Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Garden !

Macadamias

Seem to have come along this year, we had been getting 6 or so macadamias at most but we cleared the base of grass (again) but instead of using mulch which the chooks destroy, we used hessian weighted down with rocks and made sure to give them plenty of nitrogen via a homemade chook poo "tea".

The harvest

Husks removed
Just waiting for them to cure so the nut kernel comes away from the shell.  The husk went into the compost to be reused.

Strawberries

Strawberries are starting to come through

Peas n' Beans

Winter has seen the gardens bounty reduce but the peas 'n beans are coming along nicely. with a little TLC of course
Shelling Peas and Beans with trellises ready

TLC on the snow peas

Resting the garden beds

A couple beds are rested, so horse manure is heaped onto the bed and the worms come up through the soil and do the hard work.  Gardening is similar to mining, the plants extracting all the minerals from the soil, so those minerals need to be replaced. 

Horse manure heaped onto the bed and spread

weeds are keep under control with a layer of recycled newspaper (we collect it from the newsagent, we don't buy the Newspaper at all) 

Newspaper laid over the spread horse manure

and mulch we make using a lawnmower and fallen leaves raked up and then mowed into the mowers catcher

Home made mulch
Finished bed, resting while the worms go to work

Still plenty of vegetable producing: beetroot, onions, carrots, broccoli, spinach etc but winter slows things down


2 comments:

It always amazes me to see what people can grow in the middles of winter in some climates, let alone how green everything looks!

Your mulch looks perfect! Love it!

Why thank ya Mam :) All of what we are doing is from learning (from others, the 'net etc), having come from the "city" to a rural location, mostly off the grid the learning curve was steep but getting flatter.

Goldilocks Climate ? Not to hot, not to cold.. just right... we choose this area (Northern RIvers, NSW) for that very reason. And we still get monsoon weather ie wet summers and dry winters. Wet winters ? yuck !

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