A pretty good harvest for the first day of Winter

I almost thought I had abandoned this blog (too busy, too otherwise occupied, too many TV series to watch on DVD after the kids are in bed) but I was so chuffed to pick all of the above today that I had to keep a record of it somewhere! We've also got harvestable leeks, parsley, coriander, radishes and so much self-sown  lettuces that I am pulling them out whole to throw to the chooks and there is still plenty to spare. The beetroot, carrot and parsnips are getting bigger and the first sowing of broad beans are poking their heads up out of the soil.

I am feeling especially chuffed when a year ago we didn't even have the chooks yet and it still looked like this:

It's good to take the time to remember, particularly when I am feeling that going back to work this year has meant so much less time spent in the garden. Luckily the chooks keep working for me here and the plentiful sun, rain and unseasonable warmth this May means things just keep on growing!

In the middle of a heatwave

It's stinking hot outside this week so the hardworking chooks are getting some extra attention. Not only have they been moved on in the chook clock to a shaded jungle of lettuce, kale, celery, parsley & broccoli gone to seed, we rigged up a shade cloth for their comfort, and I change their water a couple of times daily to keep it cool. It's a hard life being a chook!

Chooks are back on the job

The chooks are back to work in their clock. I think they're happy to be there. It's closer to the house so it's far more likely a passing child will notice them and throw them some seeds and there's good tucker to be had from the spent vegetable plants that were left to go to seed. It really does not take them long to transform a used bed to a fresh one ready to plant. Three weeks ago they started work in section 6 when it looked like this:

Today the chooks have been moved off this section and they have left it like this:

All I did was let them out each day, cut off the vegetable stalks at their base and left them lying on the ground and throw them extra straw, grass clippings, weeds and kitchen scraps. Now I just need to rake the path, lay out the dripper hose again, turn on the taps and plant the next lot of Summer vegetable seedlings that are ready and waiting to go.

Before letting the chooks out into section 8 I pulled these last beetroot, carrots & spring onions, the final harvest from a guild planting that also provided us with snow peas, lettuce, kale, parsley, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, silver beet and an attempt at celery which wasn't really successful - the celery grew plenty but I never worked out when to pick it and it went almost straight to seed.

Those chooks are pretty good at their job....and they produce great eggs too!

A bit of sun in more ways than one

Beautiful sun on Saturday and the first glorious sunflower on Sunday.

At the end of Spring

Everything is growing, flowering, producing or promising to produce...right now our backyard is a rather lovely place to be.

Beating the birds

A bit of a fruit salad from the orchard is looking promising this year, promising enough that we have had to give some thought to how we ensure the fruit salad is for us and not for the birds. At the moment I love the flock of black cockatoos that announce their imminent arrival with their distinctive cries and wheel their way overhead most days. I know I will love them less if they decide to stop off on my fruit trees and take off with the year's cherry crop as has happened to a neighbour...while they were watching from their deck...having recently discussed if the cherries were ready for picking yet. I guess they were. Not that my cherries are actually fruiting this year but I'm sure I would feel the same regardless of fruit variety. Too much worm castings, bokashi juice, chook manure, mulch, water, rabbit fences and companion planting have gone into these babies!!

The peaches & nectarines are dotted only with a few fruit each, so I have used some orange bags and pegs to protect each fruit individually.

One of the apricots and both of the plums are much more laden, too much for me to want to individually bag the fruit, even after thinning the fruit to 7-10cm apart (Pulling unripened fruit off the trees did just about kill me but I read somewhere it was good for the tree, better for the size and quality of the remaining fruit and reduces the likelihood of biennial fruit bearing). So for these trees we made a temporary structure using four star pickets, lengths of poly pipe arched over the top and nets draped over. Constructing them was quick and stress-free. 

The raspberries, blackberries and KNNN espaliered apples and pears have had a wire stretched at the very top of their support structures that we can throw a long net over each row...and the blueberries...actually I totally forgot about them, they are still so small I haven't even considered how to protect their future fruit. I'll leave that one to next Summer.

The chook tunnel

A few weeks ago we were faced with a problem. The chooks were to be given a rest from their scratching, weeding and fertilising in the vegetable garden so that I could grow veggies, however, I did not want them in the orchard to make a mess of my mulch just before Summer (they will be allowed in the orchard in Autumn to clean up fallen fruit, fertilise & eat slugs). Finding a place for them to spend these 3 months was not the problem. A rectangle between the side fence, orchard fence and garden shed only needed a couple of temporary fences to be pretty much perfect...shade, grass & dust baths aplenty plus I can talk to them while in my shed. The problem was how to get them between their fox-proof chicken house with its roosts & nesting boxes and their outdoor play space...Enter the chook tunnel.

 

It's safe to say they are pretty happy with the new arrangement. They cluck their way down the tunnel each morning & back again each night, plus back & forth to lay their eggs during the day and when they just feel like having a bit of a stroll. The amusement value to the watching humans is pretty high, especially when a handful of seeds is thrown in the yard and any chook up near the house runs full pelt down the tunnel to not miss out.

Problem solved!