They’ve had a season of mixed fortunes, but by a combination of hardiness and good fortune, the sunflower beds have made it through to flowering, and will be putting on a show for Christmas.
Read MoreCategory: Country life
Mung beans – good and quick.
What do you plant when you’ve got to the end of your sowing list? Mung beans are a good way to fill a spare bed. I prepared a bed down at the main vegetable garden but didn’t have anything that urgently needed sowing. So on a whim I thought that mung beans out of the pantry might be a good summer crop.
Read MorePecking order / chook fights
The chicken world can be very unglamorous, even red in beak and claw.
Read MoreA fly
Sometimes you see extraordinary fleeting things, and thanks to technology we can now share what was previously impossible to describe. This fly was sitting beautifully on a zucchini leaf in the mid-levels. I don’t remember seeing one like it before, and may not see one again, just one of those moments.
Read MoreMarans chicks at 6 weeks.
Our Marans chicks are six weeks old, and have turned from fluff balls to proper little chickens.
Read MoreRed browed finches.
The birdlife here is phenomenal. Mostly we just hear them, a huge repertoire of calls through the day coming from the forest trees, but some are more visible. These sweet birds look like they will be our main garden residents. They have been around since we moved in, feeding on grass seeds in the paddock, and just this week they have started taking seed from the hanging feeder we put up for the pet doves we inherited. Red browed finches are very pretty to have flitting around; I can’t wait till…
Read MoreBreaking broody hens
I can see why broodiness has been bred out of many poultry breeds. With my hens the build up to broodiness seemed all advantageous, but that didn’t last.
Read MoreDogs and chickens
When we moved here we inherited chickens and wanted a dog. I grew up with farmers in the family and there never seemed to be a problem with dogs and chickens, although often both dog and chickens were confined to their own yards, so I didn’t think there was a big deal there, but ending up with a dog that likes to kill chickens would be problematic. We had contacted the pound to see whether they had a suitable dog, but they basically said that a mature dog can’t be…
Read MoreGrowing sunflowers; tough through the dry
I’m inside writing for a couple of hours today because it’s too darn hot to be out in the sun. It reminded me though to post about growing sunflowers and how I’ve been impressed by how hardy they have been through dry weather. I sowed these seeds back in September when there was still some moisture from August’s rain in the ground, expecting that we would get the usual return of rains in October, but it has been extraordinarily dry. They are in a plot down the hill, two hundred metres or so…
Read MoreCompost – dam, slashing and chickens.
The soil in my vegetable beds could do with a lot more organic matter, so I’ve been on a compost mission in preparation for the next warm season planting. I had dug in some alpaca manure (very like sheep manure) for my beets, tomatoes and tomatillos, but wanted something more like a soil conditioner for the next bed. Another task was clearing some of the dam. It is very overgrown, and in order to launch our little boat to get out and fix the pump I first had to clear a…
Read More