A bit of a flurry of activity around the place lately. Spring is starting to show itself but there is no doubt plenty of winter left.
With the first daffodils starting to show, we needed to get onto the construction of our roadside stall. My handy friend Clayton came out and in no time we had one whipped up, I just need to get a roof on it and then get it painted. It is anticipated that we will be selling other goods such as walnuts and quinces from it as well. There will be a picture when it is finished up.
Earlier in the morning of the stall making we had a spreader truck come around and put a bit over a tonne of lime over the paddocks. Unfortunately no picture of this as he was pretty quick and I was busy making sure stock were out of the way as well as opening and closing gates. We don’t think our paddocks have had anything put on them for many years, so we had a soil test done and the advice we got was to raise the pH a bit and that might unlock some of the nutrients in the soil. So this was a first step and we’ll have to see how it goes.
There has also been another set of twins born. Their mother doesn’t seem to be quite as maternal as the other ewe but the lambs seem to be doing ok despite this. The four lambs have had rings put on their tails and the one boy has had one around another part of his anatomy. I certainly feel for the poor bugger, can’t be nice, but they seem to get over it pretty quick. The sheep have been eating much more hay and lucerne this season, we were getting a bit low so Noah and I went and picked up 10 bales from a neighbour who owed us some in exchange for the help I gave him bringing it in last summer.
I am also hoping we have more success with our vegetable garden this year as I believe I have made it Toby proof! A gate has been installed at either end which will hopefully do the job.
The other thing we finally got done was getting the sheep shorn. The plan had been for them to be done before lambing, but due to a combination of early arrivals and some bad weather, it didn’t get done until this weekend. A friendly neighbour came round to do it and did a fine job.
So now we just have to wait for the wool cheque to arrive! One thing that the shearer did point out to us that the matriarch of our flock probably doesn’t have a lot of years left on the property. Her teeth are getting pretty worn, so we probably won’t put her out to the ram again as she may not be able to eat enough to sustain a couple of lambs. That news was a bit sad, but she will be left to live to a good age even if she isn’t breeding.
We think we are getting organised, still plenty to be done though. I’ll leave you with a picture of our neighbour going past our place in the weekend.
Filed under: Garden
I have now had 3 pruning sessions, and think I am starting to learn something. I have made a start on the roses. 
Also on the pruning front, Bob came along yesterday on his crazy mad max style tractor and trimmed our front hedge. He does a great job, but unfortunately leaves the prunings behind for us to pick up.
The daffodils that we planted are all starting to come up, so hopefully not too long before we cn start selling them, and warmer temperatures mean we are starting to see a bit of grass growth.
I hired a rotary hoe yesterday from Smiths Hire a place with many great machines. After throwing a trailer load of well-rotted horse manure over it I gave the north end of the vege garden a good going over.
I then took our first step towards becoming flower merchants. My mum has given us a couple of sacks of daffodil bulbs and it is now time to get them in the ground. The ground is very hard due to the lack of rain, so it took quite a few goes to make any progress, but eventually we made some rows in the house paddock in preparation for planting. I also mixed in manure and some blood and bone.
Filed under: Garden
The walnuts have started falling again. This is our second walnut crop so we think we know what we are doing. 
Last year we purchased a walnut picker upper, that’s the technical term. It rolls over the ground picking up walnuts but leaving the leaves and other stuff behind.
The cage then gets lowered over the piece of wire over the bucket and all the walnuts drop out.
The walnuts then get sorted and are given a wash on one of the frames I made, before drying for about 3 days. We then bag them up and will sell most of them to the Walnut processing place.
Last year we sold 160kg and still had plenty for ourselves and friends.
I realise my vege garden is a bit of a shambles, but it seems we have at least one successful crop this year. I harvested the garlic today and I think it looks really good. 52 cloves in total, surely one a week will do us until the next crop is ready?
I gave each clove a quick wash and it is now drying on one of the trays I made for the walnuts. Obviously Toby had to be involved again.
Here are the roses that we have here around the cottage. I gave them all a prune near the end of winter, and then my Mum arrived and we pruned them properly. Thanks Mum, they are looking great.
Archway between vegetable garden and orchard
Excuse the weeds.
'Golden Future', my mum gave this rose to my wife for her birthday a few years back.
Rose at entrance to driveway.
Filed under: Garden
One of the big jobs I’ve had on the list of things to do for a while is getting rid of the spa pool in our back yard. It was an in ground, very 70′s looking, old school spa pool. We aren’t really spa pool people and I think the running costs of this thing would have been shocking.
Before the arrival of the digger
So it has been ignored up until today when I decided to hire a pump to get it emptied. The water was a lovely brown colour but we got it all out ok. I did have visions of digging all around it but then we decided to call the neighbour who has a big digger to see if that might be the way to get it out. We decided we didn’t care if it got smashed in the process as we figured it wasn’t worth anything. It turns out the digger owner was out of town but there was another guy who could drive it who came around. I had to cut a couple of pipes and pull down a fence to allow the digger in but within an hour the digger was here. With a rope around it the spa pool just popped out of the hole and onto a trailer.
The huge bonus was the digger driver was on the hunt for a spa pool and so has taken it away! We are wrapped to have the job done and we will get the hole filled in tomorrow. We are looking at using the area as a dog run.
Filed under: Garden
This is the apple tree that sits outside our kitchen window. I gave it a good prune over the winter, and now I am waging a war against the codling moth that ravaged last season’s crop. It wasn’t a complete write-off, as we used some of the apples for cooking as well making a couple of batches of very drinkable cider. This season though I am taking action. I have divided off some of our comfrey plant and put that underneath, and you will also see that I have wrapped some corrugated cardboard around the trunk. The caterpillars are supposed to get caught in the cardboard and I believe the comfrey is supposed to keep them away as well. The other thing I will be doing is getting some pheromone traps to catch the moths.
Defences against codling moth
Filed under: Garden
While several people had nice things to say about the vege garden pictured in an earlier post, I now have to reveal that unfortunately that is only half of the story. 
This is the other half of the vege garden that doesn’t have nice paths and raised beds. The frames you can see were strawberry beds, and obviously the old glasshouse is also in need of a bit of work. Although we have had a couple of goes at tidying this area up, it keeps getting away on us, and gets overrun with weeds. So the time has come to get it sorted. Since taking this photo, I have got the frames out, transplanted 15 strawberry plants, lifted up all of the old weed matting, and cleared out the stuff beside the glass house. Hopefully now that the strawberry plants have been transplanted we will have a much better crop. Last year the plants were all competing with weeds and were difficult to get to. Hoping for a bumper crop now. In beside the glass house were some interesting finds, including several large pots, a wheelbarrow (the 3rd we have found here) some sprinklers and some type of large push hoe thing (potential garden ornament?), and a paddling pool (hopefully the sheep know the rule about not peeing in the pool).
Things found beside the glasshouse
The plan now is to spray out the weeds (not a huge fan of spraying but I think that it’s the best option here). After that we will sort out some new beds with paths in between. The final plan hasn’t been sorted yet, but we are looking at putting a deciduous fruit tree in the middle. This will provide a bit of shade for the glasshouse in the height of summer, but the sun will get through to it in the winter. Work required on the glasshouse is replacement of a few windows (I’ll be helped out with this by the chap that I did the compost bin swap with), and new clearlight on the roof and south side. It will then be given a new paint job.
Something for the sheep found beside the glasshouse
Filed under: Garden
After the trees on one of our leased paddocks were trimmed, we ended up with a huge pile of pine mulch that had been through a chipper. We have already given away a few trailer loads, and are finally getting around to using some ourselves. The idea it will keep the weeds at bay as well as retaining moisture. It looks really tidy once it is on as well. The only problem is the weeding that needs to be done before hand. I have put on some before and after photos from a bit of the garden I did yesterday. And no Mum, I didn’t just chuck it over the the top of the weeds! I put some compost around the roses after weeding and then a thick layer of mulch.
