of it up. So you then have a door that you lift from the bottom to get in and it is heavy enough to always fall shut behind you, and for the chooks not to be able to fly at and push open.

To add extra predator proofing to it I got some shade cloth and cut out a square piece with the same length side as the height of the opening. One side got sewn to the free edge of the door, and the immediate next edge got sewn to the side of the door opening to make a kind of gusset so that nothing can sneak in around the edge of the door when it is shut. I hope that makes sense...

And be nice to your dad....

sun burn

17-09-2010, 06:44 AM

Don't worry eco, i am not going to make an issue of it with my father. I learnt some time ago, if i can fix it, its better to do it myself. I think i can see now what i have to do with the door. Its mainly getting a wood frame next to a wood frame. Dad kept putting the wood in the wrong places or not long enough pieces of wood and obviously didn't notice the gaps. But before i had no clue as to how to go about building a door or a chicken coup. I've come a long way.

That chicken and her little ones have just about dug their way to china by now. I guess there aren't many worms in there. Yesterday i let them out for an hour. I might go and do that again right now.

sun burn

17-09-2010, 09:00 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

Pond under construction. I like to post pics reguarly and couldn't wait until it was completed to post pictures. I thought i could use some black plastic we have around here but its full of holes so I will have to go and buy some proper stuff.

I'm not sure what edible plants i can put in. I have got Kang kong. And i don't know where to get them from either. I'd like to get hold of some taro if not for this, some other pond that i will make. I also want water lillies and don't know where to source them either. At least not fancy ones. I just remembered i know where i can pinch some mauve ones.

Ooooh my wrists are sore from all the digging today. Tomorrow i think i'll give my mandala a rest and do something else. I've done four beds and have two hard ones left to go.

Eco, what is that food you were growing for your chickens. I like the idea of that. Do you still feed them grain as well? Or do they just eat the vegie patch and your manure crop.

eco4560

18-09-2010, 08:44 PM

Nice start to the pond. I've been told that if you plan to use regular black plastic then you should use about 5 layers of it, and that a proper pond liner probably works out cheaper in the long run.
Green Harvest have sacred lotus from time to time - I want one for my pond....
Water chestnuts, water cress, yams - there's plenty of stuff that will grow in or by the water that you can eat.
Bugger digging. That was the best bit about having the landscapers here recently. 6 healthy specimens of manhood, outside my kitchen window, digging for me. :blush: It was terribly hard to drag myself away to work!
Is there a particular post about what I feed my chickens so I know what you are referring to? My chooks stay "captive" in the dome 99% of the time so they rely on me for all their nutrition. They do still get grain - about a 500 ml jug full most days (8 chooks - down to 7 now:( ). They get kitchen scraps from my kitchen, plus I have a deal with the others at work that I bring in eggs if they give me their scraps too. (They keep wanting to give me money but I tell them that scraps are PRICELESS) The chooks also get things like the bottoms of the cabbages and lettuces, and the tops of the turnips and carrots when I harvest them. When I plant up each guild I plan for about 30% of it to be chook food. I have grown barley and cow pea for this so far. I just leave it growing until I move the chooks back on and then let 'em go nuts for a few days eating it all. They don't get grain for a few days while they eat it all. And I don't give them grain for a few days before each move so I don't get it sprouting in the new bed.
I also let any weeds that start growing in the bed after I've planted it up stay there so long as they aren't out competing the other stuff so the chooks get those to eat as well.
Today I harvested all the broad beans out of the first bed that I planted in Autumn so that I can move the chooks onto that bed tomorrow. This time I did my 30% of the bed with the broad beans as I think they'll enjoy eating the greenery. I also toss in a few buckets of compost complete with worms and critters each time I move them. They love the bugs and they spread the compost over the bed for me.
The other treat they get from time to time are fish frames from the fishmonger. My mum gets them for free for me. The left over left over bits (ie what is not touched by the chooks) go in the compost bin.
When I started I hoped that I would be able to eventually make do without grain, but I don't think that is ever going to happen. Some days I'm just too busy to do anything other than toss in the grain, and I can use a grain feeder if I'm going away for a few days. A $25 bag lasts about 6 weeks so about $200 a year and in return I get about 2 doz eggs a week. That works out at about $1 a dozen for the best organic eggs ever, so I figure it's worth it!

sun burn

19-09-2010, 11:11 AM

Lovely post eco. Your chooks must be the happiest chooks in the world. I reckon you could say they've got a gourmet diet. Have you eaten any yet? I bet they'd taste excellent. But they are probably your friends so... Maybe you should get a rooster (to annoy the fence building neighbour as well) so you can get little free range organic boys to eat. (LOL i'm supposed to be a vegetarian). I wish I could have a rooster for this purpose but its been forbidden. However, I told my farmer (who supplied me with the mill mud and ducks and chickens) that i'd be happy to buy his decaptitated roosterlings for eating. He's giving me a free drake to eat this week since i've taken all his ducks.

Yes there was a picture of the chicken manure crop. It must have been barley i saw. Its was pretty long green grass looking.

Have you noticed that the chickens like the little cherry tomoatos. I've decided to let some self-seed and grow next to the chook pen so they can pick them off. They are the very small ones i am talking about not hte size you see in the supermarket. My neighbour is growing some of those and she says they aren't getting ripe. Strange.

Hmm about the plastic. WEll my father said it wouldn't be good enough and maybe he was right but its too late cause i've sent him off to buy some. I guess I will find out if its no good. And you are right, if i have to buy five layers then i might as well buy the right stuff first off. Actually i've seen a design which puts on some felt over the top of the plastic layer so perhaps i should do that as a preventative. Or just use the damaged plastic over the top. I wonder why one layer isn't good enough. is it the sun, or some creature chewing at it?

eco4560

20-09-2010, 12:16 PM

Yes they are friends. The local council rules won't let me keep a rooster and I'm pretty sure Fence Lady would have the inspectors around about 15 mins after the first crow!

sun burn

20-09-2010, 01:46 PM

I'm taking a break from working on my chook house door. Its 2pm and i think i began at about 9am. Who would have thought it would be so time consuming. I've got pictures but its still an unattractive door. I will only be proud that its a door that keeps the snakes out and the chooks in. Next time I make a door, at least i will know how to do it and then I can work on it being beautiful. I do know now, that its hard to do beautiful when you just don't have a clue about technique.

eco4560

20-09-2010, 02:54 PM

I don't know how harworkinghippy does it. Functional AND looks like an artwork. I'm restricted to cable ties and duct tape, can't do hammer and nails!

sun burn

20-09-2010, 09:03 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/09/20/snakeproofing-the-chookpen.html#comments

The chookpen door is on.

Well eco now i don't feel so bad. I can do hammer and nails at least, and having a drill to use made the whole thing a lot easier as well. We had an arguement over the drill. I got it stuck in the wood. I asked Dad to come and help me get it out. He took too long to get off his backside with no indication that he was going to help me, so i kept trying myself and ended up braking the drill bit. (That's when we argued). He was not pleased that I wasn't satisfied with his door and got cranky. (and i never even complained about his door, until now when i just said it wouldn't keep out the snakes). (Just reporting this for mild amusement. I don't require counselling about it.) Anyhow, so I found another drill bit - a blunt one but it didn't break throughout the remainder of construction.

I begin to feel a little accomplished and think i might tackle the chookhouse roof on my own now, though i might need some muscle to lift the iron into place. With all the rain we've been having the whole of the chookpen is damp now, except for a tiny patch under the tarp. More than ever I am glad of the laundry cupboard for the hen and her little ones.

Its been nice working around them today. Several times they came in and out of the chook house. I was beginning to think they just wanted my attention. They must be quite used to me by now.

sun burn

22-09-2010, 07:30 PM

Update:

I've started planting my mandala beds with things that will hopefully grow through the wet season. I'm trying out some things i've never tasted and never heard of until recently so i am looking forward to this whole thing. I've still got two beds to make but they will be a lot of work since I have to clear the bush first. And with the rain we've been having and the met's forecast that we will have more than usual rain until the end of the year, I could see no reason to wait.

So this is what i've done. I don't have the right plants to put in the barrier zone, so I've put in some peanuts and sunflowers by seed. But only around one bed. I'll try other things for the others.

Bed 1 - i've only put in amaranth so far.
Bed 2 - I put in Okra. There's some pumpkins growing too where i planted them before i decided to do the vegie patch down here.
Bed 3 and 4, not made yet.
Bed 5 - I put in some tomatoes. I don't know what these tomatoes are going to be like. They are called Thai Pink Egg, and i've put in a lot of basil next to them. I visisted my hydrponics neighbour today and he gave me big bunch of basil seedlings plus some other things.
Bed 6 - this is the one where i left the tree still in. I put in some lettuces and some coriander seeds though I now believe its going to be too humid for the coriander. Oh well!
The centre bed - i put in Kangkong. Cress which will probably not grow cause again i found its going to be too humid. Some vietnamese mint that my neighbour gave me.

I'm going to grow various sorts of beans in the centre of each bed on trellises but i need to buy yarn to make those. There's more to go in the beds but either i haven't got the seeds yet or the seeds i've planted in trays aren't yet ready. Anyway i hope they grow quick because i can't wait to see a lot of green bushiness down there. All this took simply ages to do today. I don't really like planting. I'd rather weed or dig. Planting is such fussy work isn't it. But, you've got to do it if you want to eat things.

I also planted some peanuts near my bananas and i noticed that the pinto peanut cuttings that the farmer gave me recently are growing. They survived!

hmmm the 7.30 report is about the indian games. I'm going to check it out... What a disaster, not to mention huge embarrassment for indians.

eco4560

22-09-2010, 08:55 PM

We should live together you know. I hate digging, but love planting. We could be like Peter the Pumpkin eater and his wife!

sun burn

22-09-2010, 10:04 PM

You'll have to come up here though cause I don't want to leave home. :-)

sun burn

26-09-2010, 10:57 PM

How hard does everyone work in their gardens day after day, week after week. I ask this now because my energy just went somewhere. I don't know where. Its going to have to come back of course but i just am not as motivated as I was last week. I did step out to mow the lawn today and quickly got frustrated. The wheel fell off the little mower, 20 metres after our visitor arrived to start the mower for me. (I can't start it as i am a leftie and the mower is a rightie and my rightie is too weak to start the mower. Dad can't start it cause his shoulder is f*cked at the moment and we think he might even have a virus, given how stiff he is all over. Dennis said Ross River fever, i'm thinking more like Dengue but anyhow dad is not well. Its like he's aged too quickly in recent months. I hope its nothing serious. Its also not good cause when he's not well he gets a bit grumpy and uncooperative and I really need him to help me with some essential aspects of the work that has to be done here.

I tried the other mower, the rideon, but i haven't yet learned how to get fuel in the pump and Dad was busy with Dennis pulling the clutch out of his car and didn't want to help me. I've been waiting all week to mow the lawn and now i will probably have to wait another week. Time just flitters away and things do not get done. It bothers me.

But i did do something important today. I poisoned the African tulip trees with diesel as Farmer Joe suggested. I like the African Tulip trees, they have lovely red flowers, but you can't get rid of them by chopping them down and you can't stop them from turning up everywhere. I hope this poisoning thing works. The roots have invaded one half of the nursery where the ducks live and the bananas are growing. The roots take all the moisture and all the nutrient I was told. I also hoped to grow other things down here so we can't have this unfair competition going on.

eco4560

27-09-2010, 03:50 PM

Yeah it comes and goes the enthusiasm. The trick is to make your system resilient enough to cope if you decide to slack off for a bit.
I spent from 7 am to 5 pm in the garden on Saturday and loved every bit of it. Other days I only feel like feeding the chooks. I think it's important not to feel like a slave to it. Pleasure is surely one of the yields of a permaculture system.

sun burn

28-09-2010, 11:50 AM

True, eco. I don't want to be a slave to anything. But i do want to transform this place and that will take a lot of work. I guess they key is to just keep on doing a little bit often and I am doing that at least. We had a blackout this morning so that was a good opportunity to go and shift some leaves to the compost heap, pick up some rubbish that i've been wanting to get to and pull up a few sensitive weeds (always one of my favourite jobs anyway).

Here's some pictures of the house my sister is building here. http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

sun burn

07-10-2010, 09:07 AM

Update:

Yesterday I started planting my pineapples. I have about 30 I think - although i thought i had more originally! They've done really well in potting mix and now with all this rain i just have to get going on them. It will be slow as i have to clear the grass with a mattock as the lawnmowers have continuous problems. I think it was the lawnmower problems that depressed me for a bit. I can't fix them - my father can but he's got Barmah Forest Virus which has him stiff as a piece of stale bread. I'm good with the mattock but its slow work.

My peanuts didn't come up. These were the ones i bought in a packet from the supermarket. I now regret not having gone to the Peanut Board when I was up in Tolga recently. I really want to grow peanuts.

I love the sweet potato that's popping up everywhere. It came in the mill mud. I don't even care about the sweet potatoes that much, I just like the foliage and the way its so easy to grow. I hope i don't regret letting it go wild.

I also can't use the chainsaw and am waiting on dad to do the business on a lot of trees here. I don't know how long i will be waiting so i got out the axe yesterday. The little one. Its more satisfying than waiting.

In the new vegie garden, the following are all doing reasonably well - kang kong, tomatoes - thai pink egg, okra, vietnamese mint, basil, cress, everlasting shallots and sunflowers though its early days yet and some of these might not last for long due to the humidity. The New Guinea bean are just coming up. I've begun putting in my capsicum seedlings as they seem to have moved out of their dormant stage. I hope they go this time. I've decided not to do the last two vegie circles at this stage and have planted rosellas there.

Of the four little chickens, it appears that one might be a rooster. Poor little bunny.

Tezza

07-10-2010, 03:33 PM

Great Thread Sun burn and good help from eco......

Keep it up Its good to read others trials and tribulations... Reminds me of all my episodes in my early days getting into permaculture....

as Eco said.... Its ok to have time off from the gardens... Permaculture allows and Teaches us to do our gardens,so they dont become a chore,and if/when it it gets to the i wanna weekend off sorta thing,well it can be done

Dont be a slave to your garden,Go and find a shady spot and relax for a few hours....Dream about it,Imagine about it.Meditate over it... in other words "ENJOY IT"

Tezza

As an Extra bit about snakes in chook houses.... I think chooks are much smarter then we give credit for,theyd run a mile if saw a snake,or the snake will slither a mile if a chook started making noises.....Snakes can apparently squeeze thru small holes, and locking chooks in the shed maybe will trap em in there with the snake...

Chooks dont need a fancy house in all cases..JUST somewhere,DRY,Warm, weather-proof, and safe from predators on the ground.... Chooks with encouragement will roost above ground.

sun burn

07-10-2010, 09:05 PM

I'm not sure i'm willing to take the risk of letting a hungry carpet snake grab one of my sleeping chooks. Apparently the snakes grab the chooks and squeeze them to death before trying to eat them. My ducks are currently not so well protected as the chooks and i'm inclined to think that they may be able to resist a snake. So far no snake has gotten hold of my cat and he's always out and about.

sun burn

09-10-2010, 12:21 PM

Its about time i posted some pictures. I've been slack lately but i've got my mojo back a bit now. Here's the link but i'm going to add a picture of me shortly just to jazz it up a bit. I have yet to take it but will step out and do that now.

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

I was thinking, this is really the time to be planting planting planting. It rains a little almost every day. Normally you wouldn't be able to plant at this time of year. It would be too dry and hot and would require too much extra work - unless you had your whiz bang irrigation system in already.

Note when looking at the blog, if you move your mouse over the screen, you may sometimes see little boxes, these have notes in them for extra miscellaneous info. If anyone knows what the flowers are, i'd love to know thanks.

eco4560

10-10-2010, 10:55 PM

Have you considered sheet mulching the area rather than pulling up the grass by hand? That looks like mind numbing hard work...

sun burn

11-10-2010, 09:24 AM

Its not really mind numbing but it is bloody hard work. Isn't the grass too long to sheet mulch. I think its too vigorous as well. I find laying out newspaper hard work too. Actually i like digging with my mattock - and if you read the comments, i'm not the only one :-). I"ve got a routine going now. I dig in the mornings when its cool - just enough for two to four pineapples or until i'm exhausted. I leave it all day. In the afternoon, i plant the plants, in the morning i put on the leaf mulch - to take advantage of any overnight rainfall. Despite all the rain we've been having, the ground is still quite dry under all that grass. Progress is fast than I thought it would be and as a consequence, i am not afraid of the job. After I finish the pineapples, i'm hoping my shrub cuttings are big enough to plant out. They are going to form the next row behind the pineapples. They are mostly not edible.

Observation: I've noticed that since i've begun raking the leaves under the fig tree the grass is starting to grow. It's the good grass, the name of which i can't remember. Maybe it can be nurtured to make a nicer grassy area underneath after all. If i can do this, i might not resent the fig so much, even though its still huge.

eco4560

11-10-2010, 07:32 PM

Isn't it nuts that people pay to go to the gym to get exercise, and buy Vit D capsules because they don't get enough sun exposure? 2 hours of digging each day - save the gym fees, get your Vit D from the sun and get stuff to eat. The world is nuts....

sun burn

11-10-2010, 09:50 PM

I'm in total agreement with you about the gym. I think it looks really boring. I much prefer to have some nature to look at when i walk or run. In sydney i used to enjoy looking at people's gardens. I'm sure i'm getting a good workout here in my garden, even cardio.

Since i'm writing anyway...

Yesterday a friend gave me some taro for my pond. And i succumbed at the markets and bought a lemon grass plant.

I discovered my hen doesn't liked being picked up and, after discussing hens with my friend yesterday, i figured that perhaps its a breed thing. These black ones don't like being picked up. I was having trouble shooing them out of the duck pen and i felt like i was traumatising them all when i was chasing htem all over. They'd discovered my cherry tomato bush and were going to spend the afternoon under it instead of out in my yard dropping their valuable poo everywhere. Its funny the ducks like to visit the chickens house and now the chickens like to hang out at the duck pen. Perhaps i should swap them back. (kidding - that's not going to happen.) As mentioned elsewhere, i found my first hen's egg today. How cute. Its about half the size of the duck's eggs. Maybe tomorrow I will post a photo.

Tezza

11-10-2010, 11:09 PM

Yeah,free sun if you go to a beach,or a nice river or even a natural pool,great places to get n stay healthy in the great outdoors

sun burn

12-10-2010, 10:22 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/entries/2010/10/12/saved/ About the fig tree as per my other post - Today's new project.

I haven't finished the pineapples yet but it was hot out there and its cool under the fig so i prefer to work there. I still managed to plant three pineapples though.

On Sunday a friend came to visit and she persuaded me that chopping down trees would be much easier with a big axe instead of the little hatchet i've been using. I've tried using the big axe before but its heavy and I am afraid i might chop my leg off as sometimes i miss my aim. Anyhow, i did use it today and it was so much quicker that i will probably stick with it and just try to improve my technique. I'm concerned that i will never be able to persuade Dad to get out his chainsaw again even though he's admitted that there are too many trees here now. I asked with some trepidation about the golden palms. He didn't object. I hope he sees it as a good idea rather than just giving in. He's never been very much into the garden here but i know from a third party that he likes what i'm doing on the whole.

sun burn

14-10-2010, 07:04 PM

update: It rained today so another great day for working out in the garden. (i love this rainy weather and this premature wet season). I've filled the top boundary with pineapples finally. I've got about 10 left to plant but that will take me round the corner onto the northern boundary. I think i've put in about 40 so far. I haven't actually counted them yet. Anyway, it feels like i've achieved something. On Sunday i got another box of tops. I think i am going to end up with too many pineapples after all. Perhaps i will have to go back and plant some in another front row - which is not a bad thing consider my fence objective.

Farmer Joe dropped in this afternoon. That man could talk the legs off a table. (is that how that saying goes? Somehow i think not? I'm hopeless at sayings.) I'm exhausted from a long day in the garden when Joe arrives and he talks and talks but he's a good man. Its all i can do to not push him in the car and send him on his way. Anyway he brought me news of my next chickens. He said they will be due the day before he is heading off for a holiday. Fingers crossed they hatch on time. He also brought me some tropical fruit. He brought me grumichama cherries which i find delicious - I've never had them before. I am not sure if they are better than ordinary cherries but they are not far behind. So i'm going to grow those from the seeds. He also brought me a bag of star apples. The fruit is ok but the tree is lovely with its copper underside trees. He told me some of his branches broke with the weight of the fruit. He lives in a high rainfall area so all his tropical fruit trees do amazingly, without any tlc. I'll grow one of these for the beautiful fruit. If anyone wants to try this fruit I can post you some seeds. If you live down south, it wouldn't matter if you don't get any fruit off it because the fruit is fairly ordinary but the tree is lovely, though you might need to germinate it in hotter weather. Joe said he likes the fruit with icecream. I just ate two and quite enjoyed them. I should photograph and pblog all these things.

But the more exciting work of today for me was to start on my garden wall. As i said elsewhere i'm thinking about building a cement wall-seat where the terrace is. As it might be some time before i am able to build that cement thing, (I could aim for next winter), i decided to build a temporary wall using old corrugated iron. Today i put in some star pickets and then Joe arrived so that's as far as I got. I'll photograph progress soon but today my pblog has to be about the lourvres in the house. I still haven't processed them but the family in the emirates wants to see them. I still can't find the axe.

sun burn

15-10-2010, 02:05 PM

update: Today i'm putting up the roof for the chickens. You might want to call it makeshift but i think it will be fine in a cyclone and I can put it up by myself. I'm using the same heavy duty wire i used for the walls. I'm fixing it to the walls with wire and then i'm covering it all iwth a few layers of tarp. I've put a lean on the roof so the rain will run off. I don't think there will be much trouble with the sun as the chicken shed is in the shade and its already got a layer of shade cloth. I'm putting on a sheet of plastic in good condition to keep the rain out then some old tarps to provide added protection.

I sewed some coleus today for my new garden bed.

sun burn

17-10-2010, 11:09 AM

For the purposes of documentation and blogging...

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila Picture of suffering pineapple.
I'll put up a picture of my chook house roof in here too.

Tezza

17-10-2010, 11:41 AM

great pics and gardens Sun burn.... very nice... looking great

sun burn

17-10-2010, 01:49 PM

Believe me tezza, the garden is a mess. Its just that its very green at the moment and there is a lot of stuff growing here. So even at its worst its still a pleasant place to be. The long grass is horrifying (but not as bad as it used to be) and i constant little battles iwth my father about it. He likes to poison it. He doesn't like the holes i make in teh ground when i pull it up. He also worries that the soil will be left unprotected when the rain really gets here. He used to also worry about his logs being exposed to the sun. I am gradually winning the argument but I don't know why he likes this grass so much really.

Tezza

19-10-2010, 05:51 PM

he he he are you a presenter on better shacks and forests... (homes n gardens)...Yeah the "oldies" my parents are like that,Hope we are the new generation,to show the way back to (normality)

A generation,totaly out of touch with the envioroment, Does he worry his logs will get sunburnt? sun burn...
My dad grew veges back in the 60s,and his grandad had a large orchard,How come im the only real green in the family....am i the black sheep or the GREEN sheep of the family..My great grandads orchard,was a place i remember visitingas a young boy of under 5 i think,i cant remember much apart from being mezmarised under his orchard,and using an outside toilet,with newspaper for the "paperwork".....
My parents were stunned to hear my recollections,as iwas only so young,they both thought i was a baby still,all this was rememberd a few years after getting into permaculture,

I think its sacriligious not to teach our kids some forms of self relience for life....... Thankfully I managed to teach em a few basics,and thankfully they both "aware types)
I give up trying to hassel,bug,persuade my parents and brother a long time ago8)8)8)8)8)

Tezza

sun burn

19-10-2010, 06:35 PM

I think he worried that the weather would damage them for future wood turning episodes but somehow i think he's realised the ants will beat him to those logs anyway.

Update: I was putting away some building materials around my sister's house and I hit upon what seems to me a good way to quickly, effectively and painlessly kill off lots of the grass I've got to deal with and which you might have seen me mention in recent posts. There's a lot of black plastic lying about and i realised it would be a good to lay it on top of the grass for a while.

I chopped down a fairly big tree today. So much easier with a man-sized axe. I am glad i don't have to wait for my father any more to a) get out his chainsaw and b) fix the lawn mower. I think i am gradually learning a little self-reliance. If i could afford it, i'd probably do the chainsaw course.

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/10/18/

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/10/17/accidentally-excellent-exora-tree.html This post is about my exora tree.

Tezza

19-10-2010, 10:09 PM

how big is your property.... i missed that bit :(

gee youll need tons of plastic,such a shame,maybe you need a vegation eater for those places... do you have geese or perhaps aggist smones small horses or young lambs,cows etc,just long enough to get the heavy work eaten down,dont get goats,and dont havetoo many or too long......

Tezzza

aroideana

20-10-2010, 07:04 AM

Instead of chopping down all of the Golden canes , just thin them out . Leave a few tall stems , and remove all others .
Looks awfull for a while until a ball of leaves develops down low . You can then let a few more canes grow up and hack bacvk all others .
Gives a great look , seen many like this in Rocky , and local Council are doing it here . brtw I am at Lat 18 and see that you must be half way up Cape York if you are anywhere near Lat 14 ;-)

sun burn

20-10-2010, 07:12 AM

Tezza, we've got a hectare. Would geese eat that long grass? If only I had known before. I think its a bit late now. I'd love a cow for milk but I don't think that's going to happen.

Mike, i've settled on chopping down four and they are almost all down now. The other four i am thinning out a little.

Yes to my great embarassment, i picked the wrong number for my address. I think its about 16, not 14 but i only realised that recently and I don't think i can change my title.

Tezza

20-10-2010, 09:33 AM

Geese Love grass,grass and lots of grasss..youd need a flock buy a pair and let em breed or get about 6 or so,where its long and thick u could thin out with mower but after awhile,theyd be able to manage it better.
Down south in my garden,all that green vegetation eg grass,dies off,but some grasses hang in there....
baring that,let chooks,ducks out as long as possible to help keep those grasess at bay....
For some areas it may require planting out with trees etc,Rome wasnt built in a day,and NEITHER WAS ANY "PERMIE" Paradise..
Some jobs just have to wait,untill your ready,or seasons allow,
I got a good mower/mulcher,it destroys weeds etc,great for those heavy duty weeds or woody weeds,no good trying with just a lawn mower..as itll probly wreck it.Throw away the catcher,just let it drop on the ground..Never underestimate the digging,turning over power of poultry and or geese.....

Of course it wont happen over night,but taking photos like you do,will show the difference after just a few weeks or months......
If only veges etc grew as fast and healthy as some weeds........

This pic of geese was taken of my next door neighbour garden,with my original geese,I gave to my neighbour few years back,geese love lawns,as they cut the grass not chew or pull it out as they graze it,leaving an allmost perfect trimmed lawn:party::party::party:

Tezza

sun burn

23-10-2010, 10:55 AM

NOTE : dont' read this if you already read my post about building a tree house. I am just posting it here for the record. but of course any comments here still welcome.

Ok this is probably a mad idea at first glance but i've hit upon doing this and need to explore construction methods.

I've got a small forest patch which is about 100 x 50m i think. I had a look down there yesterday and there are a few spots where there are clearings large enough for room space.

I found this design which has inspired me most so far...http://www.treehotel.se/sv/rummen/a-room-with-a-view but my own ideas have developed a little on from that. That after all is a hotel apartment. I need a house.

I have decided on three stories
ground level - kitchen, bathroom, work studio and dining
1st level - living and office
2nd level bedroom
and then there is a lookout deck

alas i won't be able to get high enough to see the sea.

I want to keep the hosue open as possible since its tropical here and air flow is everything. Rain and weather come from the southeast and so that wall will probably have to be closed off peramanently especially on the upper floors.

On teh ground floor i have to close off the east wall as this forest patch is very close to a busy road.

I've looked at a few images of houses but i can't see how they are attached properly to the trees. Some, like this one has build on independent steel poles - a route i may not be able to afford.

I want to be able to make lightweight rooms - floors and ceilings from readily accessed materials that are easy to work with since I myself will be doing most of the work. My father is going to be too old to help me much i think. Anyway i'd like to be able to do it on my own though i am making connections iwht locals and i may be able to recruit them for my most difficult jobs.

I want to make woven bamboo or frond screens for some walls, floors and ceiling for aesthetics. I've decided i need to grow my own bamboo. I've got a few books out on that. Beofre i couldn't figure out where to grow the bamboo but now i think i will put it down int eh forest. This will help with screening from the raod too.

I will work on the ground floor first. At present i am living in my sister's half finished house which is so lovely its motivated me to hurry up and deal with my own house because I don't want to move back into my previous flimsy accomdoation on a long term basis. They will come back next winter to build the kitchen and bathroom adn I will have to move out for a couple of months then.

Do people have any ideas for buidling materials. I won't be using corrugated iron, though I like it sometimes.
Steel mesh could be useful. Can you put cement sheeting on top of it for a roof?
Thatching would be nice.
I like the idea of a manure floor but i think its a bit soggy where i am in the wet season so it might not be good unless I can build it up.

When thinking of cheap, bear in mind that it has to be dirt cheap. I have zero money at present.

I wonder how you go about using existing trees for structural strength in teh house with out damaging them. Most of the trees i will be able to use a silver quongdongs - they are nice and straight. Rose butter nut is massive but not so striaght and simple. I can't remember what else there is that will useful. I wish i had more karri pines. I am going to have to plant some more of those.

I have a large hoop pine that we can use after chopping down. It doesn't really fit in this garden but it would make a good pole if i could transport it down there.

I've thought of using steel cable for strength. I hope my trees are strong enough.

As you can see this is a bit of a jumble of thoughts. Please feel free to share any of yours. I will try to post some pictures at some point.

note: crossposting this with my members blog.

sun burn

23-10-2010, 10:56 AM

Tezza do you have to supplement geese feed? Or is the garden enough for them?

Tezza

23-10-2010, 11:28 AM

Sunny....You shouldnt have to supplement a gooses food,they will eat grassses all day ,but will appreciate,some left overs,just like you would with other poultry.....Geese only lay once a year...usually spring to early summer,they lay untill they collected enough eggs,then start sitting,untill hatching....

Chinese geese are very nice looking geese,and apparently,better guard geese...(they can be as good as a dog to scare of predators)...scare only...they cant kill or defend emselves though :(..
Chinese or the normal white or grey Emdens will suffice...If you got a Trio,after a season or two you could have a nice little flock building up.... Sell or EAT any excesses,remember geese used to be a delicacy years ago,AND they lay extra large eggs,that are valuable to those Fabergee eggs that people are allways looking for

Tezza

sun burn

25-10-2010, 10:13 AM

I'll keep all that in mind Tezza. Its a nice idea having a big variety of birds. As regards predators, can they scare off dogs? As i think dogs are the only predators apart from snakes that we need to worry about here.

Update - will post a few pictures later i hope.
Yesterday I noticed that quite a lot of my cuttings are over ready to be planted out so today I am going to start with the clearing. Its too sunny to plant. I will wait for a rainy day for that. I'm wondering how much space I should leave behind the pineapples. I'm thinking 1.5 metres - 2 might be even better so as to avoid the bushes overhanding the pines. Its these sort of bushes... http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2010/10/16/shrubbery-aspirations.html

Yesterday I pinched a few little shade plants from the Botanical gardens. I love our botanical gardens. I didn't take any pictures but its the most gorgeous tropical garden. There's a section on bamboos and I got a few names of things that i like the look of. Bamboo in pots is so expensive.

My last two ducks that haven't been sitting on their eggs have found hidey spots for laying now so that's a bugger as I can't find their eggs. I am a pretty tolerant mum but when I get in touch with this woman who wants to buy them, there won't be any more hiding the eggs from moi!

Down in the vegie patch, the kang kong is doing brilliantly though i still haven't dared make a meal of it yet. The sweet potato is running rampant up the paths, so is the pumpkin which will probably end up in the bush. The tomatos are growing like steam trains in the mill mud but bacterial wilt is the getting the bettter of them and one by one htey are keeling over. The amaranth showed up and seems to doing fine. The beans are probably going be too much for the small spot i gave them. I have to get some more eggplant happening now that i know what to do with so many of them. The basil - I am eating a lot of pesto. So long as things are growing, i am happy.

I planted seeds yesterday for grumichama (which is a lovely juicy cherry fruit and you can make wine from them as well) and star fruit which I am only going to grow for the lovely tree I think. People can try them as a novelty.

My guava seed from Eden Seeds never came up. :-( They must have been old.

The cat is having a wild dream. His paws are quivering.

Oh i just saw a Ulysses butterfly flutter by. The sun is shining, the birds are tweeting, Dad's sleeping and all is well with my world today. I bought a new pair of working shorts yesterday but I hope my prince charming doesn't stroll past when I am digging by the roadside as I don't look too good in them, especially not with my crocs and socks. :-)

Tezza

25-10-2010, 01:20 PM

I dont think geese will scare away dogs Sunny...But the noise will wake you up.. or the commotion will make the dogs or snakes think twice....

Birds hiding there eggs is very common...They like privacy,and dont like others interfering,or if its crowded,they can and do look for outa the way spots...Thats good unless they sit on em outside the safer areas....

If possible I supply a (old milk urn) or simuler shaped bucket etc..It gives em enough room to get in there lay sit n hatch without the added burden of chooks sharing nests,or jelous hens wanting more eggs or a new nest ..the old 10 litre buckets are excellent(those bulk food grade buckets) mine had bulk mayonaise in them,be4 i recycled them lol

sun burn

27-10-2010, 09:37 AM

Update:

Yesterday I started on my next row of boundary screening plants. I've begun clearing the long grass. I'm going to use mainly acalypha Wilkenisia (thanks aroideana) with lots of sweet potato on the ground. I'm also going to grow lablab this first year in the spaces whilst the plants are small. Afterall, i've got a ton of seed to use up.

The other day I got a second load of mill mud from my farmer. As we were loading it, an ants nest fell out. Joe said they were native fire ants. Anyway i looked it up on the net and contacted the DPI as they looked a worry. They are not the imported fire ants that the government is most worried about so I will have to treat them myself and I think i will poison them. They may be native but they are not native to my location and we already have enough ants thanks very much, without another one that makes you feel like you just put your hand in a flame.

Now all the damn ducks are hiding and sitting on their eggs. I didn't mind two doing it but now the other two have gone AWOL and i haven't found their nests so i'm only getting one little egg a day from my hen. The chickens are growing and running kilometres and kilometres all over the garden, having a wonderful time by the looks of it. Pity they are not more tame though and won't let me pick them up. Perhaps iwth the next lot if i can get them earlier, they will let me. I'd love to be able to pick them up and put them in the trailer with the mill mud to eat the ants and the maggots that are in there. But no chance of that.

The dog is amazing. This morning in need or a bit of exercise, she took off on a sprint all around the garden, dodging narrowly the ducks and chickens when they appeared in her way. If you want a dog that respects your other animals, get one of these - a german pointer or even a cross as Cilla is. She's a gentle soul with energy of a toddler even at 9 years old but only when she wants a run, the rest of the time she sleeps on one of her two beds. One downside to her is a sensitivity to fungal skin infection which makes her lick but in recent years we seem to have got on top of that with regular ear washes and the occasional shampoo wash when needed. The problem is worse in the dry season.

The cat had a cold not long ago but seems to have recovered.

Down in the vegie patch, i need to plant my taro. Around my pond, i'm planting things that need to be kept more wet than others. Its easy to water, I jsut get in the pond and splash everything. Unfortunatley i didn't fish out all the toads eggs and there's many little tadpoles swimming in there. I scoop out as many as i can in the afternoon. I don't want a toad population explosion.

The kang kong is looking good, I will have to try eating it soon. Maybe tonight i will make one of those stirfries that pippi told me how to do.

Yesterday I had a huge repotting session. I was happy to see that my frangipannis have all rooted. I'm going to put a series of different coloured ones along the main road past the block. its amazing how little i've had to spend on plants. Although I'm worried that my exora cuttings are not behaving properly. Don't they know i've got a prime location planned for them. Here's a link to some other plants i like and getting the mill mud.

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

Here's a link to some pictures from India. http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/10/19/all-in-a-days-ride-andaman-islands.html

Now I might go down to my forest and string up the floor area for the first room in my house...

sun burn

28-10-2010, 08:11 PM

Today's labours:

Joe phoned me up and suggested I bring back the trailer of mill mud and he would give me another one. AT first he suggested just giving me some poison but i was glad to take it back to be honest. He gave me some poison still as there were some different ants in the second load. I do'nt htink they are a worry though. But he suggested that putting hot water on them would kill them. ouch!

Today I did a great deal of shovelling. I am digging holes, digging out grass, emptying the tralier and then digging more holes and then planting more sweet potato. Joe gave me an armful of sweet potato so I put that all around but by then i was too tired to plant it all so i just planted it en masse in my new small fireplace. Then of course the hen wanted to get in and scratch so i grabbed a bit of old shade cloth to protect them over night at least.

One of my neighbours passed me today and told me its all looking great. Well it isn't really yet but it will and she's probably glad to see that someone is finally doing something about the grass. Grass and untidiness or not, i have noticed that our place is still one of the better looking gardens from the road than most of my immediate neighbours. I've become more critical of gardens. I don't like views of big wooden fences and large expanases of green grass. There are some nice gardens here but they are hard to see into.

I think the watercress is starting to succumb to the heat. I am surprised how well the vegie garden is holding up against dryness. I do water it but the plants are showing no signs of stress after four or five days of high heat. I haven't watered the okra at all. One by one my tomatos are succumbing to bacterial wilt.

I am excited about my boundary plants. I can't wait til they are all in along the back road.

The other day when i went down to the forest, there was a spot that almost clear where at first i thought i would build the biggest room. However, a little while later i found another area where the two buildings could go much closer to each other and so it might be better all around. In the meantime, i can use the first clearing for a temporary room and move in next winter. I will put up a tarp for the roof. Dad has some large cores of mango wood that haven't been attacked by termites. I might plant these as stumps for a floor. I will try to cut down some bamboo from one of the stray stands that are around and make a floor above the ground. I have seen bamboo splitting done and I think it could work. For light i will have to do as i always do and just stretch a power lead all teh way down. I don't spend much time in bedroom anyway as i can't use my computer there and there's no kitchen. The last two years I've been living in a tent so I know what its all like. The down side will be noise from the road and exposure but perhaps my hibiscus will provide a bit of screening by then. With thsi temporary building, i can experiment with putting in posts and things and practice some building techniques. I wont have to remove any trees.

Pictures for today. http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila They are from India, not of my garden. though perhaps i should put up my pictures that i tried to take of this spot... Ill get a coffee, then do it.

sun burn

28-10-2010, 08:35 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/10/21/ I probably took them at the wrong time of day. One day i will do it in the morning.

sun burn

29-10-2010, 11:14 PM

This link is the same as the one on the bamboo thread. http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

I had a great day today. I went out in the car plant fishing to give my hands a rest from all the digging i've been doing. They are a bit sore. I got tons of things... a pretty hibisucs, some more red stuff, bromiliads, orchids, water lillies, up, more acalypha ( I feel like i've written this somewhere already today)... some things need identification so if you can help, feel free. I haven't upt all pics up yet and some have got jammed on my disc. I hope its not buggered.

I came home and put the lillies in the pond. I hope they don't die. All the plants i bought have disappeared. As have the fish but i haven't seen them floating so maybe they are still around. The water needs cleaning. Does anyone know anything about the stuff you can get from bunnings to clear the water in the pond?

sun burn

31-10-2010, 07:32 PM

It was too late this afternoon to take pictures of the vegie patch but its time i took some more shots. This afternoon, i put up a fence not quite in time but soon enough before the chickens and ducks wrecked the garden. They've recently discovered it and would not be shooed away so a shadecloth fence went up. That should keep the little buggers out. I've decided I am going to put some mulch in their pen to attract the worms and give them endless hours of joy as well.

In my vegie patch, i've got lillies on the pond now. The water gets quite hot during the day so I hope this doesn't kill them. I haven't seen the fish for ages. I hope they are still down there somewhere. Oh i think i'm repeating myself. Here are some more photos anyway, from my india trip. http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

I was researching on the net how to build in concrete and stumbled upon a site that talks about lightweight concrete building with foam. He reckons you can build a house by yourself doing this. Here is the link...http://sites.google.com/site/robbmoffett/howtobuildalowcostfoamcementhomewithdoit

I've been looking in a bali house book which has some lovely ideas. The world is full of lovely ideas. I just have to put some of them into action on my place. ...Now I am off to a Halloween event.

purplepear

31-10-2010, 07:44 PM

What magnificent clothes the ladies wear - as in the show on the slums, the people seem to put effort into their appearance.

How you get more treats than tricks.

sun burn

02-11-2010, 11:27 AM

Update on the vegetable mandala gardens: http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/10/25/

I've just planted a few mother in law's tongues that i pinched from a public garden the other day. I think they will look great en masse around the lunch time table. I think i need to get some more though as they are slow growing (aren't they?) and i've only just put in 7 pieces. Ah, aren't these the plants that grow from just a piece of leaf? I shall look it up now. ... dammit, the chickens have just found them....

I put the seaweed I collected yesterday around my boundary shrublets. I hope they like it. I'm inspired now to go back and get more for the others I will plant as I want these shrubs to grow as fast as they can.

Last night i put one duck and a drake in with the chickens. I got two eggs this morning! When i went in there was a duck in the bottom of the cupboard and a hen sitting on top of it. Both in nests. Very cute!.

Its hot today. We haven't had rain for at least a week now.

sun burn

04-11-2010, 07:02 PM

update: I found another ducks nest. There were 8 eggs in it but she has missed a few nights so they won't be little ducklings now. I tried to move the nest into the chickens house so she could continue sitting on them but the other duck got there first and pulled them out of the nest. I don't think the original mother recognised them anyway. Well i removed most of them then but left three in case someone wants to sit on them.

I picked some ceylon spinach for dinner tonight. I don't know how i am going to eat it yet.

I decided to tackle the mill mud in the trailer today. It had bitey ants in it and i was going to poison it or do soemthing because I don't want them in my garden. But in the end I thought stuff it. I had been putting out cilla's old meaty bones and there was no ant action so i thougth maybe they all died in the heat of the mill mud. So i started unloading it and then i stumbled upon the nest in tact. I did make up some poison and poured a bit on it. Then i took it out of the trailer, put it in a bucket. I decided to give it the hot water treatment as well for the hell of it. Then i put the entire contents of the bucket in the garbage bin. I am glad i did it that way because when i unloaded the rest of the trailer onto the log piles, the chickens found it and had a feast of all the maggots that have been growing in it. They might have got poisoned, if i'd done it the way farmer told me to. I'm going to go back and get another load tomorrow. And for this lot, now i can plant my paw paw seedlings, but i will wait til i am sure the chickens have finished with the maggots.

I am excited about my boundary plantings at the moment. The pineapples i planted recently are shooting up. It must be the rain. I've just about got 20 of the second row of shrubs in too and i think it is already looking pretty smart but not worth photographing yet. I prepared the second lot of pineapples too. I don't have any potting mix left so i made a pile of mill mud on a piece of shade cloth and just shoved all the pineapple tops in it.

I am concerned about exora cuttings. I don't htink they are working and i want to put them on the corner in the border of our property. Hmmm. Either i figure out to make a proper cutting or i put something else there. Whatever it is, it has to be spectacular.

Yesterday i went on another plant fishing trip. I got more mother in law tongues now i'm considering using them as the borders of all my paths around the property. I read it takes a while ot propagate them but it can be done from leaf tips. The good thing about them is that they don't need much watering and they are easy and i can get more of them. And i like them. And the ducks don't seem to eat them though i saw they pick off the insects.

Also yesterday I got some wild grasses from a creek bed. They will look nice when i can figure out where to put them. I got a few other things as well.

And i saw this plant which i've no idea what it is. Can you tell me. Its a fruit tree but i can't tell whether its a tropical fruit or a southern fruit. Its very pretty in flower. http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

purplepear

05-11-2010, 06:01 AM

Pretty tree but i have not seen it in the Hunter Valley so it is probably tropical.

I have sent the friend request but have not heard back yet

regards

sun burn

05-11-2010, 08:46 AM

I haven't received it purple. Maybe i will have to tell the guys. Could you give it another try first please.

eco4560

05-11-2010, 09:42 AM

I don't know the tree either, but it is pretty. Does it get fruit of some sort?

sun burn

05-11-2010, 07:20 PM

Yes eco, there is a picture showing the fruit. Its not ripe yet. It looks like a green passionfruit in the picture but it looks more like a pear in side view.

sun burn

06-11-2010, 01:17 PM

Everybody (almost) at my place. Only the young chickens and me are missing. http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/11/05/ Its been quite hot lately, around 31 degrees. I can't wait for it to rain again.

Yesterday I visited a local winery, probably THE local winery. I was impressed. My favourite was mango wine though I"ve had the lychee wine before and it is delicious. I also liked jaboticaba port. Black sapote port was pretty good too. She said it was the most popular. Passionfruit wine has won medals but i wasn't sure about it. I might like it more on further tastings. The Kaffir limoncello was delicious too. They had mangosteen wine but i think that would be a waste unless the used the less delectable yellow mangosteen to make it.

Now i am going to look forward to making my own fruity wines. I am keen to make watermelon wine, jaboticaba wine, I think i prefer to keep all my mangos for eating, lemoncello. I think i'd also like to make a cumquat or citrus liquer too. they had a grapefruit one but i can't remember what I thought of it. I think i liked it.

Yesterday i went to get another load of mill mud. Had to shovel it all in myself this time. Since unloading hte last batch, the chickens have been feasting on maggots in the pile. They are having a wonderful time. I am waiting for them to finish before i put in my paw paw seedlings. Speaking of those, they germinated quickly and then didn't move much after growing to about 7 cm but recently i put on some weed tea and they have since started to look a bit more alive. So guess who's getting more weed tea.

Finally my mulberry cuttings have started to show signs of taking root. That' excites me I really thought they weren't going to work. I think will have enough mulberries to make wine from too. And i will put one in the ducks pen just for them to enjoy. I love mulberries. Life is wonderful...

The day before yesterday I planted about 10 plants in my border. Now i have almost finished one side of my boundary border and am about to start on the other side. When i go around the corner I need to come up with another sequence. The sequence along the top has been two green acalyphas, three red, etc with one varigated auralia behind the red ones. I also put in a feature patch of 4 cat's whiskers. On the corners I wanted to put in red exoras but my cuttings haven't worked. I need to learn how to make them go because I really want those in that corner. Meanwhile i might put in some varigated cassava because they are very easy to grow and very pretty too.

Down in the vegie patch i am watering a little bit but mostly things don't look like they need it. I've noticed okra on my plants. I think i read somewhere to pick them while they are small. They are quick though. They are already big. How do you make a meal of two small okra though? Perhaps I can freeze them till there are more. The watercress died. Its too hot for it. There's flowers on my bean plant. Lots of little round pumpkins forming on the pumpkin vine. I keep forgetting to get down there to cross pollinate in the mornings though so i've missed a couple.

sun burn

11-11-2010, 12:45 PM

My ducklings have started hatching. They are so gorgeous. I haven't been able to download any pictures from my camera. Not sure if the memory card is stuffed or if there are memory problems on my computer.

Gosh its hot here. I don't feel like doing any work. I could do it at 6am but this morning bed felt better.

I got offered some work by an old boss the other day but today he phoned up to retract the offer. Nothing to do with me. Just business. Bad luck. Oh well.

sun burn

12-11-2010, 02:41 PM

Shopping:
I think gardeners must be the most generous people around. First I went to Helga's nursery to buy some fruit trees. That was exciting. I bought 2 4 year old mangosteens, 1 custard apple, 1 breadfruit, 1 vanilla plant, 1 naval orange and 1 mandarine and 1 avocardo. Its pretty good value at Helgas in case anyone is up this way. This all cost me $189.50. She was free with her advice of course about how to grow them. She had an amazing vanilla vine growing on a pole. Among many other things. Helga didn't have an eftpos machine at her place so I don't need to pay her until the markets on the weekend.

Then she told me how to find Kate's place to get some comfrey. Helga didn't have any herself. She doesn't realise its unkillable nature and told me she killed two. Therefore she's afraid to break it up to make more. So off i went down the road to Kate's place. Kate grows herbs and special vegies for local restaurants. She gave me the comfrey. Some Thai egg tomatos, bits of this and bits of that and we walked around her garden looking at things. We compared her okra to mine. Her's a pretty big. We ate one raw but i wasn't that enamoured. She showed me her galangal ginger hedge and told me it makes a great screening, better than all the other gingers.

Yesterday my neighbour gave me a jakfruit, three actually. A day later i am still eating the first one. Its delicious. Tastes like juicy fruit chewing gum. Apparently it is easy to germinate and grow from seed, so I'll be doing that.

Now I just have to sit back and wait for it to rain. Helga said to mix in a lot of mill mud with the soil for planting my fruit trees to give them a flyng start. I'll be doing that. I'll have to unload this trailer load tomorrow and go and get another lot. Preferably before it rains.

I brought home a big bag of lablab seed today. Its a lot more than i need. If anyone wants to buy some off me, it would be great. This is the creeping vine variety. Its said to be ornamental and easy to grow. Its a legume of course.

eco4560

12-11-2010, 09:14 PM

Sounds like a great bunch of shielas to have around! Enjoy your trees. Galangal as a hedge sounds great - I might have to try that myself.

sun burn

13-11-2010, 06:53 AM

Comfrey: most of this is copied from the comfrey thread. not the last para.

"This looks like the thread that everybody has to have a go at and now I can too since i've just got some comfrey roots to plant. Living in the tropics, the woman who gave it to me told me that it won't go rampant up here. At least she hasn't found it so. She grows it under her citrus trees. So now i am slightly confused about that. I didn't want to argue the point with her. But i thought citrus preferred more carbon sources of mulch and nutrition rather than nitrogen sources. Anyone want to comment on that.

Anyway it looked nice.

I am glad i have read here that it is a bog plant so i make sure i give it enough water to thrive and plant it in the right places to start with.

Also I'm wondering how it will grow in my vegie patch in the sandy loam. I guess the point is about water holding capacity of the soil. I will try it and see. My other bog plants are doing fine. But then they've got mill mud to grow in. Anyway to start with, i thought i'd grow it as a barrier plant around my vegie circles as recommended by Linda Woodrow. "

**Now i've got three exact barrier plants she recommends - comfrey, lemon grass and sugarcane. Though I think there is a long way to go before they are all growing in the right place and doing the job as intended. I am so loving that mandala design for vegetable gardenings. Its pure wisdom. Though i think i am not ever going to bother with the chook tractor. I'd prefer my chooks fertilising the whole place and will try to rely on mill mud for the vegies.

I guess the galangal would also be good as a barrier plant up here. I did put some gingers in in that part of the mandala.

It still hasn't rained though the weather forecast keeps saying it will. And today I see the sky is overcast so soon perhaps. Fingers crossed.

aroideana

13-11-2010, 07:39 AM

Hmong farmers in the hills towards Innisfail grow masses of Galangal , a mate had it is a pioneer plant . I have several clumps I must plant out .
They got dumped on my driveway and have been growing well , so tough . Helga is great , I thought she was selling the nursery ? Regularly had dinner with her after the markets in the MT Molloy pub . Your mystery 'fruit tree' may be,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicope_elleryana

sun burn

13-11-2010, 09:42 AM

Ah yes you are right. Many thanks mike.

I didn't notice any for sale signs on her place but the property across the road is for sale.

sun burn

14-11-2010, 08:05 AM

Ducky observations:

This morning I went down to see how they all are. btw I have left them in their spot by teh side of the forest. So far so good and i haven't noticed any predator birds around except hte first day. Today they were all out, snapping at green things and fluttering about. They can move damn fast those little monkeys. Mum had had a bath. I left the bathing bowl out for her last night. She hasn't had a bath since the babies were born. Several times a day i go and change the drinking water. And i give them all some fresh crumbles for the ducklings and pellets for mum. They all seem to know how to eat and what to eat by instinct. perhaps they can smell it.

Then i saw Bertie and two of the girls heading down towards this area and I decided to introduce them all to the ducklings. Not a great idea actually. Best to leave creatures to their own devices when it comes to newborns. I know that now. Anyway Bertie didn't even look at hte ducklings. He immediately made chase after Maude for a route. I guess he was asserting ownership rights. He hasn't seen her for a while and might even have thought that she'd ran off with someone else. Anyhow. The little ones ran back and hid in the nest. The other two girls didn't notice the ducklings either and i just shooed them away and waited for mum to come back. I still wasn't able to catch a little one without being too pushy about it.

One other thing i noticed. Ducks really do have quite good memories and seem to feel things. I've noticed this a couple of times. This morning it was about old eggs. yesterday I took out all the unhatched eggs from Maude's nest. I thought it seemd they weren't going to hatch since she wasn't being dilligent about sitting on them and they were just in the way. For some reason, i put them on the ground near hte duck yard and this morning Bertie and the girls found them and showed quite a bit of interest in them. So i picked them up. I don't know how traumatic that was but its like how they were keen to go back to their old pen after i'd taken them and put them in teh duck yard. I am sure too that if i took them back to the farm, they'd be thrilled to rediscover it and any of their old brothers and sisters if they were still about.

So that's it for the ducks.

Yesterday I did the following.

I planted 7 comfrey and watered them all in well as a barrier plant on the outskirts of the vegie bed. I kept one out to grow in a pot for future plants.

I put the vanilla next to a tree in the vegie patch> I will have to cut the top of the tree off sometime but for now, its providing shade. It was great to see the one that helga had. I have read though that I am going to have to hand pollinate the flowers which is a good reason for not letting it grow up a tree.

I planted 3 passionfruits in the vegie patch. Did i mention that on my drive up to Julatten i passed a passioinfruit farm. They were growing on a sort of grid of wires, not a trellis. I thought this might be a good idea to incorporate into the vegie patch for some shade, especially during the hot dry season at this time of the year. I haven't got the full amount of wires but the posts are in place and some wires.

I put marker posts in the ground where some fruit trees are going to go. I’ve changed the planting plan. and figured out where the second winter vegie mandala will go. I did that in the scorching hot sun, sweat pouring off me.

I unloaded the trailer of mill mud. not quite finished. And i remembered that the chickens need to eat all the maggots before i can plant the paw paw seedlings. The chickens would only dig them up and mince them with their feet.

I staked the tomatoes. I had put stakes in the ground off the first tomato bed and all thsoe have since died to bacteria wilt but now the onesn in the other bed need staking so i had to do that. I used my sister's old bikinis to tie them up. Oddly she told me that old swimmers are good for tying plants to stakes. (oh that's one for the recycling thread.)

One disappointing thing i noted is that i won't be able to plant six trees in the vegie mandala but only five as i put the entrance in teh wrong place. In the second vegie manadala i will only be able to plant 4 as there is already a big mango there and an oil palm, neither of which an be moved. I am having to squeeze in this mandala and work around what's already tehre including several large logs and a poinsianna tree. Down the track i might want to chop down the poinsianna because of the roots. It would be a shame though because its one of the best ones we've got.

About this vegie mandala. I am glad i've pegged it out because now i can get onto improving the soil. It needs it. This area was where i began my first vegie bed this year and it wasn't particularly productive. I got a few things but there was a bit of stunting. So now the plan is to throw everything at it. Lots of sheet composting is what i am to do. And if i can get a load of mill mud for it, I will do that too because that mill mud is damned excellent. I will fence it off at some point and keep the ducks and chickens in there for a while to poo as much as possible. With the wet season about on us, I don't know how much of what i do will be retained in the soil. that's the only concern so I will mature some horse manure in a separate spot and put down just before planting. I'll put some fresh manure on to help with the composting process. Manure seems to be the best things for getting things going. I will, however, plant all the trees as soon as I can.

Helga told me to plant all the fruit trees iwth mill mud. I might have mentioned that already.

Oh and the rain has finally arrived. Its quite light at present but I am sure it will only get heavier. I am glad the rain is here for so many reasons.
1. it cools everything down
2. it means i can start pulling out the long grass again because it loosens the soil
3. I don't have to water anything by hand
4. Everything grows beautifully
5. The grass comes back to life.
6. I can get the lablab going and be sure it won't die
7. The peanuts can take off finally.
8. The waterlillies will love it and so will the ducks. I better go and see how the ducklings are enjoying their first shower of rain....:-)

sun burn

16-11-2010, 06:51 AM

Yesterday:

oh and about pictures... It looks like my two memory cards are corrupted so I won't be posting any more pictures until i buy a new one.

Yesterday I went to Joe's farm to get another load of mill mud - this one for the fruit trees i am about to plant. We sat around in his kitchen drinking tea for a bit. He has lovely interesting old fashioned furniture and his kitchen is bright yellow and red. Can you imagine. I do love these old houses in north queensland. He told me its the same as when his mother owned the house. The kitchen that is. The lounge had a lot of bright green soft curtains and cushions. The colour his wife liked. So we talked a bit about artistic flair in his family. There seems to be a bit. There was a good picture of canna lillies on the wall done by his daughter who's never had any training. She painted it on paper and a local gallery owner pieced it altogether and they got it framed. It looked good.

Back to the garden. It was good Joe was there so that i didn't have to load the trailer with my shovel like last time. I had not expected him to be there, thinking he'd be out amongst the cane.

So we talked about custard apples and he had a couple of ripes ones in the fridge. He gave me things from his fridge and garden to eat - some passionfruits, native yams, a very pretty spiky cucumber.

From his garden i asked for some caladiums as I had admired them a lot last time. He calls them flowers and says he doesn't grow flowers. He's got no interest in them. They are his wife's thing. Anyway i got a couple of different sorts now. He gave me some variety of custard apple plant in a pot. I am a bit afraid to plant it in case its not something i want but i had better do it justice. He also dug up some grumichama seedlings as I told him that my seeds hadn't germinated yet. He was impressed that my malay apples had germinated though. to make room for all these strange and wonderful fruit trees, the only solution i can see is to bring down the damned golden cane palms. It must be a bit heartbreaking for dad to see his plants come out though he does admit that many do need to come out. I think his garden has done well for 20 years but its not very productive and many of the plants - not the canes - have not grown into good specimens. And there is a ton of grass of course.

Ducks - this morning i lost patience with the last duck sitting on her nest of one egg. She was off it having breakfast and so i took out her egg and am going to try to get her back into real life. She's been there for a long time. I think she was the first duck to disappear.

Joe told me that the next batch of chickens should hatch in about a week's time though he is a little doubtful that they will hatch. At some point it looked like something may have upset the hen.

It didn't rain last night to my surprise and slight disappointment. The sky is clear today too.

House news:
Yesterday I had a chat with an architect friend and also a couple of exchanges with council. The council told me that i can build a second home on our place if i call it a granny flat and to do that one only needs to build one less facility into the house ie a laundry. So that's easily doable. But also i am probably not going to have a toilet. I don't want a septic in or near the forest. I could only have a brief chat with my architect friend about my house. I told him my design ideas - he said cement roofs are expensive as you have to build a whole wooden floor first. Yes i can see that but i thought maybe i could do that part myself, thereby saving a huge cost. And i also wondered if plywood would be the go for the form sheeting there. Maybe i can get my architect to be my unofficial project manager. It would good if he would do it officially as he's retired and i wouldn't have to do courses and jump thorugh all sorts of other council hoops. He said to get have the designs engineered which sounds like a good idea. I wouldnt' want a cement roof falling on my head. He will probably know who i can get to draw up my designs and which engineer to submit to as well.

sun burn

17-11-2010, 05:16 PM

Todays labour:

Completely contrary to this mornings stated goals, i planted the front boundary up with 30 hibiscus - two to a whole. I planted them three holes white (leaf not flowers) and then one red. But I am anxious that they won't grow fast enough or thick enough to provide adequate screening. Its mostly a problem if i start building down there. I don't want passing traffic and school children who catch the bus there to be able to see in as they currenlty can. I also planted two raintrees. And as backup for the hibiscus one varigated cassava. I know they grow fast. I am not sure how they will go with a bit of shade though. All this lot will get the morning sun. By midday they will all be in the shade though. This will probably mean fewer flowers but its mostly for the foliage that i wanted these plants. I like the white shrub against the backdrop of green trees. I will need to plant more varigated cassava or something else that grows fast and bushy and preferably in the shade - perhaps happy plants would be the go. Anyway that task, watering the vegie garden and potplants and feeding the fowl took all afternooon. Its good that i have shady patches that i can work in when the sun is overhead. Its still quite cool down in the forest, or anywhere there is shade actually which is a blessing.

I was reading up about growign oranges this morning. I have made a mistake. I've got a washington naval it says these are not suited to lowland tropical areas. Either i give it to a friend or just muddle on with it and see what happens. I love eating oranges so i am very disappointed with this. It said they are actually a subtropical fruit. Its hard to find a good eating orange that is not this. It seems like all the other citrus are fine here.

Yesterday i planted a mandarine as well. At least they will grow well here. I ran out of steam for more fruit tree planting today. More tomorrow perhaps.

Last night had dinner with the architect. He said my house is too expensive. He said it would need a lot of engineering. I haven't even shown him the design. I just told him some of its facets and features. There is bound to be an affordable way. But perhaps for this next year i need to concentrate on learning how to work with concrete and building my unapproved forest bedroom.

People came and put glass in some panes of my sister's house. I feel evil towards it. I hope when the cyclone comes, a branch will fly out to break it. Then i will tell them they should get lourvesmade up for this spot. I am sure the house will actually need the fans now because of these panes of glass. Last night was hot and I was tempted to get up and turn on my little fan but instead I just opened the louvres that are behind me. Made all the difference. But its true we haven't as yet had a real stinker of a day yet but then on such a day say 39 degrees up here, i am sure only airconditioning or sitting in a creek would be comfortable.

sun burn

18-11-2010, 04:51 PM

UPdate: I"m so exhausted after today's planting efforts. Two of the fruit trees i tried to plant were in large tubs and weigh a ton. I hope they will come good. They've had a fairly rough life so far. They are a lime and a grapefruit. There's also a lemonade tree. In about June or July we were chopping off half of the poinsiana that was shading the solar hot water system. It fell off early and landed on two of the fruit trees that hadn't been moved. They were split down the middle. Amazingly they did not die. I was about to plant hte grapefruit this afternoon and realised that there was a plastic tub wedged in amongst all the dirt and roots. I think it had been put there to stop the tap root from emerging from the pot.

I've decided that if there's too much shade in the way of my fruit trees, i will chop whatever it is that's causing the shade rather than let my fruit trees die. Dad has lost good things in the past. I think its not worth it.

There's a patch on one of the top corners which is quite nice from the roadside. Its a bit wild wtih big trees, a few natives and provides good screening. However there are three or even four very unruly beach almonds and i've decided to chop them down, or chop them right back so only the upward branches can continue. In this corner, I want to make it more rainforesty and priorities spice trees if possible - such as cinnamon and nutmeg perhaps. I think i can also grow several vanilla plants on one remnant beach almond and i think that would look fabulous. Think of it as one large multipronged post.

I"ve realised the mill mud i've been using is still pretty warm/hot. I hope it won't kill anything. I've started wrapping the plants in their own soil before continuing to back fill with the mill mud now.

Today I did a bit of pest control as well. I made up some white oil and tried to spray all the citrus for leaf miner. i am not sure if i am meant to spray the trunks. I also sprayed the beans and pumpkins iwth milk spray. the beans have a white stuff on the leavse that looks like the fungus you get on pumpkins. Lots of my little pumpkins seem to be dying. I am not sure why. I've been hand pollinating.

sun burn

19-11-2010, 06:20 PM

Update: duck yard extension

I've started writing up a list of jobs to do on my goal website and today i ignored almost the entire list and went and dealt with the duck yard instead. Actually i had the goal, fix the fence by which i meant secure the spot where everyone was getting out and running off into the bush to lay their eggs. Instead of doing that, i did what i have been planning to do for a while which was to tear down the shade cloth and extend the area of the duck yard somewhat. Its now about a third bigger. Its quite large. About 20 metres by 13 metres all up though some of htat is still fenced off bananas and some is the dinghy garden and some is the cuttings bench. However, its large and the new extension is all shade so that will be good come next hot season and when i want to keep the ducks in during the mornings till they've laid. The fence itself is only temporary. I just pegged up the shadecloth to the trees and then used some mesh to connect up with the other mesh side of the yard. I like it.

I was going to build a big pond down here now i've decided against that. I will just make them a little one and build hte big duck pond elsewhere in teh garden where we can enjoy seeing them and where they will be encouraged to poo in the garden. Unlike chicken poo, duck poo is hard to collect especialy over a large area. At the moment i am now keeping hte ducks back in with the chickens at night. I think they like the security of feeling walled in too. But in there i put sawdust on the ground and its easy to collect up the duck poo and then i can add that to the compost.

not quite finished but i've just remember i need to lock the door on them.

... back... Its raining a lot today so that's a good excuse to come inside. I got cold out in the rain but also i felt like a break from the heavy task of digging holes and planting things, so i've been reading a book called Dry Gardening Australia by Jonathon Garner. Its good in some respects but he assumes that one has plenty of money to spend or that one's jobs are small and so won't cost too much to do. But never mind. So far its helpful and interesting.

ebunny

19-11-2010, 08:37 PM

Ha Ha. Sun Burn - your duck yard is larger than my garden!!:P

sun burn

19-11-2010, 09:28 PM

That bears thinking about too.

sun burn

20-11-2010, 05:44 PM

Update:

When you are tired after a hard day in the garden, its tempting to eat out, isn't it. I wish i had a wife to cook me dinner from garden. This morning i made an omelette of duck eggs and put in it, kangkong, ceylon spinach and chopped up okra. It wasn't that great because I got distracted by feeding the jakfruit seeds to the ducks and chickens which i was trying to do whilst cooking my omelette. I did add ginger and garlic. Still i needed some vitamins and it was good to eat something from my garden. I need not to be exhausted nor distracted to do a good job of cooking.

I worked damned hard today. One can achieve more in this cool overcast rainy weather too. It rained lightly this morning but not enough to stop me. Here's what i got done - in addition to the usual of feeding every body and my vegie patch round during which i killed at least 10 grasshoppers and two caterpillars.

Planted 7 boundary shrubs in proper holes - and realised that i had made a mistake of leaving too much room between the pineapples and the shrubs so closed the gap form 2m to 1 m today. Now i have finally reached the end of the back road side of the block. I've turned a corner and that's going to be exciting because I am going to change my planting design from two green/yellow acalypha then three red ones to three green/yellow ones then two red ones of all different sorts. I've got quite a few varieties down at the cuttings bench.

Planted out 10-11 new pineapples between the first batch which had been a metre apart. I hadn't noted on my information site that she'd said to plant them a foot apart for a hedge. I went on the size of them. This time, i didn't dig big holes. I just made a little one for easy route penetration, back filled and sat the pine on top then filled it around with mill mud a bit because they seem to like that. The first lot are about a foot high already.

Planted 4 varigated cassava on the corner of the block. I actually want to grow red exora here but my cuttings haven't taken and as these cassava are pretty and grow easily and very fast, i thought they'd work well as a temporary filler. Whatever goes in there i want it to be a flowering shrub. I thought today that i could transplant our current pink exora as they will have to be moved at some point anyway to let the pool in but i had been intending on red for this corner because I was so taken by some scarlet exoras i'd seen this year.

I finished putting two of Dad's extra large and heavy citrus in the ground. The grapefruit needed to have a tree especially cut down to let the western sun in. I did that with an axe and halfway through realised it could fall on the power lines. So i got dad to instruct me to get it to fall in the right spot. Then it nearly broke a lovely tree that i can't think what's name it is. But that was fine. It fell in the end between two lovely close-together trees. Almost literally a close shave. I will have to remove it later though. For mulch i used one of my composted palm frond piles and it looked pretty good inside. The other tree was the lemonade tree. I put that in the mandala garden. I noticed its not going to get much western sun either so i might have to chop down some miscellaneous thing growing in the sun's path. I am glad there are only three of those big buggers to plant because its backbreaking.

I experimented with feeding the ducks and chickens jakfruit seeds.
Went and asked for more jakfruit from my neighbour because its so delicious. I took some eggs over but as i was preparing them, dad said that B, another neighbour takes him eggs. I offered him plants. He didn't want anything. He is happy that someone wants them. I think i am so passionate about this fruit that i will have to have more than one tree. If anyone in the subtropics or tropics wants some seed, i am happy to post you some if you want to have a go and you are reading this around the time of writing. They don't necessarily grow true to seed but I think its worth a try.

It helps that i didn't have to water anything today which reminds me, i have forgotten to water the boundary plants and pineapples i just planted. I have to do it by bucket. On the other hand, it might rain tonight so I will do it tomorrow if it doesn't rain.

Down in the vegie patch, the sunflowers are flowered. I wish i had planted a lot more. They are so pretty. Next year i will plant them really thickly. I think there's not much point doing them now as the rain will pelt them. Perhaps.

sun burn

21-11-2010, 11:34 PM

UPdate: Vegie Mandala #2

Today, without any planning whatsoever, i found myself starting preparation of the soil for this garden. I am going to sheet compost it since its apparently ok to do that here in the tropics since it all breaks down so fast. As usual i didn't think it through properly before i began and so i've just scattered things everywhere but i think from now i on i had better try to do it patch by patch until the whole site is covered.

Today I got four barrow loads of hydroponics lettuces from my neighbour and invited the chooks in to have a chew on them. I think they found better grub over in the extension to the duck yard as they didn't hang about for long with the lettuces, though i know there are quite a few caterpillars in amongst all the frilly leaves. But i am sure they will be back for more. This afternoon I saw the ducks were there.

I've also got palm fronds and leaves to go on.

I don't know whether to put what i collect from the chook house on now or let it age somewhere else so it doesn't get leached away with the rain. It's mixed up with hay. Also i think i should leave any horse manure til later also. Get some and age it separately rather than let all the goodness get washed way with the rain or chewed up from below by various tree roots.

I also think that at some point, i might try covering as much of it as possible so it can cook better. I will have to wait till i've finished using the plastic on the long grass at the top of the block though. And wait till i've got plenty of stuff on it.

Other things...

I needed a break from digging holes and planting today. I started out by doing cyclone preparation and then mulched the fruit trees. It was this that led me onto the mandala project.

A friend dropped in today and brought me seeds for coffee, soursop and cape gooseberry - the latter are surprisingly yummy i thought when i tried them a while ago. We compared notes on our amaranth. She said hers looks fantastic while mine looks more like a crotcheted doily - white and lacy from insect attack. That's what happens when it rains here although its been getting chewed for a while. I shall try agian with it at some point but perhaps now is not the right time. The okra is almost decimated. I think i will leave the fruit on them to dry off and make me some seeds rather than try to eat any more.

My father is impressed with the clarity of the lilly pond. they are obviously doing a good job.

Did i mention the sunflowers are blooming now. Next year i want to plant them a lot more thickly.

The duck family went out for quite a distance this afternoon. Somehow they got into the duck yard into the new extension, about 30 metres from the nest. Later i went down and the little ones were on side of the fence and the mother duck on the other. I had to go and open a space in the fence to let her get through. They were all having a bit of a panic when i got down there. I am sure not to be thanked for it though.

We had a huge lot of rain last night. No idea how much but it was a lot. So i didn't have to worry about watering yesterday's plantings today. That's got to be a permaculture sort of moment or principle. Perfect timing to save labour.

I am sort of hoping i won't need to use mill mud on it as i don't want to have to depend on it in case there is none left.

sun burn

22-11-2010, 07:54 PM

Update: a planting day

A big day in the garden today. 2 fruit trees, 8 boundary shrubs, 11 pineapples. It was a lot more work than it sounds but i will leave the details except to say that for one of the trees i got out the axe and had a go at several overhanging branches. I wish the chainsaw operator was better but I can't wait till that happens so I had to make do with the axe. One branch was as big as a tree trunk - about 12 inches across. I couldn't afford to leave it because it will only come down on top of the breadfruit tree were I to wait for the chainsaw man to do it. More will have to be done at some point though. I am trying to resuscitate the bush lemon we rediscovered yesterday too so a branch came off from the neighbouring umbrella. There will have to be one or two more beach almond branches come down to really free it up. I am starting to get callouses on my hands, despite gloves. My feet are a mess.

The other fruit tree to go in was the avocardo. I was surprised to read on the label that it is a sub-tropical tree and not a tropical tree. I wonder if that's correct. Anyhow, i planted it where i had put the plastic to kill off the grass and noted that that tactic had worked well. The nearby citrus can come out down the track. Dad said it had reverted to the root stock. I think i want to put one of the mulberries there instead. They are not ready to be planted yet though.

I almost got to the lablab today. I wanted to but other things seemed more pressing. I did phone up the shop where i bought it from and got the advice that i only have to mix up a little bit in water and coat the seeds in it. Seems easy. He was surprised by the instructions on the pack too. Maybe tomorrow i can plant some.

I also planted in pots the seeds i got yesterday for soursop, coffee and gooseberry.

I put out some parsely seedlings that have been waiting for this for a long time now. They've been neglected but i do like parsley so i hope it goes. I planted it in shady spots.

I also planted out some sage seedlings. Thinned the marigolds and put those in the dinghy.

I shoved a few little paw paw seedlings in the hugelkulture bed too. I am not so happy with the seedlings. They had to wait too long. So I don't know how they will go.

It was lovely to see all the ducklings together in the new drink/bath water dish - a large lid from a worm farm. ITs still only 2 inches deep so a good safe item for them.

eco4560

23-11-2010, 09:35 AM

How does your sage do up there? Mine just dies and I think it's because it's too warm and humid and I'm WELL south of you. Maybe I should try again because I do like cooking with it...

sun burn

23-11-2010, 06:44 PM

Its probably a bit early to say eco. I sowed the seed ages ago and managed to put a few in little pots. They grew to about 6cm and stayed at that height. I watered them daily and had them in the shade in the vegie patch. Now i've just put them in the garden under a shady tree. Up here I think a bit of shade is important for herbs if they are to have any chance. I will keep experimenting with this idea that i picked up from other more experienced gardeners. However, when it really starts raining day after day i think they will probably succumb. The funny thing is i don't cook iwth sage much at all. But i like to grow anything and everything at this point. And maybe if it is does hold on, i will use it more often.

All the herbs we've had in pots before have died. They were in the sun and/ or rain. Basil and mint are the exceptions though i just lost our mint which was huge. Not sure what happened there.

I've got this shady tree in one of my mandala beds. I intend to chop it down at some point but i thought i'd keep it this year and see what happens. I haven't planted it up properly as yet and probably won't get around to it either. There are a lot of roots in there too. I've got one coriander that is doing well, a couple of capsicums that seem ok, some lettuces that seem to be just holding on, and i've just the put the parsley in. It looks brighter this afternoon than this morning. Its quite well mulched and has a layer of mill mud (not thick) and a layer of half decomposed compost. I've also put my vanilla plant at the base of it but dad said it would need more sun. I put it there for when i chop it down and might just have ot thin out the branches a bit.

sun burn

23-11-2010, 06:59 PM

I spent most of today in town, so no hard work. I bought a bale of mulch hay for only $6 and had pleasure in giving that to the poor deprived chickens tonight. The hen has been laying every day but the ducks are still a problem. I think only one is laying but she prefers to lay outside and at this point, i don't want to keep them locked up inside all morning. I will work this out in the long run. Its probably not hard to sort out but i haven't yet put my mind to it.

I got some more cuttings for boundaries today - varigated cassava, a bit of red exora and hope this lot works, snowflake hibiscus, more acalyphas but the shop was out of potting mix so... The great thing is i can put the cassava straight in the ground. This stuff grows so fast that i might put it around wherever i think the boundary plants are going to be slow growing. I think might have to thicken up my boundary wtih another row too. I might put in some crotons - sometimes they get quite big. Back grow will be auralia and now i've decided to put of them in too. Dad was worrying yesterday that with chopping down the long grass and wanting to take out the dodgy citrus tree that my sister won't have enough screening from the road which is nearby. I don't want to put anythign really big in because i am trying to preserve a view of the hills at the back - which at present is very available anyway. I am sure all this will work out well though and they are not moving back for a couple more years so there's no need to panic.

This morning i rearranged my cuttings bench. Put all the sorts together so that are easier to find and watch.

The doctor tells me to use a urea cream for my hands and feet. She's not convinced that the pumice stone is a great idea. I"ve used this stuff before but you have to be diligent which i find hard. I think this is a side effect of having hypothryoidism - dry skin is a side effect. I noticed that my farmer friend who wears bear feet all the time has nice clean unproblematic feet - no cracks and he's over 70. The cream i got today is 26% so toes crossed it works.

My farmer phoned yesterday to tell me that only 2 eggs hatched from the recent batch of chickens. So i decided not to take them. I think it will be too much extra work for only 2 chicks. I said i could take them with the next batch if he likes. We think something may have frightened the hen off her eggs for a little while and only two survived her absence. There were original 10 eggs.

sun burn

25-11-2010, 11:54 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_agriculture

I like this link from wiki. I like the treadle pump idea and the list of tropical crops to grow. I should look back at it again down the track.

Yesterday i started planting the lablab. Not a lot. I will try to do at least 100 seeds a day. I think my bag contains a mixture of vine (black seed) and bush (brown seed). I limed the soil hoping it will help improve the growth of the plants a bit. I'm just waiting for it to rain properly again and soak the soil.

I planted several small patches. Around the avocdardo tree, around the orange tree, near the peanuts and in the paw paw bed. I'd better get on with it though if i don't want to waste my $60.

I did a lot else yesterday but nothing particularly new in the garden. The weather was good for it but today its a bit warm and sweaty.

I've started on eating another jakfruit. This one is enormous. I've filled a large mixing bowl with fruit though 3/4 of it will be seeds in the end.

House design:

I've come up with a new approach since the architect told me that the other one would be very expensive in engineering costs. This one is all on the ground but i hope to have at least one roof area strong enough to go up on at a later date. Basically what i'm doing is designing the shape of each room to fit in a space between the existing trees and this will make each room shaped not square - i want to avoid square rooms. I will have them straight sided though. These rooms will connect with each other and because i am following certain parts of the forest, starting with a sunlight spot near the vegetable patch, it is all going in a sort of bend or arc. I've got it in a bendy line starting outdoor dining, kitchen, pantry, indoor dining, lounge/office, bathroom, dressing room, bedroom, tv room. I think i will avoid having a solid wall even on the road side. I figure if i can make the plantings dense enough I won't need it from the point of view of privacy and if i do need it for noise control, i might do it later. I will have two rooms that need solid walls - a pantry and a dressing room. The roof is still the hardest part. I still would prefer a flat roof that at the least can be walked on. A house should be a lot cheaper if no walls are needed and also if the roof of most of it does not have to support a great weight of another floor. This house should collect a great deal of rainwater. It could water the whole of my forest area through the dry season and keep it lush which it is not at the moment. At the moment the forest consists of rainforest trees mostly and only long grass and saplings for undergrowth. I intend to plant it up properly with any edible forest plants and ornamentals.

I designed a wall to screen my fathers fairly unattractive shed which is located between the vegetable garden and duck yard. It won't block the breeze. It has a cement footing and a cement bar across the top. Cemented in between are sticks ( I read to use saplings) about 2 inches diametre and spaced say abut 6-8 inches apart. I want to keep as much airflow going as possible but just cut across the sight. I should be able to grow these saplings from some sort of coppiced tree i think.

IN the house that idea could be used or bamboo woven wall screens/panels, or a home made type of cement breezeblock. I am not sure which i am going to use yet. Maybe a combination but i have to avoid a mishmash of all of them.

The idea of using sticks like this screen is something i saw in a village house in West Bengal earlier this year but actually I got the idea to do it from looking in a book last night called Hot Houses. I loved it when i saw it in the house though. It is mainly used as a security measure. The houses there do not have glass windows. They generally had wooden shutters to keep out the cold.

There are so many brilliant and beautiful ideas out there.

JoH

26-11-2010, 05:43 AM

I love to hear your ideas. You have such an innovative vision - maybe you could go on the "Grand Designs Australia" show and educate people on lots of different aspects designing with nature. I spent 3 months in a house in Kolkata with that style of window shutter. It worked really well - just a bit dark inside if they needed to be closed. (If I am thinking of the same as you are describing). The shutters kept out the cold (and noise!) and thre were ornamental security bars with no glass and no mozzie mesh.

sun burn

26-11-2010, 11:30 AM

Thanks Joh. I don't think i am the right sort of person for that sort of show. I think for me its better to document my ideas and progress and if it all comes off well then share it more widely.

For my ideas, i try to look about a lot - books particularly help. I don't absorb as much as I could because i flip through things but it all adds up to keeping things jumping.

Updates:

Duckling - the little one which i've name Lucy has an eye problem. I am going to try to treat it with saline solution. It will be the first time I will try to pick one of them up and I am not looking forward to the stoush with mother duck.

Citrus - some bugs have been attacking the growth tips of my orange tree. I think i should wrap it as once before I lost a lot of red cedars to tip moth. Though this is not tip moth but it does not bode well.

Planting legume seed sucks.

The last two days the flying foxes took our first ever soursop. It was a big one too. Yesterday i noticed it was half gone and last night they took the rest. I need to protect the rest really.

I ate too much jakfruit yesterday and thought i was going to be sick this morning. Twice but i got up and the mouth watering sensation that comes before vomiting went away. I will have to be less of a gutz about that fruit. Yesterday i said to dad that jakfruit would be good for the israeli army diet. Eat nothign but jakfruit for days, and for the next two days eat only jakfruit, continue with the same program for two days after that and finally fish off with two days of nothing but jakfruit. I think i could do that diet quite well. (I did this diet when i was a teenager - it was 2 days apples, 2 days cheese, 2 days somethign else and 2 days something else).

House - yesterday I went down in the forest to measure up some rooms. Its very helpful way of designing this place. I will show it to my architect friend before I do too much work in case there are any major objections i need to consider. But i'm having a lot of ideas and things to explore further.

Roof - polycarbonate? I hope this is not really expensive but i expect it is. It would make a good roof material because it will let in maximum light which i need because of all the shade form the trees. Maybe there are cheaper but similar options. I've emailed to get an idea of expense.

I still want to keep one concrete slab roof.

I've chosen a lovely spot for the bedroom. Although this house wont' get a view of the sea, from my bedroom i can see the hills in the west. There's a wattle in the way but that will come down at some point. This room is going to be kept separate from the rest of the house. I am not sure why i need to do that really.

I seem to be designing all the main part to go in the darker area of the forest and the bed to go in the lighter area. I guess the advantage of this is that the darker area will be cooler - more protection from the sun.

Collecting runoff - At the bottom of the block is a big hole in the ground before the water that runs off ours and a neighbouring block runs under the road. I am thinking of cementing this and daming it to use mainly on the plants during the dry season. I wonder though if this water is clean enough for drinking. It would be somewhat like creek water and I nearly always drink creek water. I should enlarge this hole if i am going to do this because massive amounts of water come this way. This could have a huge impact on the amount of water that needs to be pumped from the bore but only if i could make a big enough dam. Its important that i do something like this because with all that i am planting our water needs here are going to escalate enormously despite all precautions taken to make better water holding capacity in the ground.

Curramore1

27-11-2010, 09:56 AM

5 years ago I put my sage in old three bay concrete laundry tubs with 20mm or so coarse gravel 15cm deep, then local red volcanic soil mixed with some rotted sheep manure and a dash of blood and bone about 30cm deep. I planted the sage as seedlings into this , (but suspect that the current plants are a generation or two on from the first), and mulched the top with 10cm rotting lucerne mulch. Seasonal( 4 times a year) top up around plants with sheep manure composted 5-10cm. Trim off the little purple flowers on some plants now and prune a bit to encourage new growth. The tubs sit elevated on a besser block at each end and they face the NE with plants behind to the west as a sun and windbreak. They grow under the eaves of a large macadamia which, in mid summer shades the herb beds from noon onwards. The only downside is that because of the good drainage they need watering every second to third day here in high summer if it doesn't rain. The herb that I have troubles with is thyme, but I suspect my rainfall is too high for it. Curly leaf parsley, celery, fennel, dill, mint, basil and oregano all go gangbusters here. My galagal and normal gingers and turmeric have just sprouted from their corms this week. Horse radish kept in pots grows just like a weed, I'm not game to let it out. I think from my experiences sage may like very good drainage and maybe not too much direct light and heat in the middle of a summers day.

sun burn

27-11-2010, 02:03 PM

Boy those are some pampered plants curramore.

Update:

I bit off more than i can chew with this lablab and i have hardly even started. But somehow i must continue and try to get as much of it growing as possible without killing myself or getting too depressed.

Earlier plantings have already begun germinating. What i left in the pot yesterday with some mill mud germinated overnight. I thought they were going to take 10-14 days to germinate. Oh well this is good i suppose.

I've made planting this seed the first job to be done each day because otherwise i won't do it and i will feel guilty and bad.

I mixed up some with the innoculant today. I am trying to figure out other ways to make hte planting eassier though i am not sure if what i am thinking of is smart of stupid. But anyway i am doing whatever i can to get it growing little by little.

So today i put in a batch here and a batch there and then another batch somewhere else and then decided to try to start batch nurseries nearish to where i will put it in the ground later. This is because i tire of planting seeds after only putting in a few. I don't know if its becuase its hot or if its because i have to bend over to do it. Anyway my first big batch nursery is in a barrow full of mill mud that i tipped onto some shadecloth. I did that to stop it going into the ground where i am likely to damage the roots when pulling it up. I thought i can germinate it from here and plant the seedlings out. And each day put in some more seed in the mud. I wonder though whether doing this will mean that the bacteria will breed in the mud and i can save my innoculant. I am a bit concerned that i will run out of innoculant before i am run out of seed because of the way i am working. [i will ask this on the innoculant thread where someone might be likely to respond]

Also i decided the way to plant the seed (or even perhaps the seedlings) is to use a garden fork and just make holes to put in the seed rather than doing the whole cultivating thing.

I also though that if the ducks like the young plants i can make little patch of uninnoculated seed for them. I mean i don't need the whole bag to grow over the block but it would be good to use them and not waste them so if the ducks or chooks like the young plants that's a good idea. I can fence off a couple of areas to get them started and then let it grow. I don't think the birds are likely to eat it when its older. I know its a fodder crop but i've not seen it mentioned as fodder for poultry.

sun burn

28-11-2010, 07:05 PM

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?8637-Ducklings-your-experience-please/page2

Details in the link above. I'm not sure what number post it is.

sun burn

30-11-2010, 03:52 PM

First, my memory cards aren't corrupted. I don't know what went wrong with them but i've bought a card reader and i'm downloading the images as i type. Some of them are important snaps from my india trip. Anyway this means that soon i will be putting up more garden shots and I didn't have to lay out $80 or more for a new card. The memory card reader only cost $40. (if you've got a dslr or not even, these things are a good idea. Apparenlty they are the safest way to download your pictures and they can take all sorts of cards. A very simple gadget that doesn't cost much.)

Second, I'm starting to relax about the lablab plantings. The little seedlings are growing well and my nursery beds are full of little leafy things. Today i put quite a lot in in a few places around the joint. I even put a few in my vegie mandala and will put in more. I also planted some seeds but i do prefer planting the seedlings. I am not sure yet if I damage them when doing this but we'll see in a day or two. The heavy rain we've been having is making this all go much better.

Other updates:

My first section of shrubs is looking fantastic now. Very healthy and growing fast. I am anxious to see signs on the others that they are settling in. I wonder if its the seaweed or if its just all the other factors that have made them grow so well. Anyway i want to get more seaweed for all the other shrubs. That said the vinca have something wrong with the leaves. They are all scrunchy. I wonder if its ants? I could check that easily i guess by pulling on up. I do like this idea of having all these layers of things growing close together.

Vegie patch: i don't know if i mentioned the other day that I picked hte first new guinea bean and dad cooked it for dinner in a casserole with turkey which was pretty good. I forgot to suggest putting in the remaining yam as well though. Oh well next time perhaps.

I came upon a recipe for okra in a cookbook yesterday. I think there was meat in it too but leaving out the meat it goes like this - sprinkle the okra with vinegar and leave for 10 minutes. Saute some garlic and onions and then add in tomato puree and the okra and cook for 30 minutes. hmmm not sure if that's all there is to it now. It might be nice to put in some potatoes or another vegie. Anyway it should be good enough for me.

Here's a list of what i've got in the vegie mandala at hte moment including non edibles: Jap pumpkin ( i think htere's about 10 on hte vine at the moment), sweet potato going wild, comfrey, about five blooming sunflowers, about 5 peanuts, 6 rosella bushes struggling along but with fruit on them, okra with fruit on but being chewed quite badly by grasshoppers, thai pink egg tomatoes iwth fruit on them but struggling iwth the bacteria wilt, capsicums now growing well, basil going mad, thai basil also going well, taro, eshallots holding on, a bed of marigolds, kangkong starting to invade the pond, waterlillies, vietnamese mint, amaranth on its last legs, new guinea bean doing well, 2 yam creepers just getting going, the sage is doing fine, 1 healthy coriander plant growing in the shade, a few lettuces that aren't doing much, 1-2 kale that are just getting going, a bit of lemongrass that after a shaky start because i split up the plant too much is now doing fine, sugarcane which is not doing anything and probably needs some mill mud. Its never had any special treatment so that's probably the problem. I think that's all at the moment.

Elsewhere i've got one watermelon on the watermelon vine which is not enough to grow the wine i was talking about. I guess I will have to plant some more vines at some point and prepare a good bed for it.

In the mandala garden the only fruit tree i've planted at this point is the lemonade tree which seems to be doing fine. I've decided against planting in one spot becuase i want to keep the lane open to vision. I haven't planted out the second mangosteen yet but its got healthy new growth on the tip, unlike the one i planted out. I think the mill mud might have been a bit of a shock for some things. It was still warm so this might have upset them. The grasshoppers attacked the growing tips of my navel orange also. I am not sure what i should do to help it.

Yesterday i bought some brewers yeast for the ducklings water. They don't seem to mind the change. Last night we had torrential rain. The ducklings should have been fine becuase they had good cover but i think the other ducks were a bit wet. I went down to see them during the night and they were all standing there looking very miserable and wet. They had made no attempt to go to a more sheltered spot. Today i put a tarp over a part of hte cutting bench so they can stand under there if htey want. Its near where they like to sleep at night. I also put a bit more protection up for the chickens though shouldn't be getting wet at all. The chickens are huge now. Must be all the catfood they've been eating. I'm getting duck eggs again though only from one duck. I'm getting the hens eggs. I think i will feed the hens eggs back to the ducklings and just keep the duck eggs for us and friends.

Weeds and grass are going bezerk after all the rain we've had. It will be a major achievement to stay on top of it.

sun burn

02-12-2010, 10:54 PM

http://milkwood.net/2010/11/08/how-to-make-ferrocement-garden-beds/

I think this could be my method and medium.

I found a ferrocement forum and website http://ferrocement.net/ which has some good articles on ferrocement. The forum will help wiht my particular questions i guess.

I'm not sure wobbly curvie is really my style but i do love Gaudi the Spanish architect and i've seen some wonderful ferrocement houses. I just didn't know it was called ferrocement and I didn't understand the difference between that and concrete construction.

Ferrocement is fairly cheap i gather but very hard labour. It does not use formwork that is typical of concrete construction so that makes it cheaper and easier.

I"ve got a number of small projects to work with before trying to build my bedroom. I want to make flagstones, a retaining wall, those garden walls look worth a try, there's the dam project at hte bottom of the block to catch the runoff and so on.

There's a couple of inspiring houses that you can see on the net in ferrocement - steve kornher i think and probably timolandia - tim sullivan. These people are in a book i am looking at called handbuilt shelters.

http://matahina.blogspot.com/2010/04/timolandia.html
http://www.flyingconcrete.com/index.htm Looks like its not good for a flat roof though.

DonHansford

03-12-2010, 06:12 AM

Hi sun burn - have you looked at Earthbag construction? Ideal for retaining walls (with the proper design/planning of course), houses (not just domes), fire shelters, etc. I did a course earlier this year at Cal-Earth (calearth.org) that was a real eye-opener in the possibilities for this method.
Again (like most relatively cheap methods) it is somewhat labour-intensive, but if you work to a rhythm, and plan things properly, there is no limit to what you can achieve.
Depending on the soil type you have (or can get), you can use either no, or very little, stabiliser such as lime or cement. Instead of reinforcing steel you only need barbed wire, and you can use second-hand bags, saving them from landfill.

sun burn

03-12-2010, 08:49 AM

Cheers Don. I have seen the earthbag construction. The thing is i don't have any earth here to use in a house. I mean i do but i don't want to take the ground away from the garden. And if i did the labour of collecting it and taking it down to the site would be enormous. I can't take the ground from the house site because its in my forest. I need to build in amongst the trees and try to avoid disturbing them too much.

My house is going to consist mainly of roof and floor. I don't want walls at all as much as is possible. I don't need walls here. Look at this lovely little place. http://www.materialicious.com/2008/09/love-shack.html This would be ideal but i am afraid of wood because of the technical skill involved and having to go buy it. There's also a lot of structural steel in it too and i've seen what's involved with that. (a lot of hard technical work also). I live an hours drive from the city where materials are available. It looks like ferrocement is good in terms of volume. Yeah i have to buy the steel mesh and rebar and cement and sand but looks so comparatively easy. Its not a lot to carry compared to other building materials. I think. I want to see if i can get a ferrocement floor off the ground as well. Because its thin i might be able to do that. I can use some sort of plywood for formwork i think and reuse it for all the other rooms.

And the above brought me back to where i started which was seeing Leonie Norrington on Gardening Australia talking about how to build a passionfruit trellis arch from steel mesh and star pickets. My first design idea was just to enlarge her idea to house size. Somehow. Certainly that shape would be doable in ferrocement. But in a book i've just seen a lovely dome in which a lot of glass is used to let in light (i wouldn't use glass but could use small flat polycarbonate sheets if i wanted to achieve the same sort of thing. It looks like they've been inspired by a the construction of a yurt too with its centre circle at the peak. Anyway I haven't settled on anything yet but i do like the idea of building something that i can do myself entirely and if that requires more labour then so be it. But i think ferrocement looks less labour intensive than those earth bags.

I've got this wonderful book from the library called Home Work Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn which is full of inspiration. I think i saw earth bag houses in it too.

DonHansford

03-12-2010, 12:44 PM

Love the look of that love-shack - might get a bit chilly here in winter, though!

How about bamboo? You would be able to grow most of what you need onsite. Or even combine the ideas, and use bamboo lattice in the cement instead of steel mesh? From memory, the bamboo needs to be dried before it is put in the concrete, so you should start planting now! :rofl:

sun burn

03-12-2010, 01:23 PM

About being chilly in winter I think those orange panels are shuttable doors. But its not that cold up here in winter.

Don I would love to do more with bamboo. But to buy the plants is very expensive - about $80. I spent a few weeks exploring some options around here. Its just not working out. Though i have one friend who might be able to give me some to grow.

I must say that i am surprised by those who have been growing it here - they all don't like it. They say even the clumping bamboos are hard to manage. As topical said you have to use a chainsaw to chop out culms. I think if you are going to grow it you have to manage it annually so it doesn't get out of control ever.

I haven't given up on the idea of using bamboo entirely.

Treating the stuff to prevent rot is not easy. Bamboo lattice in the cement would be a great idea if i could get hold of enough. I am still hoping to grow some in my forest. I think i can also look for second hand steel too. and second hand mesh. Apparently you can use other sorts of timbers too from the forest. But frankly i find all that collection of stuff a bit hard since I don't have a truck to transport things. At this point i don't even have a tow bar on my car and I'm not having any success at finding one secondhand. New and fitted they are expensive (over $400). the best I can do is $175 to get a second hand one sent up from brisbane but i have to wait for them to find one first. I think i bought the wrong sort of car and dad is not keen to let me use his car freely, though i can't see why we can't share the both of them to be honest. He's got an outback with towbar. To date i've been using his old subaru forgetting my mill mud but he's going to sell this car soon.

The thing about my house is that i am not going to build it all at once so while i may have to buy all the materials new for the first building, as time goes on i might find better and cheaper sources of materials.

I was talking to my father about our water tank which is ferro cement. He built it about um 1-15 years ago now i think. The trees have penetrated the wall. Its probably due for a clean out but its built under a fig tree and you know how invasive they are. Certainly if it was my house i would be able to fix any things like that.

I start to think that the first building i build should be my dressing room which would be an extension on an existing besser block bathroom. The reason for this is that its really impractical for me not to have my clothes near the bathroom and i end up with towels and clothes all over the place and mostly in the wrong place. I've thought this bathroom needs rendering for a long time now anyway so this could be my chance to fix that. If i do this, it won't matter that I don't have a bathroom in my house.

sun burn

05-12-2010, 09:05 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/12/04/

sun burn

06-12-2010, 10:28 PM

Update:

The ducks are misbehaving. Or rather Bertie is. He's kicking the ducklings out of the yard and so they are sleeping outside the fence tonight. Last night i let Mavis out with them and they went back to their first home for the night. I had tried to send Mavis and her brood to the tented house i had set up for them so i could fence them in safely and Bertie out but she wouldn't go. Frankly i think her interest has been rekindled in men and she's a bit torn between him and her kids at the moment. She hasn't abandonned them entirely but things are not as they were. At least most of them are quite big now, already. When i checked on them earlier, the Lucy, the little one was cuddled up in the middle. During the day things were a bit more settled and Mavis and her kids were left to get on with eating and drinking in the shade for the most part. Until choooks came along. Although Ive clipped their wings they have found a way through the fence - they are not as big as they look - and spend the whole day down in the duck yard. They are bullies and force the ducks and ducklings to abandon their position next to the food. But i go down there often and make sure everyone has enough to eat and drink and chase the chooks away to give the ducks a break.

I found the eggs today - six. This is why i've sent the ducks back to the duck yard. This time i've left one in the nest and so hopefully they will keep laying in that spot. Its under the mint plant.

I start to think that the duck yard might also be the right place for the chook pen but i want to wait to see what happens during the wet season before making a decision about moving it.

Poinciana : I didn't complete my main goal today but i started it which is important. The goal was to chop down the poinciana tree because its in the centre of where i want to put my #2 mandala garden. I love the tree but the roots are going to be a big problem and i can't figure where else to put this garden. To compensate for what i'm doing, I've decided to plant one or more down on the corner of the block in the future, instead of the yelllow shower flower trees. So the tree trunk is quite large and the wood harder than i thought it would be in the centre so i didn't get right through it. It might take another day or two - given that i can only do this in the late afternoon or early morning.

Mike: So i phoned this stranger that i met on a forum somewhere, about some shell gingers and he sounded like a friendly chap. So one of these days i am going to head down there in my buggy and say hi.

Forum: I joined this forum called ferrocment.net Its not too active i think but it should be a good resource for me and my building projects.

The Grass is getting long again and I think I will have to mow tomorrow because the place is looking a bit wild but since we haven't had any rain for a week, i think i better go and get that last load of mill mud tomorrow too. But its so hot now that I can hardly move out of my shed during most of the day so i am not sure if i can do both. We'll see.

mischief

07-12-2010, 04:47 PM

The best way to manage bamboo is either plant it on an island in a pond or dig a 2 foot ditch around it and keep it clear of debrie.
Not that I've done it but that was what I was told to do when I was thinking about adding bamboo to our place.
Apparently the roots,while very tough and persistent; are shallow rooting and so dont grow past their ditch.
If I'm wrong then a mattock or front end loader was reccommended, but I think the later was suposed to be a joke.

sun burn

07-12-2010, 06:09 PM

From what i've heard i don't think it would have been entirely a joke. A ditch sounds like a fair idea but if its running bamboo i've read stories about it growing under a house and coming out the other side. It could be that this is an urban myth though.

sun burn

07-12-2010, 10:33 PM

Update: I don't understand what's going on the ducklings world. I am not very happy that the ducklings are being forced to sleep on one side of the fence (outside the duck yard) while mum stay inside. But I have just been down there in the middle of the night (wasn't able to go earlier because I have been on the phone all evening) and tried to encourage them all to go and sleep in their lovely dry comfy nest that i made for them. This failed of course. They all wanted to go back to their cold and vulnerable position they'd taken up earlier.

It rained quite heavily for a short while late this afternoon. The ducklings all ran for shelter but to a little pathetic clump of weeds and saplings. I think they would have been cold. So i got out my umbrella and helped them find a nice dry spot in the shelter i had made for them (same one as above). It stopped raining but they stayed there. Bringing htem food and fresh water helped too. Mum hung about for a bit as well. But come evening, they abandon their cosy dry shelter - its got some lovely dry mulch hay - and went back to sleeping on the wet grass on the wrong side of the fence with no protection. WEre it to rain again, they wouldn't have the smarts to go in the shed. They'd probably just get wet and cold.

I know. I know. Its best to let them muddle it out. Its hard though. I mean they are still only three weeks only and as i've mentioned before, one of them is barely bigger than when she was first born while the others seem to be almost half grown already - though still without feathers.

Spent the day going to get another load of mill mud. My farmer friend wanted to give the chance to save a bunch of crows nests ferns from imminent devastation. He's got some guy there with a dozer pushing down forest by a creek so that he can grow more fodder for his cows. Well i tried to persuade him that this was a great shame. He said he was almost convinced but i am not sure i am going to win this one. He said he will call me when the man is going to come back and push down some more forest so that i can come and rescue the plants. Still i brought home one small fern and one elkhorn. The ground is full of rocks. I don't think its even going to be very good for the cattle and i think he realises this too. The view across the valley is stunning. It looks over at a range of blue hills. I tried to show him the beauty of it all and how the already cleared part would make a good house site and that the land would be more valuable if left as is. I must say that i was shocked at what he was doing. As we were driving there, i said oh all you cane farmers are lucky with the lovely creeks you all have running through your properties. He said, we don't see it like that. The creeks are in the way. I compared what he was doing to the situation in india where the cow growers were killing tigers on the tiger reserves so that they could continue to let their herds graze unmolested. I think its pretty much the same thing though a biit more dramatic in india.

For all this, there was no nastiness. I don't think i came across as being too lecturing and he didn't seem to take offence at my reaction. But i was shocked. And he probably regrets showing me the area because i've probably made him feel guilty. It was so pretty the trees and area that was being bullldozed. Not good for anything else really as there was such a lot of rock there. But the trees and other plants were doing really well.

sun burn

08-12-2010, 10:19 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

sun burn

09-12-2010, 03:29 PM

hmmm, i thought i had added another post.

Oh well...

My house: I went to visit my architect friend today to discuss my latest ideas. I don't know if its just that he doens't know much about ferrocment but he didn't think building in FC even laminated FC would be doable for a cost point of view. Not to mention the hassle the council will give me. He also estimated that the cost of complying iwth health and safety regulations when building a house adds 50% to the cost of the house. Isn't that crazy. He gave an example that scaffolding has to be used to build a house now,( if its more htan one story i think was the unspoken condition). He said if he'd done that to build his house it would have cost another $20 000 and that was back in 90s. As it was his two story house was built without the use of scaffolding. The more I learn about council regulations the angrier i get. I mean i know some health and safety and some other rules are necessary but it seems like all the rest is mere insurance. I might be forced to build my house with no council approval. The problem with that is where my house is located is not at all remote.

While i concede that the ideal building material for my site would be timber, i thought it would be too expensive and beyond my skills and ability. But my Archy friend suggested that i should put in a wood floor.

Last night my father suggested I consider FC planking. He said make a plank. I will do that because that will demonstrate to anyone - archy friend, council whoever, that it is strong enough - ie if it is in deed strong enough. And to me will show me the exact cost and difficulty.

The website FC forum conceded that an FC planked floor is possible. But he also told me to get my floor off the ground (to protect the trees below), i'd have to follow a pattern of timber construction - posts, stumps, joists and beams. All those can be made in concrete and FC. So now it starts to look to me a question of whether doing this in concrete is better - easier and cheaper - than doing it in wood.

moving on...

The duck pond... I found an abandonned old plastic wheelbarrow in the skip across the road from my Archy friend's house. So i rescued it. My Archy friend cut off the rusting metal bits with his angle grinder and all i need to do now is get some silicon to plug up the holes. And then my ducks will have a wonderful pond to swim in. A great solution as far as i am concerned because its big enough for them but small enough for me to empty frequently and refill with clean water.

I also retrieved the base of an old trolley because the 4 wheels are in perfect condition and i figure they might come in useful at some point.

I haven't done any gardening today. I wanted to mow the lawn but now i think i might even let it go, although now is the perfect time to be out there doing that job. We had a lot of rain last night nad i do have to mow soon. I want to mow the whole place before going ahead with planting lablab seeds in the ground where its not already cleared.

sun burn

10-12-2010, 10:55 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

Its too hot to garden today.

I did get around to the mowing yesterday but as usual i rode over a root - and yes Mike, i now know what you mean by buttress roots on the poinciana. I've been looking for them and saw a lot in Mossman. Anyway, the root I rode over belonged to the fig tree. Doing this put a sudden stop to my mowing as it dented the blades cover and we haven't been able to bang it back yet. I should finish up with the little mower today but I can't remember the petrol mix. Its only a 2 -stroke. And I probably can't pull the starter as i am left handed.

Now the big job is to keep on with planting of hte lablab. According to the BOM its going to rain again on Sunday. I want to be shoving lots of seed in the ground but its too freaking hot to get out there. And i have been sleeping in lately. This has got to change. Last night though i woke up at 3.30 and didn't go back go back to be for ages. Getting all messed up with my sleeping habits doesn't help me get the gardening done.

I wish there was a spell checker with this program. On the ferrocement forum, there is one and its great to use. I've never come across one on a forum before and i need it because i am such a bad typist.

Oh i wanted to write about my concerns about my shrubs i planted recently. I am concerned that the mill mud might be killing them because it was still warm. I am going to write a post on the growing plants branch.

sun burn

12-12-2010, 01:56 PM

I went to chat with Helga (from the nursery) today at the markets. "For therapy" i told her. We discussed all my garden problems in detail. I didn't get any definitive answers from her but that's because there probably aren't any to be had. Except that she said that mangosteen take a long time between growth flushes and perhaps the one that isn't flushing just had its growth flush before i bought it. I don't think so but anyway... She did suggest the possibility of digging the fruit trees out and add in more ordinary soil but with the fruit trees, i think this might just upset them more but it may not be a bad idea for the little shrubs. On the other hand, the rollinia looks pretty borderline critical.

Anyway for my shrubs, i went and got a whole new lot of cuttings today and i am going to shove them straight into the ground this afternoon. Its going to continue raining now frequently so i think they will be fine if its not too hot for them. I am not going to dig out what's there: I am just going to put a cutting in the same spot and if there are leftovers, i will put some in between. This afternoon, i feel very motivated to go putting things in the ground as its not too hot. But a friend is coming over soon for a xmas drink so that's that really. The weather report says it will rain for the next few days so it should be good planting conditions. I won't go to town as i had thought i might. I will stay home and plant things. I used to not like planting but now I like it a lot. Now that i have seen that things do grow, even if not all.

I got more green and pink acalyphas, some more exora including a white one and i have decided to put them on the red corner to make it a red and white corner. I've never seen that before and I think it will look pretty good and unusual. Today was the first time i have ever actually seen a white exora i think. I got it from one of the resorts. Helga told me they take about 2 months to get going so that explains my lack of success so far - lack of patience. I am going to put the cuttings straight in with the varigated cassavas so that if they take off, that's great and if they don't the cassavas will keep the space looking good. Here is the white exora. This site it is very rare!. http://www.mgonlinestore.com/WhiteIx/ Conceivably i could also make this patch a mix of all ixora colours. I think that would look good too. I wonder how risky it is to try to strike these in the ground?hmmm?

I also got some of the things with the red furry tails. I forget what they are called. They are quite spectacular when there's a lot of the tails on a bush.This. acalypha hispida or chenille plant. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sftrajan/2712213557/

Lablab: Last night and i went and threw a whole bunch of just germinated seeds over a patch of ground that i hadn't dug up. I am keen to see how they go. If this works, I might be able to do this with all of them. Just germinate the seeds and then scatter them. I guess it will be tricky as they then have to burrow down into the hard uncultivated soil with their delicate little tap root and not dry out. And not get ruined by the sun. But i am hoping that the predicted rain in the next few days might help this along. So i am going to go an germinate another big bunch today in preparation. To do this i just mix the seed in the bacteria slurry as normal, then mix it all up with some mill mud and let it germinate. I just keep it in an icecream container though i could spread it out a bit more so that it gets a bit of light through the soil.

About the seedlings that the growing strong in their nurseries. I am not sure what ot do with them now. I should plant those out too. Maybe I will be able to that in the next few days. ...Oh please heaven let it be cool, overcast and rainy in the next few days as the bureau of meterology predicts.

What else: I mentioned the new duck bath... here comes my guest. gotta go.

sun burn

13-12-2010, 09:39 AM

I'll come Lucy later.

First when M. got here we did a tour of the garden. She brought me a present, a grandadilla. Sounds good. I might try to put a trellis up in the wet season vegie patch unless its going to be too hot there. I read they prefer a cooler spot. hmmm Might have to do it with the passionfruit vine instead, they love the sun and seem to tolerate the heat well.

We also saw signs of life on the rollinia which makes me happy. So now, of the fruit trees, its only the mandarine and the mangosteen that i am waiting on.

I did go and put in all those cuttings after M. left. I will need more though.

I am glad i covered up the mill mud with a tarp because last nights rain was torrential and the sound light show truly spectacular. This morning the wheelbarrow is full of water. Dad said it was 3-4 inches but a wheelbarrow full sounds like more than that to me. But i am not good at understanding rainfall.

LUCY: Before it rained though, i was heading off to bed and went down to the duck yard to see how everyone was. The details on the raising poultry branch but the short story is that i found lucy in the midst of being squeezed to death by a carpet snake. She might already have been dead by teh time i got there. I was a bit frozen to the spot and only yelled for dad to come and kill the snake with a shovel. It was awful. It is no surprise that Lucy is the one that got picked on. She's too slow to get out of the way and doesn't react very speedily either. Today i am moving all the ducklings up to the chicken house and also the ducks for night times. I am even tempted to put the ducklings in the car. Well i will see how they go tonight and if there's any trouble between the big and the small, i will put the ducklings in the back of my old subaru. Nothing will get at them in their. Though me trying to catch them will upset them quite a lot no doubt.

Lablab: those germinated seeds I threw about are not really doing good so that idea was a dud. Not unexpected. Anyway today i got a kilo of seed and mixed it up with a teaspoon of bacteria and have been out with my gardening fork planting them. When i saw Joe the other day he told me that when it starts raining all the time, they seem to succumb to the high humidity or fungal conditions. I can't remember which it was. That was disappointing because i haven't heard that possibility before. I thought they were able to hand hot wet conditions. For now they are doing fine, those that are in teh ground, although there are signs of insect attack but nothing too serious. I suspect its a ladybird because the leaves are full of little holes like what i've seen in the sweet potato patch. I think they will cope though.

Its pretty warm at the moment. We are heading up to 31 degrees today and rain later on. Probably tonight. At the moment the sun it out.

aroideana

13-12-2010, 03:50 PM

You have to learn to live with the snakes , they were here first . Making a snake proof enclosure is very difficult .

sun burn

13-12-2010, 06:23 PM

Well i am not doing to do what my neighbour does and keep his chickens permanently locked in their hen house which I might as is not that big. At least they have nice clean home and are well cared for apart from that.

We were doing fine living with the snakes before. We generally managed to keep out of each others way though we did see each other in passing from time to time. Its a bit hard not to be reactive when you just lose a loved one though.

sun burn

15-12-2010, 01:38 PM

http://www.merinews.com/newPhotoLanding.jsp?imageID=13317

Also known as cassia fistula. What a beautiful specimen in this link. Well this is what i am going to aim for on my property down on the front corner. Today I planted 6 seedlings i think. I had to put up star pickets and a rope to notify the public not to park their cars here anymore. I haven't put a sign up but this is where people like to display their cars for sale. I figure they will understand its private land by the presence of the posts. I hope so.

Anyway i got motivated this morning to put into this effect a long term plan to put these on this corner. And in doing so i realised the great potential of this spot. I am now also going to plant a forest of agati for timber here. Its a very sunny spot and there is only grass here otherwise at the moment and it will be a while before the golden showers need more room.

At time goes i will probably thin out the golden showers. At this point i've planted them 4 metres apart. We wanted something spectacular on the corner. But i've been looking around lately and most examples of this tree have been left to fend for htemselves and are not spectacular. I have only seen one that is excellent around here and it is in Stratford Cairns. It was my inspiration for this spot.

Also if i ever decided to build a shop or stall on this corner, the trees won't interfere with that.

I want the wood to make hte sticks for my "security" walls in my house. These should be perfect.

Now i just need to find the seed and innoculant.

Other things: We've had some good rain and i am doing my best to plant as much as I can. Although when the sun comes out, that pretty much puts an end to work. Planting those 6 trees in the sun got me drenched and exhausted. Now i just have to wait till about 4pm.

I've been putting more black plastic around to tackle the tough grassy areas. Its really too difficult for my mattock. And even for the mower.

I am going to try to get as much as my cuttings in the nursery into the ground this wet season as possible. I might just have to shove them in anywhere just to get them growing while its raining. Then they can multiply and and i can pull them up later for regrouping. Or take cuttings and replant.

I should try to go and take some pictures of my golden shower flower corner today to show you the before picture. Right now i think i will process the garden tour pictures I took recently and put them up.

sun burn

15-12-2010, 02:51 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2010/12/14/

Next year I think I will do what Purple did and use chicken wire around the circles to hold the dirt up.

sun burn

18-12-2010, 08:32 AM

I left dad in charge of the animals and went to town to research my building project a little bit and collect some cuttings from a friend. Mainly for mulberry cuttings as the ones i got earlier didn't take except for one piece.

phew its hot here this morning...

A friend i stayed with unexpectedly gave me an enormous vanilla plant. I will have to put a shot of it up on my photobog soon.

No one here seems to have heard of expanded lath which is the building material i need for my FC house. I know it can be got from Brissie but that's quite far away and will be expensive. I might have to find an alternative type of steel mesh ot use. I saw somethign interesting at my other friends house when i was up there yesterday but forgot to ask her what it was. It was a tiny square mesh - about 3mm. And it was in a roll so its probbably flexible enough too.

I spoke to a couple of engineers and the council. That was useful.

I'm now considering the possibility of having the roof supported by floating joints on the trees. This would save me the difficulty of building long poles to carry the roof. I would need to get an arborist in to assesss the trees anyway so this would not cost me any extra. I think this method of construction would be easier to implement than erecting tall poles. And I really like the idea that the roof floats over the rest of the house. Of course it will still be quite difficult. If i do it this way I should build the roof first i think.

At my friends house, i got my mulberry cuttings and a few other things. She has a lovely place in Kuranda in the forest. We saw wallaby. She has lots of wallabies and they eat lots of things in her garden. They also have pigs and she showed me her pig trap. They caught one once. What else did she give me? um... mulberry, winged beans, aralias, pepper vine and seeds, Maybe that's all. I didn't take too much from her house this time.

I also bought two books - Tropical Food Gardening by Leonie Norrington and Linda Woodrow's Permaculture for the Home Garden. Boy are they expensive books. Moreover Angust and Robertson put on a extra price on the books - and luckily my complaint about the price got the rate back to the retail price. The buggers.

Last week i booked my flights to Darwin for my cycling adventure. I have to buy a few bits of gear for the trip and i checked out a thermarest and sleeping bag in town, although i will buy them online. Deliciously comfy. Meanwhile i had taken my sisters' foam to sleep on at my friends over night and i had the most rotten nights sleep. I might as well have slept on the floor.

I had intended to look into irrigation prices but forgot at the last minute. Nevermind. There's plenty of time for that.

Back home and i was watering the shrubs and vegie patch into the night. We haven't had rain for a few days now and its been very hot. I think some of the shrubs are starting to recover and the new ones i planted look fine. The ducklings are showing new white feathers. I was amazed at the difference in them in two days. I think that hens can't see in the dark.

sun burn

18-12-2010, 08:54 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila

sun burn

19-12-2010, 09:10 PM

I had no excuse today but i still struggled to get out and work in the garden. It had rained a bit last night (a lovely storm) and remained overcast for most of today. However, i did manage to do some work on the chicken house. There is more to do but the rate at which i am working, it will take a while. One thing i did was prune of some low hanging branches - I don't want to make it easy for any snakes to get to the top of the chicken house and then find a way in.

On the inside, i have decided I am going to put in a room divider to keep the ducklings separated from the drake and other ducks. One had bit marks on its little wings this morning. They are quite nasty the big ducks. What is with them, i wonder that they have to pick on these helpless little creatures. Mum while not being abusive herself is not doing much, if anything, to defend them.

Our rooster is magnificent but i think his crowing upsets me more than anyone else. Its a pity there aren't more chook families around so that we could rotate our roosters ( and drakes) and get a better gene pool and avoid incest.

Tomatoes - i picked some of the thai pink eggs this morning. They were quite nice. Really quite salty. I've realised that i probably should be growing my tomatoes in raised beds if i want more of them from now on. Well my first lot was in a raised dinghy which is close enough. But i think the soil mix could have been better and more mulch applied. I've got a lot to learn as a vegie gardener.

sun burn

20-12-2010, 06:12 PM

Today i did a lot of little jobs.

On a whim, i thought it would be a good idea to take some cuttings and try to get the pinto peanut to become my lawn and to take over. I will be able to rely less on sweet potatoes this way too. But i do need to get them innoculated and I will send away for some.

I'm trying a new seeding method with the lablab. I've mixed up some with the innoculant and some soil. I will wait a day or two till it just starts to germinate and then sow it over some ground - not too thinly ( i've got so much i can afford to be quite liberal iwth it) and hten i will cover as much of the seed as i can with some mill mud by chucking htat around too. I've noticed that the bit i did this way the other day have come up and seem to be doing ok.

I repotted the jakfruit and the coffee seedlings which came up. I put some pepper in a seed tray. I will set that growing up lots of trees. Pepper is expensive so it will be nice to have a lot of it around and besides its a lovely vine.

I still haven't figured out where to put my vanilla plant.

I put in the duck divider today. I think the ducklings are happy with this. The bigger ducks look a bit pissed off but that's because they've got a small area. It shouldn't matter though as though don't usually use much space at night. The chickens were a bit confused at first. I put three eggs under the sitting duck today. I will continue doing this for a few more days i guess. The three who laid this morning were very good about it. Two even sharing the nest at the same time. So we are finally getting this egglaying matter sorted. It hasn't half taken long. The sitting duck came all the way up to the chicken house for an afternoon bath. And then went back to her nest.

In the vegie garden, i picked the okra which i had let dry out to get the seeds. I sowed a few and kept the rest for later. There are a lot of cottony mealy bug things on the dead bushes. They are quite squashy. i planted some winged bean seeds in a tray that M. gave me today too. I wasn't sure how to plant them so i haven't put them in the right spot yet. I am not sure if i need a trellis.

I noticed a watermelon to be pollinated today. I missed one a day or so ago. I think the first watermelon might be ready for picking but it seems a bit too soon. It has a yellow bottom. Maybe i will wait until its properly white. There are some big pumpkins in the garden too.

I think i will go and get some more pinto peanut cuttings off Joe in the near future. I want to be about to write an article about it in the paper so it would help if i had some experience with it. I phoned the paper today. They may be interested as they revamping the paper.

Ah i also spread some more grass killing mat out today. Its a dam good system that. I only wish i had more plastic around. Actually i have some old blinds that i am using. They are good as they have weights in the ends already.

I also spoke to an engineer about my house plans today. He knows nothing about this type of construction but he was recommended by his ex boss as a nice guy and so on. I am probably not going to bother with council approval as they don't allow houses without walls to be built. I could get it approved as a carport though that begs the question of how a car is going to get up the steps.

Basically I am not one for breaking the law but the law is an ass sometimes and that's when it should be broken.

DonHansford

20-12-2010, 06:33 PM

....I could get it approved as a carport though that begs the question of how a car is going to get up the steps.

Basically I am not one for breaking the law but the law is an ass sometimes and that's when it should be broken.

That cracks me up!!!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

sun burn

20-12-2010, 07:06 PM

Thanks for enjoying my joke.

sun burn

24-12-2010, 09:20 AM

Its now our turn for days on end of rain so this is good for planting. Actually i realised that this is the right time for me to be "sowing" my lablab seed. Those i had put in the lawn are doing pretty well so i've decided to continue with this approach though i won't wait for it to germinate. I think today I will try to sow at least half of what i've got left. Mixing it up with some mill mud should be good for keeping the bacteria alive longer than a day and getting it down into the soil. I should also go around iwht my garden fork first or soon after sowing to loosen the soil a bit so that the roots penerate more easily. There's an enormous difference between the growth of those in the mill mud Hugelkulture bed and those in other more compacted parts of the garden. Mind you the mill mud is very nutritious also.

The ducks and ducklings are doing well in their new situation. I got four eggs this morning. They still haven't tried out my new wheelbarrow pond. It probably needs to be put in the ground for maximum appeal. I just don't know quite where i want to put it yet. I think somewhere near the chook pen is a good idea though.

Vanilla - I chopped up the big plant into about 10 smaller plants. I've got them sitting in water to sprout roots as directed by this site http://www.vanillaplantations.com/cultivation.htm which i think is a local one. Then i will plant them in quinkin gravel. I'll get the coconut husks and stuff later one.

There's lots of little watermelons on the vine now but i think with all the rain we will have they will only be good for the chooks - but that's not a bad thing either. I picked my first watermelon yesterday and it should be ok i think.

My new year's resolution is going to be to not buy any vegetables for cooking at home in 2011. That might mean no potatos all year. It will be hard not having many tomatoes to eat but there's a chance that this resolution will give me incentive to try very hard. I actually don't eat a lot of vegetables a lot of the time so its not going to be too tragic. At least we've got lots of pumpkins and greens though so i should be fine. And there's plenty of lemons on the trees though i am not ruling out buying fruit.

I had forgotten to mention earlier that i've finally got paw paw seedlings coming up in my Hugelkulture bed. So hopefully i will have fruit by the end of next year.

Neighbours are starting to congratulate me on how good the place is looking. I'm going "What!" To me its almost looking worse since all the rain has made the grass grow beserk. However my little shrubs are coming along and the vinca are flowering quite profusely now.

I ate some soursop off one of our trees the other day. Its the first we've ever had on them. I think its because of all the rain so it goes to show all it takes is a bit of water.

Some neighbours are going to lop off all their mango branches to reduce the size of the tree. This is what i want to do with the lychees and to see if it will cure them of their malaise. I can't wait for dad to get better but he is improving at least so he should be able to get that chainsaw out fairly soon i think. But there is much much chainsaw work to be done and i will have to be on his back a bit not to give up early.

mischief

24-12-2010, 12:26 PM

Ok I'm green with envy.
I cant grow coffee or pawpaws and would love to be able to.
You're so lucky.

On the carport.....why the hell not, its not breaking any law is call loopholes.
hehe you could wind up with carports strategically placed all over a dining room here, living room there, tree here vine there,trellis over here.

I would imagine in the tropics you would really need good air flow.
Maybe instead at looking at 'normal' houses you could look at what 'native' people traditionally build in similar climates to yours.
Could be alot of fun and if it doesnt work out then you could add afew extra walls when nobody is looking.
With vine covered trellises tho they may not even notice.

sun burn

24-12-2010, 01:57 PM

Mischief i don't think you need to be jealous about our coffee growing capacity. Friends brewed some home grown coffee up on the tablelands and said it tasted like dishwater. Even though we can produce hte beans here, it is still not the ideal locality. It prefers some altitude i believe. And then there's a the business of treating and brewing it right so it tastes good. If mine ends up tasting like dishwater after reasonable effort to get a good roast happening, i will pull them all out.

Native houses do tend to have walls. I suspect that a sliding panel might be good enough but i am not sure.

Anyway i have decided not to bother with the council. I don't think i really need to. I think it will just cost me more money for no gain. I am just going the best and most beautiful house i damn well can.

mischief

24-12-2010, 04:31 PM

Ah, its always a good idea to pay at least token respect to councils.

What they do here is fly overs every now and then and if you get photoed with an unpermitted building its big trouble.
So if there is any chance of them doing that to you then you would be better off showing a legit roof even if it is only supposed to be a carport.
I really like the idea of sliding doors...Japanese shoji screen type lets the light in.
Might be able to get them in white perspex rather than Rice paper or glass.
The Samoan Fale,has woven roll up walls

On the coffee, I wouldnt pull them out straight away, I dont know very much about them cos theres no point in me even trying them, but could they need to mature as plants alittle longer... the deeper their roots the better the plant?

Alot of taste seems to be in how they are also dried and then roasted.

Sometimes other people with their 'fresh eyes', show us how well we are doing.
We dont see it due to being there all the time, so for them to notice it, then that effort you have put in so far has produced results worth commenting on.

sun burn

25-12-2010, 05:28 PM

I know it must seem as if i've been talking about lablab for months now. That's probably true but now the big moment of truth has come. Will it work. Yesterday I put 9kg of innoculated seed in the wheelbarrow and mixed it up with mill mud. As expected it rained a lot last night. this morning almost all the seeds have germinated. Only those at the bottom didn't but i guess they will tonight. I've just gone and spread them all over the place and i hope it will rain again tonight. Its been muggy enough. Anyway i need it to stay overcast tomorrow. Their little feet have to find the ground and tuck in. I think its going to work.

Its christmas day. DAd and I had a yummy lunch of prawns, smoked salmon and smoked ham (even though I usually avoid ham i ate it today). With it we had a lot of fruits and a little vegetable salads. DAd thought i was getting the lettuce. I told him it was his job. Anyhow it was yummy. After we had christmas pudding with custard. Before lunch we'd had a fruit mince pie with cream. We had champagne and mango wine. So it was all very nice. It didn't rain so we could sit out under my fig tree and enjoy the food.

I've decided on the theory of those that are long are males, that i've got one duck and three drakes in my batch of ducklings. I am glad i let the other duck have another sitting and put some eggs under her. Perhaps i will wish i'd put more if there's not many girls in her lot either. It seems that there are more boys in duckling batches then girls.

It'll probably be a lukewarm shower tonight only. Without sun our water doesn't get very warm. At least its hot enough here not to matter.

paradisi

26-12-2010, 05:25 AM

you sruviving the wet? bit rough up your way i hear

sun burn

26-12-2010, 08:37 AM

Not rough yet. No flooding where i live. Its not even raining today. I even saw the sun a little while ago. We are north of the worst of it. Dad says our turn is still to come. Usually its January February March that are the wettest months. The forecast is for rain so fingers crossed it will come again tonight.

sun burn

26-12-2010, 09:24 AM

Ok this might need more thought and development but i've just got a new inspiration about floors for my house.

For ages now i've wanted to make a spot in the garden with a sandy ground. It was ideally going to be in my coconut grove that i've yet to grow. I wanted to have an outdoor table there. A nice place to sit and have an afternoon drink.

Now its just occurred to me that i can have a floor like this inside too ... I think.

In my forest, i could build up the floor level with say rock and gravel and make a frame around it to hold it all in place. Then add sand. I'd probably have to put in some dirt so it would get hard enough.

Because this is the low lying area of the block, the ground will get wet so that's why i need to build it up. I would like it up about 2 feet above ground level.

Now i suppose the tree roots will try to come through the ground but i wonder how much of a bother they will be.

I wonder if water will rise that much and create a damp floor. I guess i could put in damp course - but is that going to just undermine the original need to raise the floor anyway? I will need to ask the arborist about that too.

The other thing is, will this mean more insects? I'm thinking sand flies.

Anyway, a floor like this could be good in quite a few parts of my little house and i could leave the ferrocement floor only to the odd room where i felt it mattered.

There's another unpleasant possibility. The cat might stop going outside to use the toilet.

I can try this idea out in my dressing room - the first building i want to build and that will show me whether its a great idea or not. It will also save me the trouble of pouring a concrete slab which is more appropriate for this building but not going to be done on the main house.

Oh i must say i am very excited about this possiblity. It could save me a lot of money and work. And it might be good enough to make me feel good in my home.

sun burn

26-12-2010, 11:35 AM

A yellow-belly black snake just sidled up to our door. Lucky i turned up. He quickly about faced and continued slithering on past the chickens and the ducks.

I think these are poisonous but luckily they don't eat poultry.

sun burn

27-12-2010, 11:27 AM

I've been wasting a lot of time on the net lately. So i need to pull my finger out today and get lots of things planted. The cool overcast weather is perfect for it. So after i finish here and my coffee, I'ts back to the garden.

I've already been out there today though. I showed one duck the fabulous duck pool i made her and although she jumped out, later i noticed that all the little ones were wet and later still another big duck was having a wash, so evidently word got around.

With my cassia fistula trees - my yellow shower flower power trees - that i have planted down the front corner of the block, I have just put in some cuttings for bangkok roses. Helga told me they take two months to take so i will put some in pots as well to see how they go. She also told me that dipping cuttings in raw honey is as good as rooting powder. Dad was given some by our neighbour a few days ago so i took a bit for the garden.

A friend is giving me some bamboo cuttings. We have yet to dig them out. But they are japanese and have long thing culms. They are amazing because although not large they are almost solid wood. Only a pencil sized hole is in the middle. These are good structural bamboos and i am going to have some of those in my house for sure. So i've decided to grow some down the front corner of the block and put some in my forest as well. Unfortunately she doesn't have an enormous amount to give me but whatever she can spare me will be fabulous. I need to find out what it is called though. I also think i would like some black bamboo. The japanese ones are a lovely dark green. I like that sort. I wonder if its worth getting black for building though as they probalby wouldn't stay black after cutting would they?

The rest of the day i am going to go planting planting planting. Jakfruit, my one mulberry that took, coleus, granadilla, potting up the orchids, frangipannis and whatever i can fit in.

Have i mentioned that the shrubs on the main road that i though i might have killed have recovered and are growing well now. Still small of course but good signs of life are there. Also my ixora cuttings that i took last time and put in pots have taken. I am not sure about the ones i put in the ground. Oh and i found another white ixora the other day. I think it was near the IGA supermarket. (in case i need more soon). (i keep spelling it with an e but its actually correct with an i).

sun burn

27-12-2010, 08:22 PM

I forgot to mention earlier that my agati didn't come up. These seeds must have gone off while waiting for me to plant them i guess. Anyhow, where i was going to put hte agati forest for timber now i am going to put the bamboo.

I potted up the vanilla i have had sitting about in buckets. I don't know if that was a good thing to do but i was following instructions from this site.... http://www.vanillaplantations.com/cultivation.htm whichi think is an australian vanilla outfit.

I also found this site which has wonderful images and ideas of growing vanilla ... http://www.orchidsasia.com/vanil02.htm There i read about gliridia. I am not sure quite how they use it yet. If they cut the stems and use the ungrowing stick as the support or if the vanilla grows up the tree. Info on gliricidia on this site.
Usually Glricidia is planted at spacing of one meter for the plant support. For this around 1inch dia plant stems are taken and the cutting is rooted out before used a s support for the vine.

http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/Gliricidia_sepium.htm

So I put my cuttings in a mix of quinkin gravel and potting mix today. I didn't follow the instructions exactly. I put a large mesh fence around a shade tree in the mandala garden and put all the pots at the base for the vanilla to lean on while i figure out how to set up the area where I will grow all my vanilla. I just hope the bottoms of the plants don't rot in the pots. I noticed when having the cuttings sitting in the water that the leaves will rot if left lying on the ground. However the plants are quite hardy and don't show any indication of being ready to die as yet.

The site above in asia has some lovely ideas about growing vanilla. I might give some of those ideas a chance.

I didn't actually get to planting the granadilla and the coleus' today but i noticed that some coleus seed i planted yonks ago is finally showing life. I had all but given up on it. I can't wait to see what else pops up.

Some of my frangipanni cuttings are starting to die. I think they are rotting because of all the rain. Cuttings need to be allowed to dry out thoroughly in the pot between watering.

I've got lablab seedilngs popping up all over the place. this was from an earlier seed casting - one that i had probalby given up on. The ones i planted a couple of days ago are not up yet but i am feeling confident about them.

I am feeling pretty confident about everything at the moment. My house building included.

i did some more writing on my articles today. I hope i don't blow that chance. I'm really looking forward to it.

sun burn

28-12-2010, 05:57 PM

I went on a fishing trip today. First off i went to farmer Joe's. I had wanted to get some birds nests but the track was wet and i would have got bogged. So i just went up to the house to ask for some pinto peanut cuttings. I had been in the town and asked about innoculant which it seems there is some trouble getting but i figured maybe its a good idea to just get the stuff growing and then innoculate down the track whenever it becomes avaiable. So I got a chook food bag full of cuttings. Back home, I just put them on the ground and covered iwth a bit of mill mud as the easiest way to "plant" them. I only got through about a third of the cuttings. Tomorrow I will finish the job.

Also from Joe I got a wonderful native orchid that has thick bobbly leaves. And a large bunch of yellow-green mother in law's tongues. These i am going to grow in front of what i think is a type of hibiscus but i don't know what it's called. It is a large shrub and has a dark purple=green leaves with yellow flowers. I've been admiring it for some time and now i think i've got just the thing for it.

I've changed my mind about the bangkok roses. I think they are not gong to be suitable for under the cassia fistula. Too big basically. And if i do the other thing, i won't need these.

I got some more mother in laws tongue, the green variety. I'm not sure exactly where i am going to put them. Maybe just thicken up the walk way planting i've done already perhaps as I can its going to take a long time before it gets thick.

I spoke to a guy who had a large bamboo stand. He said i could take what i want. He'd even chainsaw me some pieces. I am not sure of the species or what exactly i need to do with it but its great to know that i can get some useful bamboo when i need it. Its not the bambusa vulgaris variety. Its got green culms and each node has shoots coming out of it. It is of course very large. The leaves are large too. He didn't know what it was. The wood is about 1cm thick or a bit less perhaps.

Chief Cloudpiler

29-12-2010, 03:03 AM

We have just completed a Cob Storm Shelter. It is above ground and doubles as a living quarters when the tornadoes aren't blowing. The rain (which can be substantial) is harvested and directed into a swale around which Structural Banboo, Yucca, Daylillies, and Gopherpurge begin the guild. The system is proving to be excellent. The Bamboo is thriving. The runoff is not wasted. The swale is full of water most of the year and provides habitat. It is even growing us some food and building materials.

sun burn

29-12-2010, 06:48 AM

Thanks for that. Have you got a picture somewhere. It sounds attractive.

eco4560

29-12-2010, 10:01 AM

Gopherpurge. I have no idea what it is but I like the name! Is that because it keeps the gophers away?

sun burn

29-12-2010, 12:34 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

Today i've begun work on my garden sculpture i talked about some time ago. I am very excited about this concept. Maybe if all goes well i can turn it into a source of income. I have so many ideas and one of them is to use my front corner as an exhibition space.

If i can make money from this, life will really become good for me. I'd much rather make art for a living than grow vegetables and fruit or make jam.

The ducks are loving the new pond but they only use it for washing not for idling. I love to hear them flapping about in it.

Chief Cloudpiler

29-12-2010, 02:10 PM

It is a temperate zone plant - not perennial but self-seeding - that gophers, moles, voles and mice just hate. They beat a wide berth around the roots of this plant. I don't know the scientific nomenclature, nor whence it originates, but I will report on it when I have discovered those facts.

sun burn

29-12-2010, 05:57 PM

I opened my first watermelon today. Maybe it could have been a tad riper or it was just that it had had too much rain but it the flavour was a little weak. It had a nice fragrance though. Anyway after i'd finished eating, i took the seeds and sowed them straight away into a patch that i had weed-killed recently with plastic. Which made me realise i should indeed plant these areas up quickly with groundcovers if i dont the grass to come roaring back. So i put in some more sweet potato when i ran out of watermelon seeds.

I put some sweet potato down the front on the highway as well to keep down the weeds and the council contractors who just like to spray and kill everything. They killed my young raintree so i replanted that today.

I've had a busy day in the garden.

sun burn

31-12-2010, 10:57 AM

I know i talked about this some time ago. I also started it back then too but i got disheartened when i saw that the poinciana roots were growing into my compost pile. I haven't finished chopping down the tree yet either.

Still today, because of my new morning routine, i start again on it and this time i am determined to get it all mulched and composting properly. The grass and the weeds are getting away so something has to be done quickly. I got a barrow of lettuces of my neighbour to put down but got the pile of newspapers and a cardboard box and laid them out first. I spent ages and ages getting to hte point of hosing down all the newspaper before i could put on the lettuces. That's how it is in my garden. Start one thing and other things demand to be taken care of first. In this case i went to get the hose, decided i had better wet down all the pint peanut i planted yesterday. It made sense to do it first since they were between the tap and the mandala garden. Then one of the connectors started giving me trouble and i had to fix all that up. Probably took about an hour to water down the newspapers as a result of all that. After that i covered with full palm fronds. I haven't got time to fuss about anymore. So i am just putting them on whole. I got three armloads and had to walk across teh block to get them. So this is also time consuming. I might get time to chop them up a bit later on. For now ijust want to get the whole area mulched as good as possible. We've got tons of fronds lying about and i might as well use them up here. They are not so good where they are either as they catch and hold rainwater and breed mosquitos. Later on, i will put manure over it all so it composts properly. I don't want to make it too tasty yet otherwise it will all leach away.

sun burn

01-01-2011, 03:55 PM

This is my list of achievements today as I wrote them on my goal blog from the list of things I was meant to do today. :-)

DONE
3. water the young shrubs and cuttings i’ve planted and hte cassavas... I don't need to do this now as it rained enough last night. yippeee! one less job.
2. plant sweet potato cuttings down the front to stop erosion
3. i've also planted some winged beans in the permaculture style. Ie not in the vegie patch but whereever they might grow. I've got extras for the vegie patch but need a teepee.
4. Finished planting up the front boundary with white hibiscus. and a few red or pink.
5. plant sweet potato cuttings around the front corner for ground cover.
1. plant 5 pinto peanuts
6. I've put in 3 crotons and about 9 of a bush which is green and white don't know the name yet.
7. I phoned Joe about getting the extra 2 chickens tomorrow.
8. i planted 1 frangipanni and then realised with all the grass in the way there was no room to plant more.
9. i sowed almost all the lablab
10. i planted only 5 red shrubs. Although i have put plastic down to kill the grass I am sure its not fully dead yet so i had to take time to dig some of it out. then i moved the plastic to a new spot. I would have put in some green too but i haven't any ready. This was time consuming so i didn't plant as many boundary shrubs as i hoped.
11. I have started thinking about putting in the others

DIDN'T DO YET
5. more fronds on my mandala
7. get some more cuttings red and green from M. I seem to have run out.

food for poultry :There weren't any fresh lettuces in Ms piles today so I will have to make another trip for the ducks this afternoon. I am trying to pay more attention to reducing the amount of grain they eat. I am feeding them eggs daily and lettuces from my neighbour. I don't want to have to buy more than one bag of chook food a week, especially if i am not getting anything for my eggs.

Lablab: Well i was a little started to see how much the seeds had germinated in the barrow. A bit too much and maybe they will be damaged in the sowing and not grow. They are like been sprouts. Long and crunchy. But fingers crossed cause they are tough little buggers. I think i should not have let them stay there more than one day but at this moment I am not sure if I left them there 2 nights or three. Anyway I have covered all the sunny spots on the property now that are not still covered in grass. And i still have more seed to sow.

With this rain that is forecast I am trying to do intensive planting of my cuttings. I want to get them all in the ground before the end of january so that have a lot of time to take advantage of the wet season. Since i put the pinto peanut cuttings in a holding bed of mill mud i don't have to rush to plant all this out now. I will just do 5 a day just to keep on with it and devote the time to other more urgent things.

I think i will rip out the sweet potato from the vegie patch now that its not going to be hot anymore for a while. I've sowed lablab through the vegie garden too so i need the room for that to flourish. I will put sweet potato in cuttings around in other needed places perhaps.

My winged beans have come up. It took me a while to think what they were. I planted them under various trees where they will get some sun. I've got more than enough to grow in the vegie patch.

I'm feeling exhausted now but i still have finished for the day. I've got to feed all the animals and clean out their pen. And really i had better find some more room for the rest of the lablab seeds. I have to try not to tread on all the lablab seeds.

sun burn

02-01-2011, 12:33 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2011/01/01/ - purple tree for boundary screening.

More pics to come today...

sun burn

02-01-2011, 12:57 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2011/01/02/ carful of cuttings and plants and chickens.

sun burn

05-01-2011, 04:50 PM

Lately i've been feeling pressured by all my projects. My imagination is too big, too greedy. I work hard for a day and then i feel exhausted the next. I look at all the grass growing like mad, and the weeds, and feel overwhelmed by the size of my gardening problems, er project. The notion of plant, don't weed is a good one to keep in mind when feeling this way. Nevertheless, i can't stop myself weeding and believe i need to do it anyway. My weeds are huge you must understand. I really should have a system of weed, mulch plant all in one day movement but i simply can't be that organised. I will keep it in mind as a method to strive towards.

Dad mowed over a lot of my lablab seedlings yesterday and also some of my pinto peanut plantings. But i was already feeling a bit of a failure over that as the last lot i let grow a day too long before planting. I am lucky i've got a couple of kilos left for the new vegetable patch.

I've got a new morning routine to help me be more systematic about getting a few important things done daily like keeping feed costs down and pollinating all the things that need it and not getting started too late in the garden. This has been a good idea. I've also started a new system to help me get through a lot of weeding and planting. its simply this, weeding in the morning and planting in the afternoon. It means that i have to do at least some weeding in the morning and at least some planting in the afternoon. I still feel as though i am not getting enough done but I know i should let that idea go.

I was feeling so down about my lablab that i started to lose confidence about being able to write a column for the newspaper. I have had to do some serious self-talk to get over that and today I began a new piece and i'm taking a more personal approach. Since i am not an expert gardener, i thought it would be a good idea to present myself as a novice and try to encourage other non-gardeners to have a go. I'm just not sure whether to consider it as a weekly thing or a fortnightly thing. Of course its not certain yet that i am going to do it. When i phoned up the editor said he'd call me on the 6th, ie tomorrow. I don't know what the process will be. I'll probably have to submit a sample or two to be considered. I think that most other people who contribute a little column in this newspaper have businesses so i am the odd one out there. But down the track maybe it will serve me well to have this public profile. I feel a bit stupid for not having a reason for people to give me money but there you go, its my altruistic contribution to society.

When my first column draft is ok enough to show here, i will put it in the previous thread about writing for the local newspaper. http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?8816-Writing-a-column-for-your-local-newspaper

New Years Resolution: so far i think this is a good idea. Although i don't have a lot of produce coming out of the vegie garden today, I feel a good pressure to make this resolution happen and I am no longer neglecting my vegetable gardening as much. Also today i picked a ripening soursop that has been protected from the bats in a plastic bag. Ironically, it was a fallen and half eaten soursop from higher up in the tree that fell on the ground after being eaten by a bat that reminded me to check the one i got. Last night i made fried rice with kangkong. Today for lunch i had davidson plum jam on bread and butter. I don't usually have jam on bread for lunch but this is where my NYR has taken me. I put in some new rockmelon seeds, some new spiny cucumber seeds and planted turmeric, and arrowroot from plants that Joe gave me today. I also put in seeds from my butter nut pumpkin that I grew last time. At least if there's nothing else to eat, i know I will not run short of pumpkins for a while. There are a few lying around in the gardening ripe or nearly ripe. And i've still got a few on top of the fridge.

sun burn

05-01-2011, 05:30 PM

I went down to collect things for dinner before the light goes. I found 5 aubergines and decided to cut all the basil in the dinghy down so i can plant some tomatoes in there tomorrow. I was starting to feel good again. I was already feeling better than this morning.

I locked up the ducks and the chickens and thought i'd take a turn past my boundary shrubs to see how they are growing, before heading back here to finish my glass of wine. Then i noticed that dad had mowed over my crimson frangipanni. Now I feel all horrible. I know this feeling will pass but dad's wilful carelessness is upsetting. He's not at home today so I can't say anything until he comes back, not that it will make any difference.

sun burn

09-01-2011, 02:29 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila I am leaning towards the lighter shade of stone against darker mortar. I was a little worried about the tree roots being covered in cement and pavers but last night i thought i could build in little holes by fixing a tube in the spaces when i pour in the wet mortar. If i can get them out after you'd hardly notice the holes.

I've got a useful little book about building treehouses out of the library. Its reinvigorated my earlier ideas about building in the trees. Most of the rooms will still be quite low but i think it will be much easier (and also cheaper) to use the trees as upright supports. The book i've got out is by Black and Decker. There's another one in the library i will get too.

I was getting a bit tired in the garden and its good to make the switch to these other projects for a few days.

Its just finished raining heavily for a few minutes so that's saved me some watering. I just lifted the plastic in time over the weeds for the last lot of boundary. I will start clearing that soon.

Today I've been feeding the poultry cooked liver. I had some for the cat and he won't eat it all. The poultry love it and are getting such a diverse diet these days. They get eggs nearly every day. I have reduced the amount of grain though. On Monday or Tuesday we are going to kill the poor rooster. I can't afford to feed him and it was always intended he wouldn't be around for long. We've let him live quite a while longer as it is. I"m not looking forward to it though.

eco4560

13-01-2011, 08:17 PM

Hey sunburn - I found this - treehouse workshop (http://www.treehouseworkshop.com)

Not sure if you have seen it already but I though you'd appreciate it.

sun burn

13-01-2011, 09:56 PM

Thanks eco, I think i just found his site the other day but i haven't had a proper look yet and I had forgotten all about it. I believe this guy has been producing good books on treehouses for some time and the reviews of the latest one are very positive so I will probably try to get one down the track. What led me to him originally was finding a book in the library called Build Your Kids a Treehouse by black and Decker. Not very "inspirational" but it had good clear drawings and I now know how I can structure my treehouse. There's another one in the libary that seems to be popular for building treehouses so i will get that one out. The treehouseguide.com reviews books and so does amazon. There aren't that many tree house books out there so its not that confusing.

I had another little breakthrough yesterday. I went all the way to Cairns to visit Onesteel to try to buy some material to start experiments with, only to be told to go home and phone the Locker Group in Townsville (though they are all over the place - see website if interested). The prices of the material seem reasonable. In general I think it will cost $35 per metre square for quantity of steel i will need in a metre square of ferrocement. Given that there is not much cement involved, the overall prices looks like it might be reasonable. I am trying to work out costings but I am getting confused about all the different types of sand and gravels and whathaveyou, since I am also trying to research my paving stone project as well. Anyway, now that i have found a source of the steel and got a sense of its cost, that's one question answered, and I can go to the next step.

This morning i felt overwhelmed by all my little (building and gardening) problems and decided to runaway for a couple of hours. I went to visit my friend B in Port Douglas. I love going to her house. Its such a beautiful garden and she is artistic. Between her and her hubby they have renovated their little fibro shack so beautifully and the place is full of ideas. I took some eggs along today and she gave me a bag of passionfruits which were the biggest I have ever seen. One was the size of a small medium sized apple.

One idea that is nice that I shall use in my house if i can is for the polycarbonate/laserlite roofing. they have covered a pergola with it and underneath the pergola to block out a little light/heat, they put a stick blind. Its a good effect.

We talked a bit about my paving stone project. B loves the design. They both had some good ideas about paving and sent me to look at a place not far away. That place had made very small slabs but very large paving stones or irregular size and placement out the front and in the basic pale grey cement colour. I can see where that would be perfect here. Out the front of Dad's door where each year a mini flood comes rushing past, some built up large stones like that would be perfect. But anyway, seeing those made me rethink the colour of my stones. I've decided that getting the colour right was going to be either too expensive and or too difficult. There seems to be so many options. So now I am thinking of sticking with plain light coloured gray stones for my paving so it will look nothing like the slate in the picture. (i must start taking my camera around with me everywhere to capture all these wonderful things i'm seeing). I am also thinking of different ways of making them. Next door to the light gray slabs were some border edgings of small look like bricks but not. I took a close look and noticed that they had been laid all at once as concrete and something dividing the cement to make it look like brick placed halfway down the stone. AT least that is how it looked. Its a method I could try to use in my project. They were also really nice as edging.

While in town, i saw the council gardeners and attempted to find out the name of the dark leaved hibiscus tree that is still a mystery to me. The nice guy said he'd phone me when he found out.

This morning before i got to Bs place, to help clear my mind, I wrote out a list of all my problems thinking it might help me figure out how to deal with them all. Here's the list. I know we have the answers to these problems. They look simple enough but either because I don't have much money or because I am disorganised or lazy, i haven't been able to address them. There seems to be some obstacle to most of the things that just causes me a lot of head stress.

Anyway here's the list....
1. Cost of feed for poultry is too high (i need to feed them 2.5kgs each day now. I have 5 hens, 2 chicks, and 9 ducks now. (Until yesterday I had one rooster as well.) I need to buy about 2 bags per month at this rate, maybe even more. We killed the rooster yesterday as the first step to take in dealing with this and i've decided to kill two or three of the male ducklings as well for this reason. I really don't want to buy more than one bag a month. My neighbour has gone away so no lettuces. I've got eggs to feed them. I'm getting about six hens eggs a day now but they are small and I can't find the blasted ducks eggs again.

2. Need to find a better way to kill the ducks. Yesterday Dad killed the rooster. I found it really awful and we need to find a better way to do it. He caught the rooster very easily with his leg hook but i don't like animals being carried by their legs. Then he hung the rooster upside down in leg hook he's made especially. We did it in my vegie garden because the chickens never go in here now. Dad's approach was to pierce the brain. He made a sharp tool and you push this through the roosters mouth into the back of his head. It looked difficult to get in. And then although dad said he was dead, I was sure it wasn't. I am sure i could see him breathing while he was bleeding. In the end, i made dad have another go and he cut off the rooster's head. I really would like to know that he died quickly but I have a terrible feeling that he didn't since it was only after the head was cut off that he did that nervous flapping thing.

So now, I don't want dad to do anymore killing and I certainly am not ready to kill the ducks. I think i need someone who is good at it to teach me how to do it. I would like to learn the method of breaking the neck but i don't think i am strong enough to do it properly. Also i read that if you birds are used to being handled it can all be done so quickly they wouldn't even know what is happening. I really want to be able to kill my birds like that. And I wouldn't mind going like that myself when its my turn.

Tonight I cooked the Roosty Soup, which isn't a soup at all but that's what i've called it in honour of Roosty, the rooster. I made a casserole of chicken pieces in a tomato sauce with herbs, lots of garlic and white wine and I added chick peas. It was not bad at all. I cooked him for 1.5 hours on 150degrees in a ceramic pot. It will make a few meals i think.

sun burn

13-01-2011, 10:17 PM

sun burn

18-01-2011, 05:03 PM

Today I am very excited. Last night Don sent me off looking to Lime as an alternative to cement for my building projects....

Following on yesterdays visit to the landscape suppliers where i was talking to the man about roadbase, I considered that i should phone up some quarries to discuss it further. That gave me the good news that i can get some materials from a local quarry at a great saving over what the landscape suppliers can give it to me for. So this place produces roadbase and crusher dust, then i thought i might ask if there was anywhere nearby quarrying sand. I found them and in the course of the conversation, the woman told me that she gets her lime from chillago so i began to see who I could phone about that. I also phoned chillago about marble but that's much too expensive. So there in those few calls i found out much cheaper sources of all these building supplies i might need.

The man from the lime place up at Mt Molloy didn't know anything about building with lime so i told him what Don had passed on to me.

Then i rushed up to see what google had to say about building with lime and there is a book called Building with Lime or to be precise and "An INtroduction to Building with Lime: A practical Guide. I tried to order it on Amazon but things got a bit complicated. I am still trying.

Before i tried to make that order i ordered six books - one about raising ducks, two or three about treehouses and two about Designing and working iwth concrete. The latter books i have out from the library. They are nice books full of wonderful ideas of one or two guys who work in concrete. I don't know if they are going to be very practical but the ideas themselves are so creative i thought that these books would help me with many projects I want to do.

The treehouses books and the duck book i have had on my list for a while. Its only because the one i mentiioned above by Maurice Berkely i have out of the library now and it doens't appear to be that interesting though good on the safety facets. But i read a great review of the Black and Decker book so went ahead and ordered it and another one.

I have nearly used up my book budget for this year now although because of the dollar and price of american books, its all a great saving. I've got some aussie books i'd like too but aussie books are so expensive.

Gardening procrastination continues. Although i must say yesterday turned out not as bad as it looked . At the last minute i decided to pot up the cuttings from the day.

About two days ago, I came up with a work schedule that should be easy to follow

1 hour of weeding
1 hour of planting
1 hour of cleaning up in the garden and or house
1 hour of costing and pricing and that sort of thing. This will turn into more work labouring in my projects once i get all the paperwrok done.

but since i came up with that great little formula, i seem to have done less. That's what happens when i get overexcited or obsessed with one job. Though i must say that today i did spend some time tidying up and vacuming my house. And i have managed a little weeding.

but i really do need to get back out in the garden on a daily basis. this is so important to me. I must not let it all go to pot.

sun burn

19-01-2011, 08:23 PM

Yes, that was a false excitement yesterday. Building with lime is not so simple or straightforward after all. Suffice to say I won't be able to use it but i am curious to at least try a few little experiments.

So depressed was i by all this news that could barely get out of the house today until late this afternoon when i decided I would go and get those roadbase samples to start earth floor testing. HOwever, before it got to the car i decided i needed cheering up and that i would go and see my architect friend Andy to discuss all matters. Being an architect i thought he should be able to give me the nuts and bolts truth about lime.

Yes so its no good. I can't remember all the details. I find it rather hard to understand but basically the two main points i cna think of htat are relevant are

1. lime needs to be treated before it can be used for building.
2. lime was used in mortar between rocks. It wasn't used in the way that concrete is used to make a building and its not strong enough to work as ferrocement either.

He also mentioned, i think that all those old buildings that people find and say have been around since forever, are not actually functional or safe. They are ruins.

Anyhow, he gave me good advice about paving project and we talked it through in detail so now i think i know how to tackle that.

sun burn

23-01-2011, 07:51 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

Necessity, the mother of invention is a fantastic person.
Two new items i have and am on the way to recycling. The sort of things that ordinarily i would not think of having a use for.

1. A screen door that my neighbour gave me, ostensibly to use as the door for my chicken house. I don't need it for that but its just the thing to make a dry floor for the ducks. I am going to go back and see if he has more.

2. I found a heap of broken concrete slab the other day and had some wonderful ideas about how to use it if i could cut it up into slivers. That proved to be too expensive but i am going to go and get it anyway. I will use it first as an immediate solution to provide stepping stones in our flooded entryway and then when i get around to doing htat area properly, with gravel and nice stones, i will use these slabs elsewhere as crazy paving. In the book i have out of the library there is a nice example of crazy paving that would be lovely with these slabs. The pieces are spaced quite far apart and grass is grown between them. They are placed around the base of a tree. Doing it with this method would not upset the tree at at all and provide a nice appearance. Or in in our case, i could put it around the pump which i think would benefit form such a treatment though not perhaps absolutely essential. Anyway there's no need to rush into it.

The sun is out today.

I been to get samples of road base to test brick strength for my earth floor and samples of sand and gravels for trying out my concrete pavers for my outdoor dining area. Today would be a good day to work with those but first i want to go and get this concrete rubble.

sun burn

23-01-2011, 09:50 PM

Well getting the concrete was a bit of an adventure but boy did i get off lightly. I couldn't collect as much concrete as I wanted because most of the pieces were too large for me to manhandle on my own. This was just as well because as i drove off the block, I drove into a big hole and the trailer wheel got stuck. I ought to have checked that patch of ground before i drove into it but I think i was too lazy and thought it would be ok. It was a different way to the way i had come in.

Anyway the wheel was sunk at least half way down. So i went to look for help in the industrial estate where i was. It was a Sunday let me remind you. So although there were lots of cars parked outside the buildings, no one was there. But once i established that fact, a guy drove up and agreed to come and help me. Well Ben is my hero for the day because he lifted my trailer out of the whole as i throttled forwards. Yes i had emptied out the trailer of concrete first but he offered to help reload it. What a nice chap.

This afternoon, i unloaded the concrete for the second time and placed it in the walkway where its meant to be. Fingers crossed dad won't stub his toe. It all actually looks pretty good though its a pity i couldn't get more of it. Maybe i can rope dad into help me get some more.

I thought down the track, i could go so far as to mosaic it to make it pretty. MInd you the pale concrete against the dark green grass doesn't look too bad either.

Today there is a second duckling. I think its a girl. Its got no black patch on its little head like its Daddy. Last time, although with a black patch on their head were males and the girls had none of that. The first one born this time has a black patch. Hopefully tomorrow there will be more little quackers. I've already caught them. This time i want to get them used to being handled.

sun burn

25-01-2011, 10:52 AM

Yesterday I went up to my friends house to get a bit of bamboo. I don't know if she knew what she was doing but i think she gave me half of one her bamboo clumps. And yes it was damned hard work and I was very impressed with the tenacity of my friend. I'd get tired after a few shoves with the crowbar but she was picking up one tool after another and got them all wiggling and shaking that beast out of the ground. I will post pictures soon. Yesterday i was too busy with the actual task to take any snaps but i still haven't got it identified and i'd really like to know what it is.

I've chopped up the long culms so that i can try various things with them. I chopped up some with the growth bits coming out the nodes and will see if i can get these to shoot too. If so it would be fantastic but I'm not holding my breath.

As to the ducklings. Things are not going great there. There are now two little lovelies which is good but the mother has booted all the eggs out of her nest and abandonned it altogether. They are getting around the yard where there is too much water and in my view it can't be ideal for the ducklings. At least its not cold. But i worry about snakes and exposure. So last night i tried to catch them all, after trying to get them to sit on a new nest of straw but to no result. Its been somewhat traumatic for all of us i think. I've caught the ducklings a few times but i can't get mum to follow me. At one point i took the ducklings up to put htem in the nest with the other ducks last night. So that they wouldnt' run away or attract destructive attention from the other ducks, i covered them with a big bowl while i went back to try to get the mother but was unable to catch her. I gave up in the end. And brought back the ducklings to her. What a mess. I am not happy with the status quo. Once it starts raining again, there will be no escape from the wetness. Meanwhile there is a lovely high and dry shed just a few metres away but they won't go there. I need a big box but don't seem to have one. And now i've run out of straw.

sun burn

25-01-2011, 11:45 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2011/01/24/

1. crazy paving reusing concrete slab
2. identify the bamboo
3. visiting margot and feeding the wallabies at her house

sun burn

27-01-2011, 02:25 PM

So I made a temporary path with the crazy paving as i have already told but this morning i was able to persuade dad to help me get some more and this time I am going to use it as a floor in the chicken house. That should make it a bit easier to keep clean. I don't think i will mortar in the cracks in case i decided down the track to move the chicken house somewhere else, but i'll put some sand in the cracks . I'll cover the floor with stuff that the chickens like such as sawdust and straw which will also help me keep it clean.

Well this idea was so not on my agenda but reusing that old concrete is a great idea.

Just as we were leaving i noticed that the skip on the building site next door had some stuff in it so i asked dad to lets go and have a look. I got some heavy steel mesh that will do just great in the border concrete of my paving area. This will save me money which always makes me happy.

We also got a wooden pallet. I don't know what i 'm going to do with that at this point but something will turn up.

And a few pieces of large pvc piping. I wondered if i could rig up some sort of chicken feeder with that. I haven't got a proper chicken feed dispenser yet but i've seen them and it might be a good idea. Certainly a water dispenser could be good.

I've also made a small start on my paving area. To help me get over my procrastination, i've got a plan to do one task a day at least and posts a picture of progress. So here's the first picture. Notice that its been modified in photoshop. I quite like this affect. You can't see the string but it is there.

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila
http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2011/01/26/part-b-so-many-adventures.html some more duckling pictures.

I should say, we still haven't made much of a dint in that pile of concrete. I know i could easily use all of it but the pieces are getting bigger. I'll have to go back with a sledge hammer and break it up a bit, unfortunately.

sun burn

29-01-2011, 04:28 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/ A spot of work on my paving project, about one quarter what i hoped to do today.

On the other hand, i had not intended to do any work on the ducks floors but i did. I finished laying all the concrete pieces i had, put crusher dust in the cracks, covered with some sawdust and then with the straw. I haven't taken a shot yet because i put on the messy stuff and so its not worth looking at.

I spoke to Joe today. I told him about my floor and then he told me about how ducks go lame if they are left to sit in mud for long. So I am glad i did this rather than let them sit in mud at all. Once they go lame, you have to kill them apparently.

I still haven't planted my bamboo but i am keeping it wet. Its raining right now.

There's a cyclone heading to the Queensland coast but its not expected to worry us too much up here. It supposed to hit south of Cairns. We might get a bit of rain but that's about it i'd think, unless it changes direction radically and starts heading a lot further north. Looks like the one in WA will be worse.

sun burn

30-01-2011, 08:49 PM

I went back for another load today. I took my sledgehammer along as I have already removed most of the pieces that I could lift by myself. That was good thinking if i say so myself. I also took a rag along to soften the blow so it wouldn't shatter the slabs and that also seemed to be a good thing.

There is so much stuff there that i think i can pave all of the paths of my mandala garden with it and if i could do my second one as well, I would not be surprised. I feel like i'm on my way to becoming the paving stone queen.

Another snake got too damn close to the ducks tonight. I just got there in time to save the ducks but in the end, Dad killed it and i am not happy about that. I am too much of a coward to catch it myself. I feel there are going to be more of these incidents and i really don't want to kill anymore snakes. They are good to have around for killing the rats and mice so we need them in the small picture as well as the big picture.

I dug another trench on the main paving area today. i really thought i would get them all done but i got distracted by my trip to the concrete slab heap. Anyway a little bit every day will get me there in the end i think.

eco4560

30-01-2011, 10:12 PM

Snakebusters (http://www.smuggled.com/sbsVSCC3.htm)
Maybe you need this? A quick read suggests that if you get a group together he'll come to you to teach you. Maybe your local WIRES group might run courses too?

sun burn

30-01-2011, 10:15 PM

I'm not paying anyone to teach me how to catch a snake. Things like this are for people with jobs. I don't have one. (couldn't get one - the locals employers seem to prefer to employ backpackers - so i said f*ck you lot. I give up. Give me the pension because I am obviously unemployable and I can't live on $200 a week, and guess what? They gave it to me. ha! Now If only I could shout about it from the rooftops to all those stinkers in Port Douglas who wouldn't give me a job.) WiRES seems to be for NSW but i might call the local nat parks people.

sun burn

06-02-2011, 04:28 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/

eco4560

06-02-2011, 05:10 PM

Wow! You are pretty good at seeing the positives in your unplanned pruning. I can see a big hugelkultur pile or two in your near future...

sun burn

07-02-2011, 09:32 AM

Actually hugelkulture possibly isn't that great here because of all the termites. I am keeping the logs but maybe for some sort of craft. But yeah if i can see a way to use them in landscaping, i'll do it. I am busy chopping off all the leaves to throw on my new mandala garden. This approach makes the cleanup a bit slow though.

sun burn

09-02-2011, 04:42 PM

http://www.photoblog.com/ShangriLa/2011/02/08/

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2011/02/03/preparing-for-cyclone-yasi.html

I made the green mango chutney today. I wasn't so excited about it but that's partly because I burnt it. So glad i didn't make a huge batch. And I think it has too much vinegar in it. So the next batch will be modified a little.

All the neighbours have put their cyclone debris out on the streets. I put out my lemon tree because it has very sharp and long thorns but today i went raiding my neighbours debris for the leafy bits. Thank you i'll have that for my garden.

I did the first cut back of my lablab. I can do this twice before allowing it to go to seed.

sun burn

28-02-2011, 07:41 PM

Its been a while since i've updated.

Its begun raining properly now and i'm loving it. This weather i can work in. Before it was simply too hot. On the other hand, this weather is not so good for making pavers so I will try to do things on the dry days.

In the last few days i am busy doing more boundary plantings, making good progress here.

I've bought myself a chainsaw but because of the rain haven't got hte guy out yet who offered to teach me.

I've ordered a truck load of crusher dust for my paving job. Its 8 cubic metres which is much more than i need but i think i can use most of it quite easily. It was either buy a full load for $325, half a load for $211 or two metres for $150 so you see it makes more sense to buy more for all the jobs that I would like to use it in. This is hte list of jobs
1. outdoor dining area
2. dad's buying one metre for his garage which gets boggy with the rain
3. the entry ways to dad's house which flood and where i want to make some large slablike paving stones and put the gravel around them
4. between the cracks of my crazy paving concrete slab in the mandala garden on the paths
5. on all the paths in #2 mandala (Note its not much more expensive to do this than recycle the concrete slab somewhat disappointingly. Certainly using the crusher dust will be a lot easier though with both of them i have to think about it getting washed away.
6. around the edges of the broken slabs in my chicken house.

And if there's any left, i probably easily find somewhere to put it.

Recently i got my book Raising Ducks from Amazon. In it they talk about deep litter on the floors of duck pens. The idea is that you don't clean it out more than once a year but just keep topping up the floor iwth more sawdust and or straw. I've noticed that this does deal with the smell. The idea is that its supposed to age and compost on the floor. It is apparenlty not problematic for the birds but would give them a nice soft floor. It can get to be about a food thick they say. I like the idea of not having to clean out the poo all the time. Normally cleaning out the duck hosue wouldn't worry me but when it rains it gets wet and so i feel it has to be done more often than otherwise so this deep litter idea might be good then. I need to find a way to stop so miuch water dripping off the ceiling.

When i was Aroideana's place he had this clever fold up pruning saw. I decided I would have to get one. Its arrived but i think i might have got one that's too big and wonder now if it got a bigger one than what Mike had. Mike if you are reading this, what's the model number. Mine is... oh i haven't got it handy. But it seems to be nearly two feet long and I didnt' think yours was that big. I was going on the colour orange and the curved blade that you had but i wonder if they've changed their models. Oh well. I will have to get used to it.

http://www.forestrytools.com.au/index.php?id=46
240mm curved blade tiger tooth saw

sun burn

02-03-2011, 10:02 PM

My day was going well until I got home. The plan was to go to town, get some dynamic lifter, filch some cuttings from the public gardens, see a movie, do some other chores, catch up with a friend and go home.

At Bunnings i found myself in the plant section and on impulse bought 12 snowflake hibiscus for $100 for my highway screening planting. Its not enough for the whole stretch of boundary but its a good start. My own cuttings had failed. They were probably too small or maybe i didn't give them enough water. Or maybe the mill mud was too rich. I'd only laid out the cash because this area is where screening is more important than any other part of my boundary since its where i intend building my tree house. And...I am fixated on having this plant growing there since i think the white hibiscus would look great with a green backdrop of the forest. Nothing else has taken my imagination so...so I lashed out and bought them off the shelf.

I stopped along the way to Bunnings a couple of times to fill up the back seat with varigated cassava and my favourite pink leafed acalypha. And then i spied this quite interesting looking red pineapple type plant growing profusely in the centre road planting. To my pleasant surprise there were little white pineapples on it and some broken off bits and lots of puppy pineapples. So i grabbed a bunch of those. I've never heard of red pineapples before but they look pretty good even if they might not be edible - The pineapples were quite small.

With that carful of flora, i figured that would be enough plants for the day, and carried on to town. At home after dark with everything else on the list having gone better than planned, i stopped off first to see if all the chickens and ducks were ok in the chook house. I could only count 6 chickens. I wasn't sure for a minute how many there should be, so I asked dad if a chicken was missing. He confirmed there should have been a seventh. Cilla (the dog) had killed it! She had always timidly but guiltily bypassed past the poultry whenever she'd encountered them in the garden until today. I believe it wouldn't have happened if i had been around. It's probably not even prudent to say that much! But I can't help but put some blame on my father for his usual lack of attention and concern.

I thought ok now we have to do the chicken-round-the neck-til-it-rots dog punishment. I thought i'd do it by day rather than 24 hours. I thought "i'll wait until the morning". On my way to bed, i passed by the chicken again. I'd already noticed it was one of my new young laying hens. It wasn't the young rooster who has just begun to crow. It wasn't one of the two old hens. It wasn't even the newest young hen who hadn't started laying. It was my best hen. Well one of my three best hens if I am fair. So not just tragic but shitty luck too. As I came to the spot where the hen had been i saw that it wasn't there and thought "oh no someone's come and dragged it away." I was thinking pigs? big rats? the neighbours dog? some other four-legged meat eating creature? Typically, I didn't think of a snake until i saw it with its mouth stretched horrifically around some part of my poor little black hen. I feel too upset about it to get a shot but I did cross my mind "that is a picture for my photoblog right there" or to hang about and watch.

Anyway, now i can't even take revenge (in the name of training) on the dog since the chicken is gone. But seeing that snake, I also wonder if the dog would be safe from the snake if i had tied it to its neck.

It makes me wonder how much chickens will be alive by the time i get back from the Kimberleys in July. I guess I will have to remind everyone to KEEP AN EYE ON THE BLOODY DOG!

sun burn

02-03-2011, 10:23 PM

"many chickens" not "much chickens"!

Stingray

03-03-2011, 07:05 AM

yoikes.... sorry to hear about ya chickens :{
we havent lost any yet to snakes.. we had a yellow-faced whip snake around the other week .. but thank fully their fav food is small skinks n small lizards

eco4560

03-03-2011, 07:34 PM

Natural Building Fun (http://permaculture.org.au/2011/03/03/natural-building-fun/)

Saw this out on the main page and thought of you. But you might have concerns about the fact that they have concerns about it falling down!

sun burn

04-03-2011, 06:51 PM

ha, concerns about it falling down!

I am always going to have concerns about trees falling on my house during a cyclone. And i am not going to have insurance. Where i want to build myself at the moment is a complete swamp. I will have to dig some ditches if i don't want to have this below me once i move in.

aroideana

05-03-2011, 06:50 AM

Its a different brand of pruning saw , but very similar looking . Mine is Bahco from Sweden.
Have heard great things about Silky , but a great price .

sun burn

05-03-2011, 08:31 AM

oh!!. I looked for "barco" on forestry tools as you suggested but there was no brand like that. So i figured i must have heard you wrong or something.

Anyway the thing works. I think its just a bit bigger than yours. Nevermind.

My plants are going fine but at first i put them in my forest but its turned into a swamp so i had to get them out.

Is your garden coming along?

Did you see the pics i put up. I haven't put them all up. I am not much in photoblog mood these days. Its been great gardening weather though we are having a few hot days now. Still i am motivated afresh after my "holiday" at your place. I put in my snow queen hibiscus yesterday - six of them and i am really pleased I spend the dough. I hope I don't have to do it again though.

sun burn

08-03-2011, 02:21 PM

Yesterday on the spur of the moment, i decided i would wait no longer for lessons in using a chainsaw from some outside expert and went to Dad and asked his help. Luckily he agreed and although i thought it was going to go badly for a minute there, I chopped down my first tree without mishap, and my second.

The first was a mandarine that looks like, has quite a few little fruit but all are inedible. I judged that the thing was taking up valuable space so it would be best to chop it down and put something else in. I'd like to put in the orange as dad doesn't like its current spot but there's not a lot of root space as its very close to a large fig. So maybe i won't transplant it. I'll put in some small fruit tree seeding, a jakfruit or a custard apple or something like that.

The second one was a milky pine (rainforest tree) that was never going to reach its full height due to insect damage. As it was, it was shading my newly planted hibiscus and so it was time to go for this one too. Milky pines have nice flowers so it is a pity.

I've put in all my new snow queen hibiscus now and I am really excited about them. Though i hope they don't drown with all this rain. They are currently waterlogged but fingers crossed they can survive. If they look like they are suffering, i will dig them out. Maybe i could build up little mounds like you are supposed to do with pineapples. I'll see. Today in Mossman I saw some wonderful examples of this shrub which made me happy to see. They were big and bushy and white. I can't wait till these are full size and doing their screening job along the highway.

I also got a stack of other cuttings in town this morning. I would have got more even but it started raining so hard. Three hours later, it hasn't stopped so I am not doing anything else today though I had hoped to start potting up these cuttings.

A few days ago i had to break my new year's resolution about only eating vegetables from my garden and not buying any from the shops. I didn't want to eat kang kong (although i like growing it) and I've had enough pumpkin. The ones i've got aren't particularly good. I am not going to grow this type anymore. I was putting on weight and eating too much icecream and mints so i've gone on a diet now and this means i have to buy some vegetables from the supermarket again.

With all this wet weather it looks like it might be a while before i can consider starting my paving project. Of course the window of opportunity was back during February which was quite a dry month for this part of the world. Drier than usual apparently. Oh well. I will do it later.

My second mangosteen has finally shown some new growth. Boy i can tell this is going to be a slow painful project. The rollinia is looking pretty pathetic still as well. The orange is probably doing the best of all the fruit trees i bought (oh and the avocardo is holding up well too), funnily enough since that's the one that's not supposed to like this climate at all. Perhaps i shall never get fruit but just a big bushy tree. The mandarine is sluggish. It probably wants a bit more sun. I can't remember what else i bought now. Oh a vanilla orchid. All are doing fine.

I dug out the granadilla that a friend gave me for christmas since it was getting waterlogged where it was. I'll have to find somewhere else to put it.

sun burn

18-03-2011, 08:13 AM

For some unexplained reason, there's been a large pile of woodchip sitting by the side of the road not far away from our place. I presume its a byproduct of the cyclone. I'd say the main roads left it there. Anyway we've decided to help ourselves since i can't imagine what they are going to do with it and its been there long enough if they wanted to remove it. We got a trailerload the other day but i must say it doesn't go far so i'll have to go back for more.

I've got to go and get some sawdust from a local cabinet makers shop for the chicken's floor. I'm doing the deep litter method now which ive mentioned before but read about it in my duck raising book. What you do is just keep adding the new clean material on top of the old. And change it about once a year. Its supposed to compost while it sits. Even if it doesn't i've decided i like this method as its less work. At least the stuff will age and will be great on my vegie garden.

I've cut down more trees and branches with my chainsaw but one of the trees has an awful lot of sticky sap and so i've got my blade covered in it. I've had to take it all apart to clean it. I haven't put it back because i wasn't sure how to add more oil to hte chain. I should fix that up today now that i've decided a basting brush would probably do the trick with the least mess.

I've lost the nut off my new handsaw already which is a bugger. I've got so much to do with these two tools.

Meanwhile with all the rain we've been having everything, including the grass, is growing nicely. Not that there's any foody things growing, apart from sweet potato which i've allowed to take over my vegetable patch. Its a good source of cuttings though. The rosellas are looking healthy now and I should get a good batch of jam out of them. They really like the rain. The sugarcane and sorghum are doing well too. I only wish i had more sorghum.

I need to get down in the vegie garden and do some clearing out and preparing the beds for my winter vegies i think. And also i should dig out the bog for the taro.

Now that i can see the extent of all the swampy ground, i can see what i have to do down in that part of the block to make it more suitable for production.

I've finally found a good spot for the tamarind tree. I will put it near the shed to provide some cool and this will also provide some shade in that old duck yard area. Its taken months for me to figure that out. Tamarind trees make lovely shade trees. I've been looking at a couple in mossman. Apart from using tamarind in thai soups and the like, probably the easiest way to use them up would be making a sweet refreshing drink. I've had this before and its delicious. But for me, as i've sworn off sugar at the moment, i don't know if i will be drinking it. Perhaps I could sell it at the markets or do something like that iwth the fruit.

sun burn

23-03-2011, 08:36 AM

I'm excited because i've found another duck murderer in the same situation as me. I hope nothing will get in the way of this but it looks like we may be able to help each other. She replied to my request through the local permaculture group and lives about an hours drive away. I think its a she anyway. She seems to be thai or chinese.

Other than that its so hot here these days since the rain has stopped that I can't make myself do anything. I could work in the early hours of the morning but i prefer to sit around drinking coffee and mucking about on my computer. So i just have to hope it doesn't rain in the afternoon (like it did the other day) and then i can get a little bit done. Mowing is getting a bit urgent.

Dad picked up a nut for my new handsaw the other day so i can probably get onto to chopping up the trees i chainsawed down the other day.

Oh yes, lol. Yesterday i had run out of chicken pellets and went to town. I had it on my list to get some more. I told dad that he might have to give the ducks and chickens some canned cat food for dinner. I visted a friend before leaving cairns and didn't leave till about 8pm so i missed out on getting the pellets. So i thought the poor things might be a bit hungry. Dad said the chickens went for the cat food but he didn't know about the ducks. This morning i fed them cat food again and i noticed that the ducks were not interested in the cat food even though it was a fishy one. The chickens loved it of course. But i also noticed that the ducks did not seem particularly distressed. I think they must be gorging on the fat witchety grubs that are all around the garden. Lately they have not been eating all the pellets i've been giving them so this is a good sign. Anyhow, today i will have to make a special trip to Mossman to get more pellets which is annoying since i have to go again tomorrow as well.

sun burn

26-03-2011, 08:59 AM

Yesterday the other duck person phoned me. She's going to watch a friend on Sunday as he kills some turkeys. I asked if she could ask if i could come along. I am waiting to hear back now.

Also we are agreed to help each other. She says the thing that's putting her off is how hard the ducks are to pluck. As i haven't experienced that its not the main problem for me.

Also Joe phoned yesterday but i forgot to phone back. So it looks like he's going to be doing his ducks soon.

I figure I will use all the support i can get and if that means attending more kills then that's what i will do.

But also i will maybe get to meet some other local permies so that could be good too.

When i went to town the other day to get some sawdust, i found out that the sawdust is poisoned with arsenic, cyanide and something else as all the wood up here is treated. I still got a bit of it because it was only after loading it on teh trailer that i realised what a bad idea this would be. Of course i wasn't going to put it on the chickens floor and later vegie patch when i realised this but i thought it might be ok for the other plants but since then i've thought better of that too.

But what's rather worrying is that the guys at the sawmill told me they give their sawdust to the local stables. Now i am concerned that the people i get my horse poo off have the poisoned sawdust. Of course i have put my horse poo on vegie patch. WEll so far i haven't experienced anything bad from this horsepoo but i think i might have to hvae a chat with teh people who sell the horsepoo. You see in a bag of horsepoo it is half sawdust.

So bearing all that in mind, you've got to wonder about the hazards of using any timber in your house. Given that when its cut to shape, they are producing a poisoned waste and that waste has to go somewhere and most likely back into the ground.

sun burn

27-03-2011, 07:31 PM

Stingray

04-04-2011, 05:56 PM

Nothing to be proud of. Nothing that makes me happy exactly. Well not in a deep way. But it does mean i am over the hurdle. The duck wasn't mine but i did it and now i can do it to my poor things.

Well i must admit cutting off its head was the easy part. Plucking it and skinning (unlike with the rooster) was the hard part. I won't go on about the details. Suffice to say i have more to learn.

And one duck a day is enough at this point in time.

On the plus side, i got another load of mill mud to put on my vegie garden.

hey sunburn :)
congrats on getting over the hurdle :)
that 1st ones normally the hardesT :)
good luck with the rest :)

posted a reply in Ducklings-your-experience-please (http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?8637-Ducklings-your-experience-please./page14) on how the duckling experience ended :)

mischief

10-04-2011, 03:42 PM

Yes, good on you.
I have been putting off the Deed for weeks now and really do need to get new hens but that means Doing something with the old non productive ones.
I was told to just skin them at first rather than plucking them.

sun burn

30-04-2011, 03:28 PM

I've not been around much but that doesn't mean i've given up on the garden. Today i have begun putting in my boundary line irrigation system. I am so excited about this. The weather has been so dry for the last month at least and i have had to hand water all my shrubs. Besides i am going away next month and don't want my plants to die of neglect so with my fancy new irrigation going in there's really no excuse.

I'm using sprinklers since for some reason, drippers are not so suitable for my area or garden. Maybe its because of the bore. I don't know. Anyway i don't mind. It looks like its going to be easy to set up. The sales person in the shop was really good at helping me with the design. She was, of course, at first trying to sell me the more expensive sprinklers but there's now way i can pay about $20 per sprinkler head. I'm paying $3.50 instead.

I also opted out of the expensive high pressure hose. It's not necessary. More savings.

In the chook house, my first chickens have hatched. I got some fertilised eggs from Joe when one of my young hens went broody. He gave me about 8 eggs but only 4 hatched. The hen suffocated or squashed one of the poor little ones but there are still three furry little chicks doing their thing. Pretty cute. Today, the second or third day, mum's got them out of the nest and they are digging for and finding grubs in the litter of the chook house floor so i'm very impressed. I mean they've found grubs on top of my concrete floor. Don't know how the grubs got there but i am glad they are. I'm keeping them all in for at least one week and then i will see if they are going to be safe to let out.

I've got one duck sitting on eggs for over a week now and another one who's trying. You've got to keep a close eye on them to avoid losing all the eggs to baby ducks. The one who's got the nest has it wehre i can't get her off to pinch the eggs so i gave in and let her stay.

Other news. I've picked my rosellas and my friend with the cafe just offered to buy my jam. Next year i need to plant a lot more rosellas though as the bushes don't actually yield that much.

This same friend has been buying my lemons for her cafe so that's great. We've decided to buy a new food processor with the proceeds.

I pulled up all the sweet potato running rampant in my vegie patch. And got another load of mill mud in preparation for this years vegie planting. I haven't start on that yet as because I am going away. I might sow some seeds in trays and get them watered by dad with all my potplants so that i have some things to plant out when i get back or if my sister wants to plant them out, she can. NOt sure yet.

Its good now that heat has gone out of the day so that gardening is once again an option.

I am getting a free caravan from my neighbours to live in when i have to move out of this house while my sister and her husband are here. So that is going to be excellent.

sun burn

02-08-2011, 04:15 AM

Just a quickie update to keep my record going.

I'm home from my cycle tour of the Kimberleys. It was great of course and exhausted me and i finally got down to my desired weight. Now i've got to make sure i stay here.

At home, things have gone to pot a bit as expected but my sprinkler systems seems to have kept most things alive with dad on the button occasionally. The weeds got a bit out of hand of course.

I didn't get time to kill off my ducks before my trip but finally i have started the culling at home. The first one i did with dad's help and the second i did yesterday all on my own. So that is a great achievement for me. Its been such a long traumatic thing. I've spent a fortune keeping too many drakes alive and now i might be able to start saving that money. Just this week i have been through one bag of feed already. Yikes! So two drakes down, two to go.

And i've cooked one and it was excellent. If anyone needs tips on that, i can now help. They are muscovies don't forget. I had not expected my year old drakes to be tender and so roasting it was an experiment. But it worked.

On Sunday i went to a local permaculture event - where we all worked on one person's garden. This is what i joined the local group for and now i've done one and loved it. I can't wait for the next one. They had a demo about aquaponics and now down the track, i'd love one of those in my garden. I still don't understand the wicking bed thing. The place was a city garden and she had all piles of bought stuff sitting out on the pavement. Its easy when you've got the money to spend on having all the right stuff put down in one place at the right time. The people were nice. And one of the members and i found we had something in common and we want to start a local cycle touring group, just for short trips. So i am excited about that. Even if its only him and me that go off that would be good, even though he's an old codger, just having another person to go places with on occasion is motivating so as you like them enough. I think we may get along fine.

So life is quite good at the moment.

I came back from my holiday all fired up with ideas and importantly motivated to get out there and do some work. I'm a bit unsure as to whether my sister and her husband like what i've been doing though. John doens't like domestic animals i've just found out - just as i was contemplating getting a couple of goats and jane has some weird idea that i should put hte garden together her way. Ie i should have started from the middle and not the boundaries and so on. Sigh. I really want those goats too as i am tired of not being able to make successful yoghurt and i believe its due to all the processing of my cow's milk. I've asked the neighbours if i can put the goats on their place to eat as they have large open areas of grass with shady borders where as my place as small patches of open space and too many plants which they will eat.

And at the permablitz, i met a guy who had goats. I floated the idea of trying out the idea by borrowing his goats cause he said he is thinking of getting rid of his. I think he finds them too noisy or something or they hinder the growing of his garden.

This year vegie wise, i am going to focus on tomatos. That is the vegie that means most to me and that i most want to grow. They are not easy to grow here but iwth raised beds, i think i can beat the wilt. There are also wilt resistant plants i could get some of those in too. but i've so much to do, i will have to be focussed to get those in anytime soon.

Stingray

02-08-2011, 09:40 PM

Hey Sunburn :)
Glad to hear ya had a fun time cycling about :) (did my 1st ride since spinal surgery yesterday and sorta over did it with 18kms.. LOL)
Nice to hear everything survived reasonably well whilst you were gone :)
Good on ya with the ducks :} ... we still have 2 and I have been talking about roasting one .. so will have to do the deed myself in the next week or so .. :)
Love the idea of the permaculture event .. and def look into aquaponics .. have started a trial here myself a couple weeks ago :) <pics here> (https://picasaweb.google.com/darqwarrior/AquaponicsTrial02)
love the idea of goats ..MMMmmmm goat curry!!!!!! delish!!!!!!!
go the toms!!! def can go wrong with them .. have 1/2 doz plants in atm .. have had to stop planting more etc as we have decided to take the plunge and move to NNSW and look for somethin rural .. try for a few acres where I (we) can expand what we are already doing in outer-suburbia! ;)
Glad to see ya back safe .. and had fun :)
Daz

sun burn

05-08-2011, 07:42 PM

Stingray, i will tell you how i cooked it so that it was delicious. I cooked it on 150 degrees for about 4 hours. next time i will turn the heat up high at the end for a little while to make the skin crispy. I didn't think of that this time but the slow cooking kept it nice and tender. My duck had a lot of fat on him so i think taht helped becaue he was much older than he should be for eating but it just goes to show, that they can be yummy. Also i nearly forgot to do this but its important. don't cook the duck straight away. Let it rest in the fridge for between 12 - 36 hours before cooking otherwise it will be tough.

Also to keep the duck out of its fat dad suggested i sit it on a rack above the baking tray. Taht was a good idea even if i didn't do it until the end.

There was a beautiful rich gravy juices in teh pan after. I let it chill in the fridge and then picked off all the hard fat to get at the good stuff. With that, instead of making a gravy (which you'd want if you were going to eat the duck hot), i made a delicious split pea and duck soup. With the soaked split peas i added to the pot, the duck gravy, the duck frame with whatever meat was left on it, 2 medium onions, 3 cloves of garlic. I was adapting it from a pea and ham soup of stephanie alexander. One duck is rich enough to flavour a whole bag of green split peas. Its too rich for less as I found out.

I've been eating duck all week and still have more to eat. Its been fabulous. I also made a duck sandwich with mango chutney, duck fried rice, cold duck with french vegetable salad. Neighbours who tried my duck also thought it excellent and will probably start growing their own ducks now. lol. I know its nice in a asian style soup cause i had that before. Anyway i am a duck convert.

annette

06-08-2011, 07:35 AM

Nice to hear what been happening with you Sun Burn. I'm thinking about getting into ducks again but need to do some fencing and other work around first. Still got some in the freezer and will try your recipe thanks.

cheers
Annette

eco4560

06-08-2011, 03:54 PM

Nice to have you back Sunny!

sun burn

17-08-2011, 05:35 PM

OH thanks eco. Nice to see you too.

DAd just found a pumpkin. I was just going to comment that i like this sort. Its a trumpet variety and i didn't like the other one i grew so many of. It was the Kentish - good to look at but not so great to eat, variety.

Last night i went to my first ever permaculture meeting. Well, i have to say its not for me. It was a nice social event and if it was down the street, i'd go every time but as i have ot drive one hour to attend, i'd want something more for the effort. I didn't really get anything out of it but i did get a lot out of hte permablitz and i have to say that's gotta be where the heart and soul of permaculture is. The melbourne groups are good at it i hear and that's where Joh got a lot of her ideas about how to manage her permablitz day. Her's was a great success. I am only sorry that there will only be one a month.

Stupid meetings. What a waste of time and resources somewhat. It wasn't boring really. just not necessary.

Anyway, i've found a woman who lives a couple of hours drive away who has lovely litttle miniature goats and she said she'd give me one if i could help her out one day a month or something. (i think she said it like that). Anyway that would be great because they cost $400 for a young one. That said, half hte family is not keen or interested in my goat story.

But a little goat i should be able to keep on my section of the block and it need not bother anyone else - but i'm not hurrying. Suffice to say, we have been having a few issues on the property. My sister and her bil are home. Bil doesn't like what 'ive done along the boundary and is asserting his need for privacy to the detriment of my plans. I've jsut about gotten my head around some of his demands but i' am not ready to relinquish my boundary planting. In fact i am almsot ready to plant vegies in the gaps so its a permashrubbery if not a permaforest. I'm intending to plant eggplant, capsicum, pumpkins and cheery tomatos there. I've put down the composted chooky poo.I just have to wait for the seeds to germinate blah blah blah.
This year in terms of vegies, i am going to focus my efforts on tomatos. I will try a few other things but its mainly tomatos i want to grow well. Oh and also watermelons and trumpet pumpkins or butternuts. I can get cheap greens from my neihgbour over the road.

Today i did something else for my commmunity and you guys may want to think of doing something similar for yours. I started a yahoo group for our suburbs with the idea of it being use for suburban classifieds. I could even set up one for POrt Douglas so that we could bypass hte newspaper where you have to pay. I bet there would be more activity if everyone was on that. And a lot more community invovlement.

Oh i was saying about our family issues. one sec, i need anohter glass of wine and some cheese snack....

sun burn

17-08-2011, 05:56 PM

OH yeah, its been awful really. My sister and i have had arguments and so far we have had one councilling session. I hope it works because if not, she will want to sell this place and go and live somewhere else and she can do that, even though its in both our names. I yeah, i hope we can find a way forward and i hope councilling can act more quickly than usual to make the difference.

But i'm also excited because with my new caravan (which is not new by the way) i have realised i can't get wifi at it and so i'd have to move the van to another section of my third ( we've agreed that each of us - my sister, my father and me will have a third of the block to be in charge of). This is good because i've got the power now to get DAd's dinghy moved (when the tomatoes have finished for the season) and do something proper with that end of the nursery. My idea is to put the van in the shade at the edge of the forest and then in the sunny part (where its swampy in summer) build an island out of bricks, crusher dust and sand and on it will be my kitchen - until i can build one for the long term in my forest. This will be a wonderful space for this . I envisage planting some palms around the kitchen to get some shade and to provide atmosphere for the sand. Obviously i can't have too many coconut palms but i always intended having them off to one side. Perhaps i can have another little raised island for some other sorts of things to grow like parsley and herbs though its hard to grow those here.

Speaking of which, a pair of ducks a=have been swimming in my pond. someone knocked down the barrier and they are going there too regularly so i am shooing them out regularly. My waterlilies died while i was away but i've still got the kangkong but i don't want duck poo in my pond or duck claws tearing the plastic.

So for the next year, garden wise, i am going to focus all my efforts on the lower third of the garden, or pretty much so anyway. Unfortunately most of this area is forest and gets swampy in the wet season and is not suitable for growing edibles.

That's enough for now, though its not all.

sun burn

17-08-2011, 05:58 PM

I forgot to say hi to annette because i was thinking it was a message from stingray. HI Annette and thanks for your message.

... and i forgot to give you teh link to my new biccycle touring pictures form the kimberly so hang ten while i get the link.
...

click on the dates on the calendar and the thunbnals to move through the blog. Sorry for tying i am drnk now. ONly had tow glasses of wine. sorry.

sun burn

18-08-2011, 06:51 AM

http://www.photoblog.com/shangrila/2011/05/29/day-10-western-australia--northern-territory-cycling-tour.html

Sorry for taking so long...

sun burn

28-08-2011, 08:38 AM

This is probably a bit left of centre but from the perspective of human relations, i've taken up with buddhism more actively though i will never become a buddhist or even want to be. I found a centre where i can go regularly for meditation and motivation.

They had a helpful little one liner for guidance which i have found really great since i am already familiar with many buddhist concepts. The oneliner - which neesd to be a bit more poetic - is behave like the buddha. I have to say that this in some ways helps iwth mindfulness than thinking of the word mindfulness. I think its wonderful.

The other wonderful think i like about buddhism which i got reminded of the other day was that you can cherry pick. The Buddha wanted his followers to challenge and discover everything for themselves and not to swallow things whole or follow blindly. I do think i love the buddha. Pity he's no longer around.

There's plenty that i will never be able to go with in Buddhism but if i focus on what is good and believable i think i can achieve what i want from it - which is not "englightenment per se"

sun burn

01-09-2011, 06:09 AM

I went to a permaculture gardening day the other day. We were doing some work on a community garden. I had my wallet stolen out of my bag.

Well who'd have thunk it.

On my travel forum i always tell people that stuff like this happens when you get complacent. And guess what i was complacent the other day. I thought that no one in a permie group would steal a wallet. And yet it appears someone did.

At first we thought it was one particular person who has was seated next to my bag for quite a long time that morning. But we followed up on that possibility and it seems he didn't take it. The only other candidate always sits in my mind as someone who is not 100% all there but somewhat more together than the other guy. So he sits in my head as a possibility but i don't want to accuse him. If its not him, it can only be one of not even a handful of older women who it seems to me unthinkable that it could be one of them.

There was a guy pass through the garden but one of the other women said she saw him walk straight through. I have to ask her if she watched him the whole time.

Anyway the moral of the story is never be complacent about your stuff even surrounded by permies.

There is no doubt my wallet was in my bag in the first place since i had argued with myself before i got out of the car whether to leave it in the car or take it with me and because of the stupid stance we have about not leaving valuables in the car, i took it. I then also had this debate about leaving it on the bench or should i put it in the shed, but i thought oh its ok there. And then i even wondered about that guy who i first though might have took it but said to myself oh, he's one of us, it will be all right. How wrong was i. I just don't know who took it that's all.

eco4560

01-09-2011, 09:15 AM

That's really sad sunburn. I too have left my bag in open view when working at the community garden thinking that they aren't the sort of people who would steal.
My guess would be that it's an outsider who moved through the place so fast that no one even noticed their presence. My gut tells me you can trust the people you have asked directly.

annette

01-09-2011, 10:47 AM

It is an awful thing to have an experience in a place where you think there is trust only to find someone has betrayed that trust and stolen money or whatever. One of the central tenents of buddhism is non-attachment to material things of the world. One way to see this would be to consider that maybe this was an opportunity for that. Just a thought as I have had similar experiences.

sun burn

01-09-2011, 04:23 PM

Annette, i have tried to take a buddhist view of it so i haven't been overly upset by it either. However losing $100 does mean that i don't have it for other things i still need. And losing my cards means i have a) to pay to replace some and b) muck about a bit to get the others back and c) not being able to contact those people in Darwin if i want so while my mood about it is generally ok, it has had practical implications of a real nature. If i had more money, the loss of money wouldn't matter so much but because i have so little its actually probalby the thing that is the worst. I don't feel parpticularly attached to those things so i don't htink its a matter of a chance for practicsing non-attachment. But i have had an occasion to practice that with our property recently which has been challenging but i think i've just about got on top of it.

annette

01-09-2011, 04:41 PM

Oh that's good. Can be annoying having to sort out all the implications of having the purse stolen. I remember when I was looking into buddhism and considering it, my mother's wedding ring went missing. It was really the only thing I had of her left in the material world. It threw me in a spin. I was bereft for weeks. Then I realised she was always in my heart and i eventually let it go. Took a great deal of work to get to that landing. Anyway a couple of months later it turned up on my duchess. Go figure.

sun burn

02-09-2011, 09:30 AM

Well that ended well then didn't it. It would be great if my wallet could end up on my duchess (if i had one). The car seat would be fine. ;-)

Stingray

05-09-2011, 01:36 PM

sorry to hear about your wallet being stolen .. :( that suxx.. one can only hope, the offender sees the light someday, did you look around where you were (and a bit further a field)? I've heard that most people that do that dont wander off to far with the actual wallet, but strip what they want out and fling it in a bin or in the bushes (less conspicuous than being seen with the bulky wallet) .. I hope that good fortune befalls you in other ways :)

sun burn

05-09-2011, 04:07 PM

Actually i didn't do that but i should have. Perhaps i will go for a look next time i am down that way. Thanks for your sympathy stingray.

I had almost forgotten about this episode. The thing i will probalby miss most is the purse itself becuase it was made by someone i know who does beautiful bags and purses. It was denim with japanese kimono stripes. I think she gave it to me as a gift as well.

sun burn

29-09-2011, 11:56 AM

Well i'm taking up buddhism and i find it a bit exciting at the moment i must say. One of the ideas was to help it motivate me but i must admit that at the moment i am using it as excuse to procrastinate rather than work. So something is not quite right there is it? lol. But seriously, i have faith that in the long run, i will get past this and so i am not really worried.

Yesterday i moved! Yes i moved my caravan. I have been living in my caravan since i got back from my cycle journey a couple of months ago. I"ve painted it white (I should take some snaps for you to see - but when i've put all my bits in again) and then now i've moved it to its permanent location at hte other end of the block. Luckily for me the reason i decided to move it in the first place was because i couldn't get the internet where the van was. And that prompted a whole rethink about my van and how i would live in it. So that has been exciting.

Now, rather than make building my treehouse as a first priority i am just happy to live in my van and i'll build an outdoor kitchen. After that i will build whatever i need to on an as needs basis. I still would like at least one room up in a tree but i no longer feel that i need a big house or a house of many small rooms. I am really keen to go with whatver is simplest and to keep everything as easy as possible so long as its nice.

The current location of my van is near hte bathroom so that's another good reason to have moved it. Its funny that before the internet issue came up, i didn't not think at all about the bigger picture of living life in my caravan.

The plan is to build up an island of crusher dust around the van so that i can have my kitchen on it. Where my van is is prone to lots of water in teh wet season hence hte need for islands. I am making a border of bessar blocks and will fill it in iwth crusher dust which is the cheapest stuff i can get i believe. Then rather than make a solid floor, a slab or anything like htat, i just want lay some clean sand over the top of it and have that as amy floor surface. If it proves to be unsatisfactory over time, i can always adjust that as needs be.

I need to build up a garden around this area. Its going to be so lovely so long as i can motivate myself to work. I was going to do some work this morning but something upset me so i lost my momentum unfortunately. Nevermind. There is no great hurry for all these things.

Back to buddhism, I am reading a lot and it is helping me greatly psychologically etc. I am so excited by it that i at one point i almost thought to go the whole way and become a goddamn nun of all things. But then i woke up and thought that that is probably not a smart move for me. So now i just want to learn as much as i can and practice meditation and follow the dharma as best i can. My main struggle is finding a suitable community. There's not much around here and my first attempt landed me with about the worst group one could find. Its practically a cult. The Diamond Way so steer clear of that if you or anyone is looking for buddhism. Other than that i don't know yet which tradition to follow - theravada or zen. I don't think tibettan buddhism is for me although they are ones best set up here. Anyhow, i am sure it will all work out. I am going to do a series of sessions on mindfulness with an Australian zen monk soon. I'm looking forward to that. There are some great books around on buddhism and i seem to have stumbled upon a lot of them in all traditions.

I have even found what i think is a good forum in theravada buddhism. I think its called dhammanet.com or something like that. The first forum i found wasn't so great. Not much activity and not much to learn from the members.

On more permie notes, i had some experiences which might help othesr a bit if i can remember them properly.

Re the chickens and the ducks

One day i caught one of the chickens with an egg shell in its mouth. He had broken it either deliberately or accidentally and was enjoying the contents. So i felt bad that i would have to get rid of one of my few hens. But amazingly she has not gone to become a problem. She is not doing it anymore. I don't know if that because it doesn' occur to her or if its becuase i fixed the problem by putting in a rotten egg in the nest for her to bust and discover. But anyway the problem has resolved itself. So if you ever have this problem, you might want to try it. To know if an egg is rotten or not, just see if it floats in a bowl of water.

I have had more snake stories recently. I caught one, took it 10km away. A week later a snake the same size turned up again. I couldn't catch it but it also didn't try to go and eat any of my ducks or chickens - yet! I am keeping my eye on it though. My chickens nest is not totally snake proof and also i've got some of my ducks outside. I have realised that its good to keep the drakes out. They can be my snake warning so long as someone is around to hear the racket htat is. So far i have been pretty good at noticing when a snake is on the hunt - oh except that first time it got my little lucy. But anyway, my idea is that with the drakes outside the nest, a snake would go for one of htem first and not try to get inside the chook house where it would have much quicker success. the drakes are big and to catch one is going to take a lot of effort on the path of the snake. As it was i heard a lot of batting of wings the other day when i raced up there and saw there was a snake attached to one of the ducks. I pulled it by the tail and it let go. and then i caught it. I suppose if i had not heard the racket, the snake might eventually have got the better of the drake but i do not know. At least becuase the snake is out of the pen it can run away and make it very difficult for the snake to kill it.

That said, i do have to move the chook house anyway and when i get around to that, i will definitely buy some proper chicken wire the next time and do it properly. This first chook house has been quite good but my brother in law doesn't like it being so close to their place. He doesn't like the ducks. Its all a bit annoying for me becuase the duck house is also close to the main tap but i guess i will get over that in the long term.

What else is news. My neighbour has shown me that the way to make bananas grow fast is to water them a lot. She waters hers every day. So i am starting to water mine more often though not every day. I need to find another spot for my bananas as well.

OH yes another great duck tip!!! Ducks like sweet potatoes. I found them digging htem up and eating them. They made hard work of it so now i dig them up, and grate some of it for them so its easier for them. We have such a lot of sweet potato around here so that's really a most fabulous discovery for me. So now i am feeding them most of their eggs, layer pellets and grated sweet potato. If you've got any spare space start growing some yourself. Its the easiest stuff to grow in a warm climate and it looks nice too.

Someone else told me that lemongrass is a snake deterrent. I haven't tested this theroy yet but i am going to grow bunches of it all around my next chicken house.

That's about all for the moment. Till next adieu. or peace!

mischief

29-09-2011, 04:45 PM

I never thought of putting in a rotten egg!!!
I must remember that.

annette

30-09-2011, 05:44 AM

Sounds great Sunburn! I caught a bush turkey running off with an egg the other day. Talking of snakes, I found a python skin on the tree beside the house. tI was about 11 foot long. I hope it goes up to the chook house and has a feed on the rats that are hanging around there!!

sun burn

06-10-2011, 09:09 AM

Well my excess drake story is finally over. I handed three over to a very nice man the other day. I didn't even ask for money. I guess when i advertised i thought no one would want a drake so i didn't ask for any. This solution was much better than killing them all. That said, i was still sad to say goodbye. What a wuss!

In the car, one of them vomited. Poor thing.

We are having such a dry year up here. It hasn't rained since god knows when and even one of our golden palms is dying. Its lost all its tops. This has prompted dad to get our his big sprinkler systems and start watering his mangos. We are going to have mangos coming out ever orifice this year. I might even turn orange.

What else: progress around my van site is going slowly but it is advancing. I love my new caravan bedroom. I think i told you its painted white. I just bought a proper mattress for the bed so i can ditch the inflatable.

Not strictly Permaculture: On Sunday night i went to a buddhist mindfulness class. (two more to go) Wow! excellent or what! If you ever get the chance, try it. Notice i am now trying to turn everyone into a devout buddhist. It could save the world - but only so long as people did it properly and applied the 8fold path. I'm curious about permies so i might have to raise the question in the miscelleanous chat branch...

sun burn

18-10-2011, 09:52 AM

My neighbour is upset with me. She is upset about my van being near the boundary of her place and thinks i have a whole lot of choices about where to put it. HOwever i pointed out that this is the best spot for me because here i can have wifi connection, shade and closer to the bathroom. But she was quite rude about the look of my van and so i am trying to placate her by erecting a screen. She says she feels i am looking at her whenever she is the pool now even though her house and pool are quite far from the boundary fence. Anyway i can sort of understand how you might feel you are being seen if you are skinny dipping in your pool. And the van is ugly. So i am putting up something to improve all that.

Yesterday i tried with some shadecloth we had here but even two layers of 50% were still very transparent. So today i am buying some weedmat for the purpose (its a lot cheaper than 90% shadecloth). It will block some breezes for me but hopefully it will satisfy her somewhat.

I am planting tall shrubs to deal with the screening aspect in the long term so the weed mat is only short term fix. But this is in a part of the property where all the water from this neighbours block runs through in the wet and its soggy for months. So I am planting the shrubs in large plastic bag pots so that the roots will be above ground and not so wet. Hopefully when they are larger they will be able to cope with the conditions. I also want to plant a shade tree over here. I've got a tiny carambola which might do the job but my first thought was a tamarind as they are great shade trees. I'll see how it goes with the carambola first. I like those fruit better than tamarinds.

Also because of all this wetness - my caravan is sitting in what is somewhat of a pond during the wet season - I have started work on digging trenches through my forest patch to help it carry the water away much faster so i am not sitting in such a bog. I am very interested to see how it all goes this wet season. There are bound to be some issues that i will have to deal with - particualrly mosquitos.

But its good being so close to my forest now as i am keen to get gardening in it to make it as lovely as possible. Though i doubt i will be able to grow much food in there.

I forgot to mention before that i had flowers on my vanilla this year. I didn't try to pollinate them. Too much else to worry about.

Also my boundary shrub area is going really well now that its warm and that they are getting plenty of water. I've just about got all the weeding done now since my return from my cycling trip and i've just started re mulching. The pumpkins and sunflowers i've planted in there are doing fine. And now i'm thinking of trying to get some paw paws growing there too. I mean with all the water from the sprinkler systems it makes sense to try to grow this area as densely as possible so that its not grass that's getting the benefit. I am very very pleased with how this boundary area is working out - despite the fact that not long ago i nearly killed all my pineapples when i fertilised them with a dilute solution of dynamic lifter. Poor things. I think most of them have survived but they are still struggling. That was really stupid to do that. Also i am getting flowers on my frangipannies in this area. Two so far. And one of them is a deep crimson flower so that's fantastic as i was afraid i'd end up with all white ones.

mischief

18-10-2011, 11:17 AM

What about growing bog loving plants to take advantage of the conditions rather than changing it all.

Hope the tree planting goes well for you, nothing worse than being on unfriendly terms with your neighbours.

sun burn

18-10-2011, 09:03 PM

[QUOTE=mischief;78758]What about growing bog loving plants to take advantage of the conditions rather than changing it all.
/QUOTE]

I can't do that mischief. During the dry season, the ground is really dry. I wouldn't want to encourage a bog there either.

I had a great day in the garden today. I started digging my draining ditch, tons of mulching, pulled out my cat's whiskers from my boundary and i'm going to put them somewhere else, planted a few more shrubby bits. I think i did about 6 hours of solid work. It helped a great deal that it was overcast and raining or drizzling most of the day.

sun burn

19-10-2011, 11:12 PM

Well who'd have thunk it? The manager of the quarry phoned today to talk to me about the truck load of crusher dust i ordered so that i could build up and island pad next to my caravan. During the course of the conversation he made enough suggestions to help me save money and then went further and now i don't have to spend any money at his company at all!

Seems crazy doesn't it. But i figure he has plenty of business and I'm just a small fish.

First he suggested that instead of using crusher dust, i use fill because its cheaper. I didn't know the quarry sold fill. Then he asked if there wasn't anywhere on the property where i could dig a hole and use my own dirt. I said no. But when i got off the phone i realised that !!! my god, this was precisely the best idea. I could have my pond and eat it too. I mean i could have my pond and have my fill. gosh another pardon the pun. Well you see i've been thinking about having ponds right near my caravan pad and now here was the perfect excuse and opportunity to start it straight away. It made so much sense that even dad agreed to move his dinghy garden out of the way. Though he was not keen at first. But when i showed him how eminently briliant it was, he couldn't be difficult about it.

So anyway, there will be more than enough dirt in the pond hole. And i can do it when i want. (i've got to start building the retaining wall)

Now i'm in the throws of planning a large pond with bridges and centre islands (where i can put a little table for sitting in the sun or meditating in the dark at night or something like that surrounded by waterlilies.)

I must say there is a lot to be said for working things out as you go rather than planning all things ahead.

I am pretty excited about this. Though i need to ring up and find out how much this butyl pond liner stuff is. I know i could use black plastic but this butyl is said to last a very long time. If not permanently. Its probably quite expensive which will mean my pond will only have to be smaller i guess.

I already know a local machine driver and we have him coming soon to do some other work. So that won't be too expensive. I'd have had to hire him to move the quarry dirt anyway.

This solution will save me about $300-$500 in dirt and cartage. Too easy.

Our wet season has started very early. Its been raining for two days and seems more is in store. I wonder if we will have any more dry spells. Probably. I sort of hope so. This soak rain is good but we can wait a couple of months for the rest of it now i think.