Winter Bliss

Winter is meant to be a time of slowing down, of hibernation, but we have been extra-busy because the weather has been sunny. And we hadn't had 'sunny' for many, many months it seemed!

So we finished all the jobs on our gardening list - weeding, mulching, creating paths, paving, and lots and lots of planting! The gardens look amazing. We have been harvesting pumpkins, lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, silverbeet, rocket, herbs, eggplant, celery, macadamias, citron, chokos and lemons. And so much of the garden is still in the very early stages of growth.


We have had several frosts - night temperatures below zero with ice on the car and frost-burnt grass in the paddocks. A few plants in the gardens were affected, but not many. I think the shadecloth on the greenhouses, thick mulch and watering regularly have helped. There is often steam rising from the greenhouses on a very cold morning! The taro, sweet potato and basil are a little bit burned by cold, and the chickens have complained by reducing the number of eggs they're producing (and it had just picked up too)... Some of the youngest fruit trees and many of the banana trees have dead leaves on them, but we're hoping they will come back stronger in the spring.

We don't have much experience with very cold temperatures, but we really enjoy the contrast in seasons we enjoy here in the mountains. After living in the tropics for over 15 years, I love wearing jeans and boots with thick snuggly socks, the ambience of a wood fire, huge pots of soup with home made bread and air so cold it takes your breath away... I love growing cabbages, peas and broccoli too! Here we have the benefit of being able to grow a lot of tropical plants (not all fruits though, sadly), but with a temperate winter.

Last weekend we did some pruning of fruit trees, and put some cuttings into pots. Hopefully we will have some little trees to plant when Spring arrives.

We have reduced the number of chickens we keep and have been getting more eggs now. We have rounded up the 'wild' chickens and kept them in the pen for a couple of weeks now, feeding them grain and some garden waste and scraps. When everyone has settled in to calling the chook pen home, we will let them free range in the afternoons again. We added have six baby guinea fowl to the flock, and look forward to them growing and becoming part of the farm yard antics as they strut around in their amusing way.


It is almost time to dry Lucy off, she is in calf and due at the end of the year. Next, Poppy will be in calf and so next year we will have more babies to admire and lots of milk! Today I received a new cow, but she is just on loan so that we have milk for the next few months while Lucy is dry.

Lucy

It is a real pleasure to work on the farm in the sunshine, without slipping and squelching in the red mud and having our seedlings drown and die because of seemingly-endless rain. It's nice to do work other than mowing and weeding, and enjoy a wider variety of harvest too.

I hope your garden is full of blessings this winter!

Update on our Autumn Gardening

Here's what was left from the To Do list...

* Divide ginger and arrowroot and plant these in other places
* Check Tahitian spinach, African yam, Golden Taro and other Taro for dividing and planting out
* Harvest sweet potato and plant runners everywhere, especially under the bananas
* Brushcutting behind vegetable gardens, around trellises
* Trim the passionfruit vine a lot
* Weed the vegie gardens and paths, fill compost (1/3 done, 2/3 to go!)
* Choose seeds and start seedlings (next rising moon, I cheated and bought seedlings last week!)
* Gather soil and compost and take to gardens
* Rake out chook house for more manure for compost

We've almost completed all of that! I still have 9 cockerels doing some clearing (and growing) in the open garden, but both greenhouses are done, and almost fully planted out. I've run out of things to plant, so need to sow more seeds on the rising moon this week.

We haven't planted many sweet potato runners yet, or harvested any tubers. It's a job that keeps being forgotten.

We have new compost bays near the open garden (which actually has a 2m fence around it, but it has an open top, and no shadecloth like the greenhouses have). One is holding mulch from cyclone debris, and for the other we really need to gather a lot more organic matter to make compost! I usually just "compost" in situ - rake debris under trees, throw it into raised beds, give it to the chooks, etc. But I want actual compost!


I tidied up my seeds and planted out some Progress Peas and Purple King Beans, and popped some mixed cosmos seeds in the corner of one greenhouse. I still want to plant some broccoli, Italian beans, cabbage, asian greens and lettuce for continuous harvest, snow peas, silverbeet and kale...

The silverbeet, cucumbers and zucchinis are doing well in greenhouse #1. The dwarf beans have produced their first handful of beans, the cherry tomatoes are still going and the gooseberries are fruiting again. So is the Villa Franca lemon tree and mulberry tree outside, as well as a new choko vine on the chook pen fence.

The pumpkins we planted ages ago are finally coming along. One vine has one fruit on it, and the others are just starting with their male flowers. I hope they make some females before it gets very cool. Some of the old Jap pumpkin vines have resprouted and are making small fruit too. I adore Jap pumpkins, they are the best pumpkin for our area, I think.

Garden Meme

This is a 'meme' I found online a couple of years ago... I don't know who to credit it to though.

Describe your gardening style.

If it doesn't feed us, it better keep itself alive, 'cos I'm not interested. I only grow edible gardens.

What was the last plant you bought?
The last plants I bought were from the Malanda Markets - a couple of small food-producing trees like Miracle Fruit, and some seedlings to get the winter garden happening faster - Chinese cabbage, rocket and some capsicums.

What were the last seeds you bought?

I actually just ordered a whole heap from Greenharvest, as I needed to re-stock my little seed collection. They have a huge variety and great service, and the seeds are always fresh and therefore viable.

When was the last time you had to pick the dirt from under your nails?

This morning.

Any big plans for the garden this year?

To eat more of the tropical staples and unusual perennials we grow here.

What was has been your biggest mistake in gardening EVER?

More than once I've planted rampant vegetables in a small space - Madagascar Bean, Velvet Bean, pumpkin vines, sweet potatoes, yams etc.

Biggest success?

Jap pumpkins are one of our favourite never-fail crops.

If you could be doing anything right now in regards to gardening… what would it be?

Harvesting, of course!

A Herd Update

It has been 1.5 years since we got our first cow and calf, and I am continuing to learn every day. In the last few weeks, Honey went to live at my friends' farm, as they will run a horned herd over there. She's currently with the bull, and they hope to be milking her by the new year!

Honey, 1.5 years old, the day she left

It was a little hard to let her go, being hand-reared by us and so loving and quiet. But I am rapt we'll be able to visit. It also means I can raise more calves without crowding the paddocks if some of them move on!

Wags and Poppy are a year old now, and growing big and strong. They both love a scratch under the chin and are very tame. Wags is destined for the freezer when he's about two years old. Poppy will hopefully be in calf by this Winter sometime, delivering in a year or so.

We are hoping for a calf from Lucy before the end of the year.

Today Lucy was Artificially Inseminated (AIed), so will hopefully deliver a Jersey calf around Christmastime. If today didn't work, we need to try again in 3 weeks' time. I've been charting her cycles and reading all about the signs of bovine fertility for a few months now, another learning curve.

I am still milking every day, but getting much less - about 6L, once a day. I make a lot of yoghurt, and the labneh I make from the yoghurt is so creamy and delicious. I can't make enough of it to keep it up to the family! I think I'll tackle fetta this week. Jersey fetta is very yummy!

Labneh - photo from this tutorial

Autumn Equinox Garden Update

It's the Autumn Equinox this weekend... A lovely full "super moon" and time to check off some items on the To Do list...


What we have managed so far...
* Planted trees in gaps left by Yasi (about ten)
* Transplanted trees from near the chook pen
* Cut back all summer bean, luffa etc vines and used to top up the empty raised beds and mulch behind the greenhouse
* Cardboard on garden paths again, but no sawdust yet
* Tidied up the bananas some more, checked for suckers to transplant
* Collected some dry leaves and other organic matter for compost and raised beds
* Bought some mulch hay (but I need more!)


What is still to be done...
* Divide ginger and arrowroot and plant these in other places
* Check Tahitian spinach, African yam, Golden Taro and other Taro for dividing and planting out
* Harvest sweet potato and plant runners everywhere, especially under the bananas
* Brushcutting behind vegetable gardens, around trellises
* Trim the passionfruit vine a lot
* Weed the vegie gardens and paths, fill compost (1/3 done, 2/3 to go!)
* Choose seeds and start seedlings (next rising moon, I cheated and bought seedlings last week!)
* Gather soil and compost and take to gardens
* Rake out chook house for more manure for compost

So we're about half-way with the Autum garden preparation. It has still been very wet almost every day, but I've been blessed to have two sunny days in the gardens and I even enlisted some help today with pulling down the crazed bean vines!

$18.00 from Spiral Garden

To Do List

I don't remember when my gardens have been such a mess... During the wet season we always battle with weeds and grass, mulch rots away at an incredible speed, and all sorts of crazy food vines smother our world!

But right around now, as Autumn looms, I start to look at seed catalogues and want to clear some space, let the light in, mulch and feed everything in anticipation of the winter crops - our chance to eat more European vegetables and less tropical substitutes.


Here is my To-Do list for the coming few weeks...
* Plant trees in gaps left by Yasi (I have trees, will wait for the moon)
* Transplant last 3 trees from near the chook pen (they aren't happy)
* Divide ginger and arrowroot and plant these in other places
* Check Tahitian spinach, African yam, Golden Taro and other Taro for dividing and planting out
* Harvest sweet potato and plant runners everywhere, especially under the bananas
* Cut back all summer bean, luffa etc vines and use to top up the empty raised beds
* Cardboard on garden paths again, add sawdust if I can find some (to absorb moisture)
* Brushcutting behind vegetable gardens, around trellises
* Trim the passionfruit vine a lot
* Tidy up the bananas some more, check for suckers to transplant
* Weed the vegie gardens and paths, fill compost
* Collect some dry leaves and other organic matter for compost and raised beds (from around the farm)
* Buy some mulch hay
* Choose seeds and start seedlings
* Gather soil and compost and take to gardens
* Rake out chook house for more manure for compost

Cyclone Yasi

We spent two days preparing for Cyclone Yasi. This involved tying and weighing things down, filling troughs and tanks with water, taping windows with masking tape, moving anything loose into the house or sheds, harvesting food, pre-cooking meals, checking our emergency supplies, charging all batteries (including 12V ones for lights), fueling our cars, collecting a spare LPG bottle (for hot water, BBQ and cooking), filling the header (storage, up hill!) tanks with water, making ice in the freezer, preparing a 'safe room' in the house and more.

On the afternoon before the cyclone, the power went off around 2pm. We released the 2 horses, 4 cattle and all the poultry into the house paddock, which we secured as much as possible.

The cyclone lasted all night and roared for over 4 hours. It poured with rain sideways and buffeted the side of our house relentlessly. It was very loud, and so dark, and every now and then something would go BANG! I was so sad for our poor animals out there in the dark...

By dawn, we could go to the windows to look outside, but we still couldn't go out because of strong wind gusts. We were totally exhausted that day, after being awake and scared all night.

Our power didn't come on for another five days and we mostly had no landline phone or internet (it came on for a couple of hours here and there) and sometimes we had mobile coverage for calls, sometimes just sms, sometimes nothing. The roads were cut to our farm, but not for too long. We have our own water supply, and that was not affected, thankfully.

Damage included a smashed chook run and hen house, one shed half gone, the milking bails are folded in half (roof caved in, wall missing), a lot of fences down due to trees falling on them, lots of our fruit and nut trees are broken and uprooted, as are some of our native plantings. One greenhouse is a bit squashed and plants like passionfruit vines are shredded. There are leaves and branches and mud and mess washed and blown onto everywhere they shouldn't be! Our banana trees are in half, with bunches on the ground. A couple of parts of the house leaked water and so did the shed, but there was no major damage to any domestic buildings. A lot of our refrigerated and frozen food had to be given to the chooks.

It took two full days to fix the fences, and another day to cut up the fallen trees and drag them out of the way. It would be great to be able to mulch them. We have salvaged some firewood from some, and will use some as mulch.

The chook run has been mended, and their house has another tarp covering it for now. The milking shed has been propped up but needs major repairs fairly soon.

Further inland from us, roofs were blown from houses, shops and sheds, so we were very lucky to have sustained so little damage. Many farmers lost some livestock to injury and shock. Lucy only gave 2L of milk on Thursday afternoon, and has only slowly increased since. She still isn't giving as much milk as before the cyclone, which I've heard is a common reaction.

We are feeling so blessed because of the minimal damage. When we look at images of towns like Tully and Cardwell, andthe surrounding beaches and farmland, the effects there are so much worse. Many homes have been condemned, many more await repairs. Whole farms have been flattened. There are still tens of thousands of homes without power across the far north, and many without water. There's a massive accommodation shortage here in FNQ, and not enough tradespeople to repair the damaged buildings.

Yasi is just one natural disaster in recent history. The news is a constant stream of stories of floods, fires, cyclones and more. Seems to me like Mother Nature has something to say...