Araucaria's habitat.

[Curramore1]

Hi Eco, the paddock falls 100 metres in 600 metres or so and the lovely council have directed a couple of Km's of sealed road runoff into my waterway as well, plus we had 300 mm in one day here with some very heavy falls. The jambu are very high in moisture content and I think that they would need a lot of sugar, besides there are a lot better plants around to make jam from. I think that the lot going on all at once sort of sums me up. I don't ever get a chance to get bored, besides your dead for a long time. I like the sound of your recent observations and studies, but I tend to shy away with no rhyme or reason from formalising, methodology and dogmatism, not being rude and intimating that that is what permaculture studies are all about. I don't really think that I fit the mould of a dyed in the wool permi, but I enjoy the interaction, ideas and conversation. Cheers.

[eco4560]

My observations have lead me to understand that there isn't such a thing as a 'mould' for the typical permie. For me, it's about the intent - if anyone is doing their best to honour the 3 ethics with the knowledge that they currently have, then I reckon they can earn a permie badge.

I'm not good at dogma either. I'm more a 'rules were meant to be broken' sort of person! But you have to know what the rules are, before you know that they are worth breaking.

[Curramore1]

Hi Eco,
haven't been here for a bit. Now the wet, wet, wet weather has returned a bit of time indoors. Even though we may strive to Care for the Earth and it's people and accept we must limit our global population and minimise consumption you get a bit miffed when you are less than 1% of the World's consuming population, try hard yet don't even make a ripple of measurable difference ! Permi principles, strategies and techniques are really for the converted and a mechanism for upholding the Permi ethics.. I think what I really meant was that the ethics of Permaculture are simple and easy to direct your own life from, but collectively we are a very small minority in our society and are in general individually happy to do our own thing without the need for hierachy and conformity to a central ideal. I enjoy the diversity of the members of this forum.
On a completely different and more mundane note, my new Chestnut trees arrived today from Kyogle in good health. The Reilly's already have burrs! I will plant these on the top of a steep, rocky slope with my seedling trees which have done so well here( that I proudly grew myself from perloined burrs from an old roadside tree in Toowoomba) so that they have good drainage, when the weather clears that is. The dilemna is, do I plant them now or let the leaves fall and plant them bare rooted in the late winter. I can imagine someone in 50 years enjoying the shade under them beside the pecans, oaks and persimmons in the summer, the nuts ready in late autumn and roasting them through the winter on the fire. My 5 years old English oaks have set their first acorns, they are much larger than I recall. I still feel a bit of silly guilt growing these Euro trees in a select part of the orchard that I call "Snobs Knob". I have no trouble with the "native" macadamias , varieties bred in Hawai, nothing like a bauple nut. The Wheel of Fire trees are still flowering in the front yard after months of continual flowering. How strange. Pumpkin vine now covers an acre or so, still setting fruit all over the place. We picked 131 fruit off it last year, yes, just the one vine. I got the original from one I found growing in the manure pile of a local dairy about 30 years ago. Looks like what they call a Kent. I just stuff half a dozen seeds into the soil at Christmas and let it grow over the kikuyu in the orchard and harvest the fruit in late April, to mid May whenever the vine dies off. The unmarked fruit last us right through to December, by then we are tired of pumpkin anyway. I milked 15 litres from "Daisy" one of our Guernseys out today 3 days after she calved as she was bursting and will attempt to make beestings tomorrow - here goes.
17 yearling beef animals left today in the mud to some friends to be grown out North of Gympie. The cash flow will be welcomed towards materials for a "real" set of yards. Cherry guava jelly delicious, figs all dried and dusted in icing sugar, tamarillo jam just too tart, rosellas ready to pick next, macadamias dropping nuts everywhere, pecans on the turn from green to brown- wonder when the Cockatoos will visit?, 10 autumn beef calves yesterday and 4 today, too many at once in a small 20 Ha paddock, Mums trying to steal calves not their own and leaving their own, 9 cows and 10 calves? I cannot pick which has had the twins yet, but they are both boys and being looked after by a cow I think may be their mum, but not sure. Time to cook tea. Bye for now.

[eco4560]

I'm a bit over the rain.... It can stop now.

I had wanted to try chestnuts for ages - along with the whole roasting over an open fire and sleighs in the snow thing. Got my chance in Canada a few years back at Christmas time. They were not at all what I expected - more like roast potato than roast peanut. I don't have many nut trees at my place so I don't know when you should plant them. My approach is to whack them in whenever I have time. I have a macadamia - too young to set nuts yet, and I may have a pecan. I thought I killed it, but I noticed that it has sent up some new growth from the base of the plant. I'm just ignoring it for now and we'll see what happens. I didn't realise how BIG they get until recently and now I'm kinda hoping that it doesn't resurrect as it is right in the middle of my garden and is going to suck up all the water and block all the light. At the time I was thinking that it would be good there because it would drop leaf litter on my garden beds.

My pumpkin vines are growing about a foot a day and threaten to bury everything in sight. I'm starting to look forward to them drying off - if it ever stops raining!

[Curramore1]

Back again, my Dad told me that some time in the '50's I think, it rained for 90 days straight without a break. The local butter factory boilers were wood fired and they ran out of dry wood so the factory stopped and the local dairy farmers did it really tough with little or no income for months.
Chestnuts probably wouldn't grow where you are, I am in the hills on red soil at 470-500 metres. There are many types of chestnuts- North American, European and Asian, all very different from each other. Mine are of european stock from trees grown a century ago on the Alstonville plateau, sort-of adapted. The chestnuts I like are the Euro ones, much firmer, less floury then the N.A ones from my limited experience. I've also planted a Malabar Chestnut-waiting for it to fruit.
I remember from my childhood in Nambour the huge pecan trees in Max Gamble's planted along the creek flats on the creek running from Dulong, Towen mountain and then along the flats at Perwillowen to meet Petrie creek. There used to be an absolutely monstrous one which covered an acre or more in the 60's and 70's in the dairy yard of Jack Lees, now Shailers at the top of Vinicombe's hill opposite the Burnside-Perwillowen Road junction. There is a house there now. My Grandad planted an orchard about 1900 at Perwillowen on the farm where I grew up, mostly trees were planted in the tops of tree stumps in the hollow, by the time the stump rotted feeding the tree and keeping it out of the reach of cows the tree was big enough to fend for itself. Terpentine mangoes, persimmons, mulberries, quinces, poor man's oranges for marmalade and a pear tree were all that remained in my childhood in the 60's.
I've got a mutant Gingko a bit like how I think that your pecan will grow that I will have to move as it seems to grow 2 metres up and 4 metres wider every year even though I prune it in the winter. What are Gingko's good for except some ancient chinese medicinal recipe? I think they are dioecious as well, I wonder if mine's a female or male?

[eco4560]

I didn't know there were pecans along Petrie Creek! Might have to go have a look WHEN IT STOPS RAINING.... (feeling very housebound today).

[Curramore1]

Hi Eco, the trees I mentioned are on Perwillowen Creek ( pilly willowen in kabi) just about opposite the original QDPI gates at the beginning of the steep hill on Mayers Road. Hope you get over your Cabin fever soon.

[Curramore1]

Nine months already since my last confession! Five months of very little rain tries out the system and the psych. no end. My last post was when we were enduring a feast of rainfall. It is amazing to me to see the difference that a dry spring makes to the country. The tallowoods in the euc forest flowered like snow cover in all through September and October, Black wattle trees now are a mass of bloom, I've never seen so many magpie geese here before and the koels and channel billed cuckoos day in and day out mournfully and raucously in turn lament the dry weather. As I type a mopoke metronomically breaks the monotonous sound of crickets outside. A massive fig crop is a few weeks off ripening, although golden shouldered beetles gave them a touch up, mangoes are holding their set fruit, grumichama is loaded to the ground with ripe fruit, guavas and avocados are loaded with half filled fruit. Arrowroot, turmeric, ginger, galangal and jeruselem artichokes are all resprouting, globe artichokes flowering, asparagus setting seed, fennel all gone to seed like the coriander and parsley, chillies fruiting heavily, cherry tomatoes everywhere, leeks seeding, macadamias ready to drop, tamarilloes loaded and ripening, bananas desuckered and bunches bagged, custard apple flowering with no leaves, chokos rampantly vegetative with a lot of tiny fruit, yam beans on a growth spurt. The longest day is just past so the ewes are all horny and the rams relentless, so a big batch of lambs due in May-June. Cattle are mostly calved, the first time mums are doing it tough, another week without rain and we'll have to early wean down to 8 weeks on the '99 drop heifers. Dragged a poor number 6 cow (born 2006) with an early calf from a gorge this morning, still not up this evening so gave hay and water, hope that she has more fight tomorrow or this Christmas will be her last. Good cow, 4 calves without a miss so far, so feel a bit of guilt in seeing her so miserable after her accident and the dry season, salt, molasses, soymeal and calcium lick blocks consumed like I am with a packet of turkish delight. Planted a licorice plant, some yarrow, feverfew and salad burnett this arvo to add to the eclectic. Not many Christmas beetles this year, a few dung beetles and the occasional moth around the lights but bugger all insects compared to the wetter seasons of the past several years. Made plum sauce, chilli sauce, mint sauce and rhubarb tart and a couple of racks of lamb tonight. Gecko chirruping, doesn't sound like a native one, a lone wild dog howling down the valley and the calf belonging to the cow from the gorge bawling about the abruptly cut off milk supply. Time for another rain dance, then bed. Bye.

[Steve Burgess]

We're just a little bit north of you, in the Mary Valley at Dagun. Long hard dry spell finally broke for us yesterday -73 mm. Whole place instantly transformed today - it's beautiful, a great lift in spirits. Hope your place is feeling good too.

[Curramore1]

23 mm total here, better than a dry wind storm I suppose hey? Frustrating to see it hammering down twice that a km or so away in every direction. Ground cracks are 100 mm across in places and mature trees dropping all their leaves. I'm sure that rain is not far away. Lucky we have plenty of water in reserve and pumps etc. Mulching has been the saviour of our fruit orchard. I'll have to lift the spirits here with a bit of left over Christmas cheer instead. Glad for you that you had such a good break to a longish dry spell.