Home Grown

It's a Girl!

2012-01-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Lucy and her heifer calf Mimi, born 29th December 2011.

Lucy and Mimi. Lucy is quite protective, but Mimi is very friendly and curious.

Mimi, 2 days old. I love the little bottom lip stuck out!

Mimi feeding from Lucy's giant udder!

To see a Jersey calf being born in photos - click this link.

Alternative Animal Care - Paralysis Ticks

2011-10-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

This is Rocket, our mini-foxie cross Jack Russell terrier. He's a small dog, and only about 8 months old now. Recently, Rocket got a paralysis tick on his neck. By the time we noticed it, Rocket was already ill - ears down, irregular breathing, no appetite or thirst and he was having difficulty with balance and mobility.

The tick was removed swiftly, without squeezing. By squeezing the tick, more neurotoxins are released into the host animal, so it is very important to not squeeze the body of the tick. People often panic about the head being removed, or not, but from what I have read this is not the most important factor to consider.

We immediately began treatment with a locally made homeopathic blend for paralysis tick bite containing lathyrus sativus, ledum, hypericum, hydrastis aconite and tick nosode. This remedy cost under $20 and the dose is 2 drops every 15 mins for 3 hours, then hourly, then 3 times a day as needed. One bottle is more than ample to treat any size animal through a paralysis tick crisis.

We also gave him 1ml (500mg) shots of liquid Vitamin C. We bought this from the local feed store for under $15 (we live in a rural area, in a city perhaps a pet shop or vet clinic would stock this product). The syringes and needles are available from the same stores and cost under a dollar. It isn't hard to inject this product, but do keep in mind that it's highly acidic and therefore painful. We gave injections every hour for awhile, and then increased duration between shots down to twice a day once Rocket seemed quite well again. Liquid Vitamin C is also an effective first aid treatment for snake bites.

For over 48 hours Rocket was hardly moving at all and had laboured breathing. He was shivering and shaking due to the effects of the toxins on his nervous system. He could not drink and we only put a little water or remedy on his lips and gums in case he inhaled the liquid due to internal paralysis. On the third day, Rocket began to drink a little, but could not hold any water down until that evening. Everyone kept asking us if we should take him to the vet, but we believed that the homeopathic treatment, combined with the vitamin C, would be successful. We kept him cool and quiet and paid attention to his needs almost around the clock.

After the third day of treatment, Rocket was completely his usual self. It was hard to believe how sick he had been. We have been trying to keep him quiet due to the stress the toxins have had on his body, but he's living true to his breeding, name and personality - tearing about like a little rocket!

Now we are giving Rocket his homeopathic immunisation - a combination including Ixodes holo exactly as prescribed (3 drops every 2 months) and we are checking him for ticks at least once daily.

I'm sharing this story for other animal owners who want to have inexpensive, natural treatments at hand for tick paralysis, a condition which affects many 1000s of pets and smaller farm animals (especially calves, foals and goat kids) in Australia every year. There are commercial tick prevention treatments and antiserums, which are accessible through your local vet clinic. These can be toxic and expensive. For more information about paralysis ticks, including images, see this web page. To access homeopathic preventative and treatment as I've descried here, seek out a local animal homeopath.

Yoghurt

2011-07-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

We often have too much milk now that I am milking twice a day again. One of my favourite things to do with milk (since I don't normally drink it) is make yoghurt. And this is the method I use:

Measure 1.8L of milk. Bring to 80 degrees C for 15 minutes (I use the Thermomix) - to kill off unwanted bacteria (this step is considered optional by some). I choose to work with 1.8L so that I can fit the finished product into my 2L Thermoserver.

Cool the milk to 37 degrees C, or, if you're milking a cow, you will have a daily supply of milk at the perfect temperature!

To the 37 degree C milk, add about 1/2 cup of prepared natural yoghurt ('starter') - either some you've made yourself previously, or the nicest store-bought natural yoghurt you can find (one with lots of good bacteria and no additives). Alternatively, add some powdered yoghurt starter (usually purchased from a cheese-making supplier, not the sachets in the supermarket).

Mix very gently to combine. If using the Thermomix, set to speed 1 for a few minutes so that yoghurt starter is mixed through well. If not, simply mix with a whisk very gently until the starter seems well combined with the milk.

Thermoserver

Pour gently into a warm Thermoserver, Thermos, jars wrapped in towels, EasiYo maker, or any other way you can figure to keep the yoghurt at 37 degrees overnight. Do not bump or move, simply set aside and let the bacteria do its thing.

In the morning, you should have firmly set yoghurt - and it will become more firm in the fridge. You may eat it right away, or use it in different ways...

My children adore homemade jam layered with lots of creamy natural yoghurt - what a sweet treat! Plum is a current favourite. We love to strain our yoghurt through a cheesecloth (or chux) lined sieve (put a jug underneath) to make Greek-style yoghurt, or we leave it even longer to make labeneh - yoghurt cheese. To us, labeneh is similar to bought cream cheese and can be used in the same way. One more way we use a lot of our yoghurt is as a condiment served with curries, or made into raita. Yum!

Winter Bliss

2011-06-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-19T05:54:00.001-07:00

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

2011-02-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-12T00:50:00.000-08:00

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...

Summer on the Farm II

2011-01-26T00:30:00.001-08:00

Because Lis is such a talented photographer, I thought I'd share a few more of her observations on the blog...

Honey the horned heifer.

Lucy Moo, our beloved house cow.

Poppy Hen and her brood.
She's raising twelve more chicks, and they're her third lot since the beginning of Spring!

Pepper, our happy muscovy duck.

The old red tractor.

Summer on the Farm

2011-01-26T00:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some fantastic photos taken by my sister-in-law, photographer Melissa Smith, whilst she was visiting in December, 2010.

A little muscovy duckling with a huge personality!

"Drako" the muscovy drake. He is such a gentleman!

Peek-a-boo - some of Poppy Hen's chicks

Milking time - Bel and Lucy

Monkeys in a tree. Oh no! That's Abby and Heath!

The Neglected Garden

2010-11-23T01:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life gets really hectic here - six children, homeschooling, other activities, work, animals, weather, illness, apathy... 'Life' just stands between me and my garden. I know I shouldn't let this happen, because I really, really do enjoy being in the garden, growing food, and I find it very grounding... I also love having an abundance of fresh, organic, home-grown produce!

I have only stolen moments here and there to plant some seedlings or pull/rake the largest areas of weeds or push back the sweet potato vines, cut back the Queensland arrowroot, re-route the rambling pumpkin vines, trim the Madagascar bean vines, and remove spent plants which have done their job of feeding us through winter (kale, mustard, broccoli, mizuna and Chinese cabbage) and were left to flower and spread their seeds through the garden beds.

But sure enough, when I need parsley or cherry tomatoes, leafy greens, beans, a paw paw or some rhubarb, a few stalks of celery, bits and pieces of various herbs and other basics - amongst the wild jungle inside my fenced garden and greenhouse, there they are. Food plants are surviving with no tending from us.

I wouldn't call the garden high-production right now, and I will admit that I've lost plants because I didn't harvest from them, water them or otherwise attend to them for weeks... But while I was getting on with life, my garden was getting on with growing food. Seeds sprouted, sown by previous crops when I was too busy to tidy up - rogue spinach and lettuce plants amongst the gooseberries, tomatoes, herbs and weeds, and even in the path, happy to be transplanted during a rainy afternoon.

A bit of mulch, some garden tools, and a free afternoon or two, and we'll see more space and light in the garden beds. I'll poke a few more seeds in the ground and try not to ignore the patch of earth which faithfully feeds us. And I'll express gratitude to the rain and rich soil which allow me to grow a wild and abundant food garden throughout the busy-ness of life.

House Cow FAQs

2010-11-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

It's been over a year since we first got a house cow, and we've learned a lot along the way. Here are some of the most common questions people ask us, and our replies. We are rather unconventional in the way we manage our home dairy, and I encourage cow owners to seek out information most suitable to their animal before following our example.

How do you tame a cow from a commercial dairy?

This was harder than I expected. Lucy was very frightened and stressed about being away from her herd. At first we had to use fences and ropes to get her to co-operate because it was important that a) we fully milked her at least once a day and b) the calf we also brought home (not hers) got milk. After the initial rough days, Lucy would lead on a halter (the show type with a small chain under the chin). From there we brushed her, spoke kindly to her and got her used to a routine - dry food with minerals and molasses, same time of day, same people around, same calls and commands... Within months Lucy would come when called and take herself into the milking shed at least some of the time. She didn't kick or otherwise carry on for us.

Where do you get the foster calves from?

Our foster calves are calves from a nearby dairy which are excess to their needs. In commercial dairies, male calves are often killed at birth, or they are raised to sell for veal. Some female calves are not kept as replacement heifers because they might be the wrong bloodline or colour, or they aren't a strong animal. If a dairy runs about 200 cows who each 'work' for several years, and each cow has a calf per annum (the usual way in commercial dairying), and half these calves are female - the dairy can't use 100 replacement heifers each year. And so there are often perfectly lovely little heifer calves available for a low cost in dairying regions. And that is how we got Honey and Poppy! We use the term 'foster calf' to describe a calf raised on its own mother for a couple of weeks, who then comes to our farm to drink milk from Lucy until weaning age.

Do you really milk by hand?

Yes! I got a quick lesson from a friend who hand-milks, and a few tips from others who have milked by hand in the past, and within a couple of days had mastered the art! I find milking by hand is relaxing for the cow and I, and it ensures that no damage is done to the udder or teats during milking. Also, milking machinery isn't cheap!

Does owning a cow take a lot of time?

When I'm milking, or monitoring foster calves closely, the cows take me about an hour to an hour and a half each day. That is to feed, water, clean, milk, check the animals over, move them to other paddocks, and so on. To some, that may seem like a lot of time, but it is my exercise and 'hobby', and provides our family with milk. When I am not milking or required for so much hands-on work, I only need to check the cattle and their water once each day.

What do you do with the excess milk?

Excess milk has usually gone to foster calves at our place - I only milked out what we could use, and trusted the calves to take care of the rest! Currently, we don't have any calves on Lucy so with excess milk I make yoghurt, kefir, custard, soft cheese and so on. I also give milk to our animals sometimes, who seem to like it and digest it well.

Doesn't milk have to be pastuerised to make it safe?

After reading information from the Weston Price Foundation and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, we decided that the benefits of raw milk outweigh any small risk of contamination, for us. Also, because we control the health and hygiene of our cow and home-dairy facilities, we are confident that the raw milk we're drinking is a quality product.

How do you treat health problems in your herd?

We have been blessed to not have many health problems to date in our herd. We follow the advice of Pat Coleby who has excellent resources for farmers regarding minerals and nutritional supplements. We believe that this prevention is worth the investment of time and money. For buffalo fly, worms and ticks, all common pests in our area, we have tried Neem oil, and a specific mix of essential oils as well as supplementing their diet with specific minerals including diatomaceous earth. For behavioural issues we have used homeopathy and herbal treatments. We are not totally against conventional treatments and will use them if the health or comfort of our animals are at stake.

I hope this interests those of you curious about having a house, or looking into having your own cow. I highly recommend the following resources:

Weston A Price
Sally Fallon- Nourishing Traditions
Keeping a Family Cow Forums
EnviroNeem
Natural Cattle Care by Pat Coleby
The Healthy House Cow by Patricia van den Berg
The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsly

Weaning and Surplus Milk

2010-10-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

We weaned Poppy a couple of months ago now. She took it really well. We moved her up to the main paddock with Honey and the horses, and they roamed about getting fat on the lush winter grass. Because Poppy is a foster calf, Lucy didn't mind that we took her away.

Finally, when Wags was 6 months old we weaned him from Lucy as well. They called to each other day and night, and at any possible chance Lucy fed Wags through fences. He kept escaping and she wasn't very co-operative at milking time. After several days we put a trough in the back paddock and put up some electric fencing to keep Honey, Poppy and Wags up there for awhile. Now that Lucy can't see them she's being really co-operative, even taking herself into the shed each day at milking time, without being called.

At first I had to milk her twice a day because her supply was so huge, but now we have cut it back to 9 litres, once a day, which is manageable. I've been making yoghurt, kefir, custard, white sauce, labneh (yoghurt 'cheese') and all sorts of milkshakes and smoothies. I'm keen to try more cheese-making as my attempts so far have not tasted so great! If you have recipes for using up excess milk (and eggs), I'd love to try them.

The Show

2010-07-07T23:45:00.000-07:00

It's a bit of a tradition in small rural towns to get dressed up and go to the show. When my husband was a child, his Mum sewed new outfits for the kids every year, to attend the show. Local papers, business' windows and conversations are filled with news and expectations for the show - will it rain?, which day are you attending?, are you putting anything into the show? and so on...

When I lived in cities, I went to The Sydney Royal Easter Show in Sydney and The Ekka in Brisbane, but I didn't really understand the history and primary focus of these agricultural shows. The emphasis was on rides, food, show bags and entertainment.

When I moved to my husband's home town - a farming town in North Queensland - I saw the show in a different light. There was a much stronger focus on agriculture, cooking, arts, crafts and animals. I was thrilled to see the showcase of almost-forgotten skills, and the enthusiasm of those involved in these displays. I was so rapt that I came up with my own entries - rosella jam, garden produce and photographs. And our children entered their cooking and artwork. And we won prizes of $2 and $4 and little First Prize certificates. And I felt like we were part of something often overlooked by a lot of the younger generation.

Atherton Show, 1904
Photo: Eacham Historical Society

We've since moved again, and this past week we've been preparing artworks and poring over Show Schedules to be sure that each entry is presented correctly and delivered on the right day. In a couple of days we'll attend the show and rush to the pavilion to admire everyone's efforts (and check if we won any prizes)!

Our House Cow Journey Continues

2010-05-30T00:39:00.000-07:00

I began milking Lucy when Wags was a few weeks old. Until then, he and Poppy the foster calf shared all the milk. As they began to eat a little grain and some hay and grass, I decided to separate Lucy and Honey from them during the day, giving her several hours to graze the grass in the orchard and house paddock, and then I brought her in to be fed, checked over and milked before releasing her back into the small paddock with the babies and Honey for the night. I did this around four times each week, taking around 3 to 4 litres each milking. The other days they all grazed together. This routine went well for a little while, and then Lucy was only giving 2 litres at each milking, and then just a litre for the final couple of milkings last week. And then I gave up. Why go to all the bother of mixing feed, setting up, milking, cleaning the dairy, the buckets and everything for a mere litre of milk? As I led Lucy back to the small paddock, her udder would swell and teats fill with the rest of the milk she had withheld from me, ready to feed her babies she'd been apart from all day.

Last week we let them all into a larger paddock to allow us to do some maintenance on their small paddock and the areas we graze them inside electric fence tape. I'm not milking Lucy for awhile. We've slashed their paddocks and we'll harvest some manure and hay from near their pens to use in some of the raised garden beds I've emptied out recently. Do I still have a House Cow? Or a dairy breed with her calves let loose in the paddock? I'm trying to convince them they're still our dairy herd by encouraging them back to the water troughs daily for their minerals, perhaps some hay or another treat, and some checking over and brushing. Poppy and Honey especially love to be brushed, I think because they've had less affection from Lucy, being foster calves. I use a horse brush on them and they mostly love careful strokes around their face and ears.

When it's time to wean the calves, I'll bring Lucy back to the small paddock. I'm not sure on the exact management of the herd from there, but I'll try to get her into once-a-day milking again. I don't think I'll bother with another foster calf for a little while.

We have just castrated Wags using the banding method, which seems to us to have been a humane way to carry out the process. His job now is to eat grass and grow big!

The next thing we need to think about is getting Lucy artificially inseminated (AIed), which is usually done three months after a dairy cow calves.

So much to consider... And to think that once I just thought that cows ate grass, drank water, made manure and existed with little human intervention!

Our Herd

2010-04-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

I am so filled with joy every day when I see our cows grazing together in the orchard, or taking a nap under the trees...

When Wags was three days old, our foster calf for Lucy, who was then 3 weeks old and named Sweetheart, was delivered. Sweetheart was cold and hungry and wet and covered in manure from the calf pen.

Sweetheart on Day 1 here (3 weeks old) - we have since changed her name to Poppy!

At first Lucy was not interested in her new charge at all and pushed her away. So my daughter Abby and I led the calf to the milking shed and washed her off with warm water and rags. We dried her with old towels, as it was a cool, rainy day. Then we led Lucy in to milk out some of the excess colostrum (just as we had the day before). When she was in place having her snack of grain, hay, minerals and molasses we encouraged Sweetheart forward to feed from Lucy's udder. She fed with gusto, having been kept away from the nurse cows at the dairy that morning to make the mothering-on process easier for us. After awhile we thought that Sweetheart might be taking too much milk, and get a tummy ache, so we took her back to the shelter where Wags was waiting. Honey was in an adjoining paddock at this point, in case she got jealous of the calves and hurt them, or tried to feed from Lucy.

Once Lucy had finished her food, we took her back to the calves. When Sweetheart saw Lucy come into the paddock, she snuck around between her back legs and drank more milk, and Lucy let her! We were so relieved! She then collapsed for a nap in the hay beside Wags.

Lucy feeding her two babies. She is so patient! It rained for two weeks after Wags was born, hence the muddy paddock entrance!

I continued to watch Lucy and the calves carefully each day - checking the calves' health and bowel movements (Wags was scouring for awhile), checking Lucy's udder and generally observing their interactions with each other.

Wags is a big boy now! He's 1.5 weeks old in this photo, and so very cute.

After two weeks Honey went back to sleep in the main cow paddock at night too, as well as grazing alongside Lucy by day, with or without the calves. She watches the calves during the day, resting alongside them, calling out to them and seeming to help Lucy care for them.

The name Sweetheart was too confusing as I use it as a term of endearment when speaking to the other cattle, and possibly even the hubby and kids! I hadn't noticed before she arrived, but I'm mentioning her name a lot more often than I'm actually speaking to or about her... So after a week of trying it out, we had a family vote and re-named the foster calf Poppy.

We're about to start milking Lucy again now that the calves are doing really well and the colostrum has gone. It will be interesting to share milk with two calves, as last time we only had Honey to share with. The times I milked out excess colostrum (to prevent mastitis and to have some in the fridge and freezer in case a calf was ill), Lucy was very accepting of being milked. In fact she wandered into the bails of her own accord one day during her time grazing in the house paddock.

Honey and Poppy (was Sweetheart) resting together in the afternoon. Honey is Lucy's foster calf from last year, and 7 months old now.

I remember when Lucy came here and she was quite lonely - calling at the fence for some cow friends. Now she has her own herd - a son and two foster daughters - and she seems very, very content.

Lucy has a calf!

2010-03-25T04:12:00.000-07:00

BEFORE

This is Lucy two weeks before calving. She wanted to lick the camera! Cows are very curious creatures.

Two days before calving her very round shape changed, see her sides are quite flat now?

From the side she even started to look skinny as the great weight of her baby weighed her down. All of a sudden, ribs were showing!

We kept looking at her tail, which would appear lifted quite often, and for dips on either side, which indicated softening ligaments. We were also looking for signs of swelling, redness and mucous.

And Lucy's udder began to swell up and feel firm. Her teats enlarged. These changes happened in the two days before Lucy calved.

After what feels like a very long time waiting, we awoke this morning to see that Lucy had her calf in the wee hours. I had to look up this site to show the children the happenings we missed!

Newborn loveliness

I had spent a lot of the previous week researching about calving because I didn't really know what to expect. On the one hand people told me, "Just leave her to it, she will be fine!" and the next minute someone would ask, "What will you do if she needs help?" I expected that she would birth the calf fine as she has before, but it was interesting to read about different things which can happen for birthing cows. I found a lot of information and valuable links on the Keeping a Family Cow forums.

Wobbly legs

So when I launched out of bed at 6.30am and raced in my cow print nightie and gumboots (sorry, no photos of that!) to see the new addition, it was such a relief. I spent about 1.5 hours in the paddock fixing up Lucy's shelter, fetching minerals and food, laying out fresh hay and observing Lucy and her baby boy.

Lucy after calving but before delivering the placenta.

When I came up to the house I called my friend and asked about the placenta and what to expect. My friend thought that maybe she'd birthed it and eaten it, so I stopped worrying for awhile. About two hours later I saw it across the paddock a bit and it was HUGE and gross! I left it there for most of the day and Lucy looked at it once that I saw, but left it. So I packed it up in a garbage bag tonight and put it in the shed fridge in a bucket! We are bringing home a foster cow, so might need the placenta for its (awful) scent yet. Since I don't eat red meat, I find placentas of any description quite horrible! Amazing, but yucky...

Lucy's placenta with the toe of my gumboot showing to see the size of it.

I was worried that Lucy's tiny calf could not latch on to her hugely swollen teats. I crept up to check how he was going and he turned to look at me with milk coming out of his nostrils. He later jumped about a bit, moo-ed ever so quietly to his mama and lay down for a nap. I haven't seen him latch on since, but he has a lot of energy and knows which end to find the udder at now. I'll be spending a lot of time watching him feed, pee and poo tomorrow, so that I know he's getting a lot of colostrum. I will have to milk Lucy out somewhat too as her udder will be over-full and he is only tiny, taking a small proportion of the colostrum she's producing. I believe I'll freeze it in case of a calf emergency of any kind...

Can you spot the calf in these photos?

This afternoon, Lucy took little Wag for a walk to catch some sunshine and hide from the humans. He was so well camouflaged and began to lighten in colour as he dried off!

So now Lucy and baby are asleep on the hay this windy, rainy night. Lucy is eating some grain and lucerne, she had molasses and a lot more calcium and seaweed supplements. I had been giving these to her in increasing doses before she freshened (delivered), so hopefully I'm on the right track there. Of course there's a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding bovine nutrition!

Soon we will hopefully collect the foster calf, who must be 2.5 weeks old now (a Jersey heifer). And so the story continues...

The Food Forest

2010-02-23T03:07:00.001-08:00

Two years ago we planted Stage Two of our orchard. Stage One being a year older and around 20 fruit trees near the chook run. We've removed half of Stage One by transplanting the stunted trees to other areas. For some reason they many not thrive in that location...

Stage Two was planted in a disused paddock area
previously filled with long grass and bracken fern like this one

Stage Two began as over 50 food-producing trees planted on a west-facing slope with deep, rich soil and good drainage. It was planted in typical grid formation to allow for the tractor to go between the trees and slash the grass which grows lush and tall through most of the year. The trees have thrived - with many well over head height already, and our first samples of the fruit to come ripening with the changing seasons. They have had less care and attention than most of our other tree plantings - a little feeding, some mulch (removed by helpful free-range chickens), removal of shoots below the graft point as required and grass and weeds pushed back, hoed or cut only around three times each year. In the beginning I had to spray with eco pest oil for what may have been red mite, but as the trees grew larger, signs of disease vanished. I do hope that they stay away!

After recently watching a fabulous Food Forest DVD we lamented not planning and planting this way from the start, but vowed to alter the orchard to mimic a forest over the coming wet seasons.

This week, we have planted out around one third of the trees required to fill the space between the rows. Varieties added included mulberries, pigeon pea, malabar chestnut, mandarin, wampu, loquat, miracle fruit, sweet leaf, a few different tropical stonefruit, cumquat, albizia, ice-cream bean and more.

We grow some of our trees from cuttings and seeds, are gifted or buy some through our local community groups like Seed Savers and LETS, buy some at the markets and a few at local nurseries.

We have only a few macadamia seedlings remaining in our tree box, so it's time to plant seeds and source more trees for the food forest project. If you have a favourite type of tree, please leave a comment and let me know about it.

Here are the trees on the hillside. A lot of them are 2m tall now and the bamboo on the edge is several metres tall and 1.5 metres diameter.

A Dry Cow

2010-02-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Nosey Honey

We stopped milking Lucy in mid-January and so Honey was weaned at almost five months old. At first she was a little sad to not have milk from Lucy, but overall she has been fine, and her condition certainly hasn't dropped at all.

Toward the end of Lucy feeding Honey
(she still had to be tied up to feed her, being an adopted calf)

Lucy coped well with the drying off as we did it quite gradually - from one feed a day, taking less each time during the last week. I checked her udder daily to be sure it wasn't too full, hard or hot. It took about two weeks for the udder to look quite empty and dry.

Lucy got too fat for our old milking shed door!

Lucy missed my company and waited at the fence each afternoon for some food and attention. I visit her almost daily for a scratch and to check her condition and handle her.

We cut the protein from her diet for the time that she was drying off, and she's now eating pasture and a little lucerne hay, with some copra and hemp meal mixed with supplements from time to time. She likes "salad" from the garden - arrowroot, comfrey, spent cabbages and lettuces etc. And she loves the corn stalks after we pick the cobs. They nibble pigeon pea most days now, keeping the bottom half of each bush nicely pruned.

Here's Lily (7) with Lucy and Honey recently - they're hardly diffeent in height! See they have no halters or ropes now. And little Honey's horns are growing.

Lucy's calf should be a wagyu cross (1/2 jersey, 1/2 wagyu), so should be small and dark and cute! Of course all calves are cute. It is due around March 22nd. Stay tuned!

PS - The Family Cow is a good book, recommended reading for anyone who wants to know about keeping a house cow.

Four months old

2009-12-28T19:06:00.000-08:00

Honey is now over four months old and has grown so big! She is coping well with being gently weaned and loves to graze alongside Lucy and chew her cud in the shade. She still has the back quarters (and strips out the front) each afternoon, but in the coming couple of weeks will be completely weaned from Lucy's milk. Lucy is due to calf on March 22nd and needs time to rest.

I've been using diatomaceous earth to deter flies and other parasites - it is mixed with their other supplements into their daily feed, used as a dusting powder and sprinkled onto their bedding area. So far, I think it really is making a difference!

After much deliberation, Honey hasn't been de-horned. Yet. Apparently I don't need to decide immediately, though this is the optimum time to remove her horn buds. Because she will always be in a small herd, and has been handled from when she came here, I'm leaning toward letting her keep her horns.

I'm about to start reading The Family Cow by Dirk van Loon. I picked it up from Fishpond for under $25 and it looks to be a fairly comprehensive addition to the farm bookshelf.

This isn't the greatest photo, but it does show how huge Lucy's belly is (with still 3 months to go) and how tall Honey has become compared to Lucy.

We're still getting between 4-5L of milk each day from the front quarters, and leaving the back quarters to Honey. I have loads of milk in the fridge and freezer and numerous yoghurt and cheese experiments going on! It will be such a shock to have no homegrown milk for 2+ months.

We're always reflecting how far the girls have come in 3.5 months. They're easy to catch now, and Lucy is easy to lead. Honey isn't as well-trained to the halter as she could be. They're affectionate and curious farm-pets who have really fit into our family and routine nicely.

Weaning begins

2009-12-04T02:44:00.000-08:00

Curious

It seems like no time since Lucy and Honey arrived, but already Honey is over 3 months old. It is time to begin to wean her from Lucy as we prepare for when she dries off to have her own calf around March 22nd.

Honey loves to lick my hands. I'm not that keen!

So, much to Honey's disappointment, she is having only one milk feed a day and eating grass, hay and a tiny amount of Lucy's grain and mineral mix (when Lucy's not looking)! We've been doing it this way for over a week now, and both are doing well with the new routine. Honey still tries to get Lucy to feed her occasionally (she never accepted her as her own calf and only allows Honey to feed at "bucket time").

Scratching Honey's chin

In a few weeks I will have to cut out Honey's afternoon feed, and as demand drops, so will Lucy's supply, and then when I stop milking once a day as well it will be time for her to rest and eat grass and concentrate on growing a healthy calf.

And so the cycle goes...

Meanwhile, we are learning about:
* strip grazing through using electric fence
* getting the mineral/supplement mix and Neem spray applications right for deterring flies
* de-horning (dis-budding) calves (still researching)
* making cheeses
* handling a calf that weighs more than I do!

Lucy, 6 months gestation, enjoying the green grass after our first summer rains.

Preparing for The Wet

2009-11-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

We always seem to have a lull in the garden in Spring, which is our dry season (and often hotter than our Summer). But now it has begun to rain, so we're finishing off preparations for planting our warm season crops.

Firstly I prune, weed and cull the last of the winter plants. Some go directly into the beds to be mulched over, a lot go to the chickens and ducks, and a bit goes into my attempt at compost-making.

Next I add manure I've collected, and animal bedding material, as well as some fresh sugar cane mulch on top.

Now everything is ready to sit for awhile and be soaked by the rain. Whenever I have time I poke in plants I've propagated or bought, cuttings, seeds, tubers, sprouting things from the kitchen. I have a basket in the shed where I gather all of these things, so they're handy when I'm pottering in the garden. In Spring and Autumn I order seeds I don't have through saving my own, or the local Seed Savers Network.

And then the real rain comes. And when it's raining every day and night for weeks on end, we reap the rewards of our work - the perennial plants flourish. Asian greens, tropical tubers, and pumpkins abound. Regular European vegetables often can't withstand our wet season, so varieties need to be carefully chosen.

Whilst it's raining we also plant our trees for the year. They get a few weeks of good solid rain and thrive without much care or attention. We try to plant a variety of trees - native food and timber trees, native trees and shrubs for birds and other animals, unusual fruit trees selected for our climate and tradition fruit trees such as oranges, lemons and the like. We also try to plant vines each year - various passionfruit and choko seem to like it here. I've also planted grapes, berries, dragonfruit and other non-tree plants in the wet season.

And next we mow. And mow! But now with more gardens (less lawn) and two cows, we're hoping to mow less and dance in the rain some more...

Update - Two Months

2009-11-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

We've learned so much in the almost two months we've had a house cow! Some of the main lessons are:

* it's not easy
* it's not cheap
* nothing ever stays the same

If I knew what a challenge a house cow would be, would I do it again? YES! The milk is fantastic, the manure is abundant, and the cows are really a joy to work with, especially Honey the calf.

We're still milking out once a day, but we take our share first in the afternoon as we were barely getting 1.5L for awhile. Honey is eating a variety of other foods (mainly grass and lucerne hay tops) and growing amazingly fast and well, so we thought it was time to take the first step to weaning. Hopefully each further step toward weaning will go as smoothly.

We are using diluted Neem oil for buffalo fly at the moment, which appeared once the rain came back. I'm playing with dilutions so I don't have to re-apply all the time, but it certainly seems to make a difference. I check both cows daily for ticks, and remove them manually. Luckily, both animals are quite used to me touching them now.

We're spending less on feed now that there's more pasture for the cows - for awhile there their food budget rivaled ours! Lucy is happy to eat more homegrown foods, especially pigeon pea, and she is hand-fed snacks of these most days. Sometimes I'll lead her to a lush part of another paddock and stand whilst she munches away, or tie her to a post whilst I do something else.

From the milk I've made yoghurt, panir, quark, sour cream (didn't work out), cottage cheese and cream cheese so far. Mostly, though we only milk out what we can use fresh and in cooking. The Home Creamery has been an invaluable resource (and inspiration) in creating products from excess milk.

This was also published as Our House Cow Journey Part Two, to follow Our House Cow Journey Part One, written for the Simple Green Frugal Co-op Blog.

Food We Grow

2009-10-13T05:58:00.000-07:00

Bushfoods and Wild Foods:
Davidson's Plum
Lemon Aspen
Lemon Myrtle
Native Raspberry
Black Wattle
Yellow Guava (not native)
Red Cherry Guava (not native)
Bush Lemon
Loquat (not native)
Macadamia
Woolly Pear
Millaa Vine
Passionfruit (not native)
Avocado (not native)
Blue Quandong
Atherton Oak
Banana Fig
Cluster Fig
Lillipillies
Fish

That's what we've found so far - there's heaps of other things out there you can eat, apparently, but I'm not so keen on the flavour and texture, and/or haven't discovered them yet!

In the Orchard areas and Food Forest:
Abiu
Apple (tropical, dwarf)
Avocado (a few varieties)
Bamboo (some edible, all useful, all clumping)
Bananas
Bay Tree
Black Sapote
Blackberry Jam Fruit
Boysenberries
Brazillian Cherry
Calamondin
Carambola
Carob
Cedar Bay Cherry
Chilean Guava
Choko
Citron
Coconut
Coffee
Cumquat (a few)
Custard Apple
Dragonfruit (3 varieties)
Davidson's Plum (2 varieties)
Elderberry
Fig - White Genoa
Green Sapote
Grapefruit - Red
Grumichama
Guava
Hog Plum
Icecream Bean (2 varieties)
Jaboticaba
Jackfruit
Kaffir Lime
Lemon (4 varieties)
Lemon Myrtle
Lillypillies
Longan
Loquat
Macadamia (40+ trees, mostly 20+ yrs old)
Mandarins (3 varieties)
Mulberry (3 varieties)
Native Olive
Nectarine (tropical 2 each of 2 varieties)
Neem
Orange (3 varieties)
Passionfruit (many vines of different varieties)
Paw Paw
Peach (7 total, 4 varieties)
Peachcot
Peanut Butter Tree
Persimmon
Pigeon Pea (lots and lots)
Pineapple Guava (feijoa)
Pineapples
Pomegranate (2 varieties)
Plum (tropical 2 each of 2 varieties)
Pummelo
Raspberry
Rollinia Deliciosa
Rose Apple
Sea Grape
Star Apple
Sweet Leaf
Tamarillo
Tangello
Tahitian Lime
White Sapote
Yellow Sapote
Youngberries

Animal Products:
eggs from chickens of all shapes and sizes
eggs from muscovy ducks
roosters excess to our needs
milk from our house cow
honey from bee hives someone keeps here
fish (as mentioned above in wild food list) in the creek

...and that's outside the garden!

We have 3 large garden areas - 2 greenhouses under mostly shadecloth and 1 fenced with chicken wire. We have lots of pets and wildlife and farm animals, so a lot of vegies are locked away...

In the Gardens:
Aerial Potatoes
Aloe Vera
Arrowroot (2 types)
Asian Greens - mixture
Asparagus
Basil
Beans - several varieties
Broad Beans
Broccoli
Cabbage - 2 varieties
Cape Gooseberries
Capsicums
Carrots (only a few, but they're sweet)
Cassava
Cauliflower
Celery - 2 varieties
Ceylon Spinach
Chinese Artichoke
Chilli
Choko - 2 varieties
Comfrey
Coriander - Mexican
Eggplant - 2 varieties
Garlic Chives
Garlic - 3 varieties
Ginger - 3 varieties
Land Cress
Leeks - 2 varieties
Lemongrass - 2 varieties
Lettuce - many varieties
Mint - 2 varieties
Mizuna
Mushroom plant
Nasturtiums
Oka
Onions
Parsley - 2 varieties
Peas (almost done)
Pepinos
Pineapples - smooth and rough
Potatoes - few varieties
Pumpkins - couple of varieties
Rhubarb
Rice
Rocket
Shallots - lots
Silverbeet
Spinach - several types
Strawberries
Sweet Potato - 2 varieties
Tatsoi
Tahitian Spinach
Tomatoes - mostly cherry right now
Warrigal Greens
Water Chestnuts
Water Cress
Winged Beans
Yacon
Yam - 2 varieties
Zucchini - yellow

There's probably more. I know I've forgotten some herbs. And I have a heap of seedlings to plant out, another 30+ trees waiting for the rainy season and oodles of seeds to plant into the newest bed especially...

Three and a half Weeks

2009-09-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

Lucy in her favourite corner of the paddock, looking for her herd.

Honey, resting by the fence in the sun. She licks her lips when I approach her! She is 5 weeks old.

This is the little paddock they are being kept in, it's pretty dry and sparse.

How time flies! We've had Lucy and Honey for 26 days now. It keeps getting better. I take care of the cows on my own most of the time now, and still enjoy it. I am getting used to Lucy's behaviour and learning what signals she's giving me. I've never really had to communicate with cows before!

Lucy's favourite - lucerne

We've had virtually no rain for ages and have the cows in a smaller paddock within the house paddock. We're supplementing their feed a lot. In the morning Lucy gets a bucket whilst feeding Honey which contains a mixture of dairy pellets, copra, cracked corn, calf crumble, molasses, water, dolomite, seaweed powder, sulfur and water. Almost all of it is pre-mixed in a big bin - I only add the water, molasses and minerals and combine. Then I fill a big tub with top quality lucerne mixed with a little rhodes grass and refill two water containers. During the day sometime I usually throw in another hunk of lucerne and check the water. In the afternoon Lucy has another bucket with the same mix - half whilst she feeds Honey in the pen and half in her tub in the bails for when she's being milked. Then a little more lucerne to keep her busy and I top up the water containers again. Honey has the fluffy green tops from the lucerne hay, grass in the paddock and a tiny bit of calf crumble to supplement her two feeds each day from Lucy. She also nibbles at some of the mixed feed Lucy drops on the ground but I think it's too rich for her.

I've also given Lucy some pigeon pea branches, carrots, apple cut into quarters, corn cob husks and ends and lettuce and cabbage outer leaves from the garden. I think it's all new to her so it's funny to watch her taste and feel the new foods before eating them. Oh, she didn't eat the pigeon pea much, only nibbled a few leaves and pushed it aside.

We're getting a bit more milk lately so I'm going to start making some cheese. So far I've only frozen some (in ice-cubes for smoothies and the like) and made custards and yoghurt. I have a couple of recipe, so hopefully tomorrow will allow me some time in the kitchen... Stay tuned!

This is the pen where I feed the cows and Lucy feeds Honey, they were locked here all the time for a couple of days then every night for two weeks as well. The fencing is portable panels, the shelter is a silver tarp and the bedding is sugar cane mulch hay. They sleep in here on the hay most of the time - the gate to this pen is always open now.

This is Lucy feeding Honey in the afternoon. Notice the back quarters of her udder are very full! This is after we began to feed her a fair amount of lucerne each day. I only milk out in the afternoons and that day got over 4L from the back teats.

Honey feeding in the afternoon. She feeds from Lucy twice a day at 'bucket time'. I love the froth - it gets everywhere! She normally drinks from only the front quarters but has begun to suck one back teat at most feeds as well. She still leaves us plenty of milk each day.

Two Weeks!

2009-09-19T19:05:00.000-07:00

It seems like longer that we've had Lucy and Honey with us, but it's just over two weeks. We've had our ups and downs, but it has generally gotten easier. There's so, so much to learn about - the milking part is relatively easy compared to knowing knots, fencing, building, feed mix (% protein), etc.

A wonderful resource from our local library

Overall, I'm rapt that we got a cow and calf. Getting a herd cow and foster calf is probably the hardest way to go about it, but it's near-impossible to go out and buy a house cow with her own calf at foot.

We're currently still putting the calf to feed from Lucy twice a day at bucket time. Now that Honey is stronger and knows what's going on, this doesn't take much intervention at all. Whilst they're both filling their bellies I can shovel manure, refill water troughs, rake hay and mix feed. In the morning I let them both into the paddock to graze.

In the afternoon I bring them both in for another bucket time. Honey has less milk in the afternoon, and never bothers with the back teats at all. So once she's done (usually collapsing onto the hay with milk froth at her lips and glassy eyes!) I lead Lucy from the pen, out of the paddock and into the milking shed. I clip her halter on a short rope near her feed bucket to hold her still and so she can't turn around in the bails, tie a rope around her hind end so she can't walk backwards, and tie a rope to one leg so she can't kick me. Really, three ropes - and three gates!

Then I wash the udder and squirt a little milk from each teat to flush them out. I wash my hands, put the bucket in place and start milking. At first the milk went in many directions, but by now we're getting almost every drop into the bucket. I keep a second bucket behind me, and tip the milk in every few minutes so that if she should kick or step in the milking bucket, we don't lose the whole lot.Whilst we're milking (my husband helps me) Lucy is quiet. She sniffs and nibbles at her feed, but doesn't eat - just stands there and sighs a lot. We normally take about 3L of milk. If we wanted more milk, we'd feed Lucy more grain mix etc, but for now 3L is enough for our family to drink and make yoghurt and custard.

Once the udder feel nice and empty we move the milk to a safe place and start to untie ropes. We then open the back door to the shed and lead Lucy with the feed bucket back to the pen to be locked up with Honey overnight. They have some mulch hay for bedding, water, and shelter in there.

Then it's time to hose out the milking shed if necessary, roll up all the ropes and open or shut gates ready for the next day. Sometimes I mix and cover the morning feed if I am going to be in a hurry the next day. Finally it's time to put my gumboots away in the shed!
I wash my hands and strain the milk into glass bottles. These go straight to the back of the fridge, behind the previous days' milk. All buckets, strainer, funnel, etc are then washed in very hot soapy water and put away for the next day. All rags (for cleaning udder and wiping up milk spills) go into the wash.

So far I love my routines with the cows. The weather has been mostly fine and everyone normally leaves me in peace to get on with the work. We've all learned a lot and of course, the milk is fantastic!

One Week On...

2009-09-12T17:45:00.001-07:00

Lucy looking more relaxed

Lucy and Honey together

Contented Honey after a feed

They're here!

2009-09-05T03:06:00.001-07:00

Honey the calf on Day 1

Honey and Lucy getting to know each other.

Wow! What a huge learning curve! Our house cow and her foster calf arrived yesterday and what a huge 24 hours followed! Tonight they are happily fenced into a small pen together, bellies full and asleep beside each other on the soft grass... And we're all exhausted!

The first feed Honey had from Lucy

First attempt at milking Lucy

Two of us milking into the shiny new bucket

A House Cow

2009-08-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

We have a horse and a pony, chickens and ducks, guinea pigs and cats. And now we've ordered a house cow. Not just a cow to graze in the paddock, but one to interact with every day, to manage intensely and work with intimately...

She arrives in around ten days. I have a great long list of things to buy and do, changes to make and favours to ask...

She is a Jersey, a few years old and will come with a Jersey heifer calf we hope. We're buying her from a local dairy. Stay tuned!

Loofah (or Luffa)

2009-07-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

These edible gourds are native to the Old World tropics. There are several species, generally about a foot long, and the mature fruits contain a spongy material known as loofah. Loofahs can be used as sponges, and before World War II, most of the U.S. production was used as filters in ships’ boilers. They are also used for insulation and to stuff pillows.

From: http://www.foodreference.com

Names:
luffa sponge, loofa, loofah, sponge gourd, Luffa cylindrica, Luffa aegyptiaca, and aegyptica.

Uses:
- edible when young and can be cooked and eaten like squash or okra
- cleaning almost everything, including dishes, people, cars, boats, plastic buckets, and anything that needs scrubbed but can't withstand steel wool.

Growing:
Most are grown in a warm climate and have the benefit of a long growing season. Luffas grow best in full sun in a well-prepared bed. It is optional to soak in warm water for a few hours before planting. Some say this improves germination rates. Plant seeds 20-30cm apart along a fence. Once they get established, the plants are quite vigorous. They grow on vines that can reach 10m in length. A strong supporting trellis is a must.

The small seedlings grow very slowly while the roots become established. Once they are about 15cm tall the increase in growth rate is phenomenal. When the vines bloom, bright yellow flowers attract all types of nectar gathering creatures. The flowers are quite pretty and abundant. When the flowers wilt, slender cucumber-like vegetables appear. The vines continue to grow and produce fruit until the weather cools and the sponges begin to mature.

Harvest and Process:
When the sponges are ready for harvest (dark brown and dry shell, very lightweight and rattle when shaken) they can be peeled. Crack the dry skin and peel off, starting at the stalk end. When you get to the base, many seeds will tumble out so be ready to catch them. The remainder of the seeds can be shaken out. Give your sponge a good scratch and wash, shake well and set to dry in an airy place. Your luffa is ready to use or give. Save plump seeds in a cool, dry place until next Spring.

More:
These sponges are machine washable. They can be sun bleached, or lightened using hydrogen peroxide or a diluted chlorine bleach solution. Ours are fine in their natural state. To colour or dye clean and cut the sponges to desired lengths and dye using natural or commercial dye. Dry well. Attach cord through one end of the luffa to hang in the shower. Cut into many shapes for pads, mats, and other craft items - cut the sponges lengthwise and remove the core to make sheets of sponge material.

References:
http://www.luffa.info

How can I keep my loofah bacteria-free?
All-natural and porous, loofahs are perfect breeding grounds for bacteria, which can cause skin infections via an open cut or acne. So keep yours clean. Rinse it thoroughly after each use and let it dry outside the shower. Washing these sponges with an antibacterial soap can help, but it won't kill all the germs, and frequent cleaning can cause your loofah to deteriorate and become less effective for exfoliating. The easiest solution: Replace it often. There's no need to feel guilty—the sponges are a biodegradable, renewable resource; when your loofah's time has come, toss it on the compost heap.

If you would like some luffa seeds to grow, please contact me. I can only supply seeds within Australia, and not to WA or Tas.

What’s in the Box?

2009-06-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Natural Life magazine.

It is vitally important that our children have access to fresh, wholesome, affordable and tasty food. The freshest food is local food. Food from the earth, not wrapped in plastic from a store. The most local is our own backyard, balcony, or a school or community garden.

Potted gardens are quick to establish. They are ideal for those renting, living in small spaces, with changeable weather or anyone just starting out. This is possibly the perfect ‘garden’ for small children because they are so defined and more easily controlled than a traditional vegetable plot. You may have some space on your rooftop, balcony or steps to begin or add to your garden right away with pots.

On our family’s farm with hectares of arable land we grow a lot of our food plants in containers because they are easy to manage. I can move them around to suit the weather, the drainage is excellent, they are more easily protected from free-ranging chickens and wildlife, there are virtually no weeds to deal with, and they are an ideal size for little ones to access. We also have gardens in the ground and some raised beds, but plenty of our food is raised in pots and boxes right now.

You can use regular plant pots and hanging baskets – often available through Freecycle or otherwise recycled. Polystyrene or waxed boxes in which produce is transported, or other re-useable containers from around your home are also suitable. Plants be raised to different heights, depending on each one’s needs. Containers can also be decorated with paint and other water-resistant finishes if required.

If you have the space and want to progress to bigger containers, old bathtubs and cut-down rainwater tanks make excellent vessels for almost every type of vegetable plant. I have admired container gardens created with old boots, tea pots, sinks, troughs, watering cans, bowls, baskets, parts from large appliances, wheelbarrows, wading pools, pipes, cars, barrels, toilets and buckets. It’s amazing how attractive ‘garbage’ can be with trailing nasturtiums, sweet fat strawberries begging to be picked, or a jungle of green leafy vegetables and herbs to snack upon. Choose containers to compliment each plant in function and aesthetics. Set them up securely and safely so that no one will trip on them, and so there’s no danger of small children or pets toppling the pots over.

Regular garden soil alone doesn’t do well in pots. We use a combination of planting material, placed in layers. At the base of a vessel some sand or gravel will ensure proper drainage. Another benefit of gravel is that it is usually rich in minerals. On top of that we add some well-rotted manure, leaf mulch, hay from the hen house, dried grass clippings or compost. Next, I mix in some local soil because of the microbes it contains. Finally, I spread some quality organic potting mix on the top because it’s the ideal medium for sprouting seeds. If I had enough compost, I wouldn’t need to buy the potting mix, but creating enough compost is the struggle of many a gardener!

I feed the plants in our pots and boxes every two weeks throughout the growing season. A seaweed concentrate is the most efficient and readily-available fertiliser for this type of garden. I also use store-bought organic manure and mineral pellets with success. Here we’ve been experimenting with using manure from our own animals, comfrey and ‘weed’ teas as well.

Ideal first foods to grow include peas and beans, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, radish, herbs, salad mixes and fruits such as gooseberries and strawberries. Simple varieties, properly cared for, will ensure a quick harvest. This enhances the gardener’s understanding, self-confidence and enjoyment.

When watering container plants the best method is to give plants a good drink when the top centimetre of the soil feels dry. With a spray attachment on the hose or watering can, water gently until the soil seems soaked through. It’s best not to allow much water to collect in saucers underneath. Water requirements will be obviously more in hot weather, and it’s important never to let the containers dry out. Smaller pots and hanging baskets require more regular watering, so planting several types of plants in a larger container will be more time-efficient with regard to daily care.

Combining various species within the one box will also ensure you take advantage of space, enable companion planting, and can look more attractive. A medium bush variety of tomato, staked in the centre of a large pot would do well with some parsley, shallots, petunias and other low-growing plants placed around it. In our symbiotic container garden, mint rambles around the base of pineapples, miniature lettuce crowd around purple climbing beans, perennial spinach creeps under broccoli plants and cress crowds some cabbages. The nitrogen-fixing plants feed other species, and the herbs and onion species keep pests away from the leafy greens and soft fruits. Another benefit of containing some plants is that you can prevent them from spreading through garden beds.

Even if you’ve never grown anything before, learn beside your little ones. Sharing this knowledge now could foster a lifelong interest in gardening, a forgotten skill that could soon become essential.

Resources:
Freecycle
The Edible Container Garden by Michael Guerra, published by Simon & Schuster, New York, ISBN 0-684-85461-9

Autumn Update

2009-04-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

Well, the wet season sure was a wet one! We've had a surprisingly sunny start to Autumn, usually it begins to drizzle by now... They don't call this the Wet Tropics for nothing!

We've finally finished the second greenhouse. It has four circular raised beds and two rectangular beds. One circular bed was full of cherry tomatoes, so I simply mulched, fed and staked these as they're a terrific salad addition and so much easier to grow that large tomatoes. I planted a few onions into one side of the tomato bed for companion planting reasons, and to utilise the space. In the other three round beds I have seedlings of: peas, bush beans, broccoli (2 types), carrots, cabbage, kale, rhubarb, beetroot, onions, green button squash, lettuce, broad beans, bok choy and more. In the lower, rectangular beds I have seed potatoes in place.

The first greenhouse, affectionately known as "the jungle garden" had a clean up and is less jungle-like than usual. There are still rambling yam and sweet potato vines, pumpkins climbing the outer walls, a myriad of experiments like rice and water chestnuts in tubs, the odd assortment of potted trees and herbs, cuttings in wine and tomato puree bottles crowding one corner, boxes and pots and pieces of art... The giant Queensland Arrowroot, Tahitian Spinach and Golden Yam leaves add to the jungle atmosphere and provide ample chop-and-drop mulch. Amongst the madness I've planted Mizuna, eggplant, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, beans, bok choy, shallots, yellow button squash, cabbages and more. I have four round beds and a long, low bed in this greenhouse, as well as the many pots and plots on the ground.

So right now we're harvesting a few greens, dozens of pumpkins, some chokos, many kilograms of macadamia nuts, yellow guavas, the odd lemon or mulberry from the orchard, plenty of eggs (chicken and duck!) and the usual herbs, ginger and other yumminess. But hopefully within weeks many of the seedlings mentioned above will be maturing and we'll aim for substantial daily harvests. I've already sowed the next lot of seeds, so am expecting that the sun will continue to shine and our crops will be on the table in no time!

The Wet

2009-01-21T05:05:00.000-08:00

And it rained, and it rained...
The tanks were full. That red gadget tells us the water level by going up as the tank fills.
Afternoon downpours - over 100ml in an hour each time.
The rain gauge was also overflowing, I think we need a heavy-duty one here.
The ground could take no more. The chickens delighted in bugs and worms coming up for air. This is the wet season...

The tropical plants adore the rain. They wait all year for this! This one above is Ceylon Spinach and the variety with the green stem is our favourite. It's a great spinach substitute and grows all year round for us on a rampant vine in the greenhouse. We eat young leaves in salad, medium leaves sliced for stir-fries and in quiche, and the older leaves are for the ducks.

And the plants grow before our eyes. Above is a choko vine, reaching for the sky, full of possibilities. Despite popular opinion, I believe that one can never have too many chokos.

And the pumpkin vines ramble through the grass and weeds. And the pumpkins look as though they might burst. And some do. And some rot too. So we often pick them if it rains too long and hard, and dry them off inside.
They store for months, full of promise of lovely orange sweetness...
The one above is a young Queensland Blue, and below, our standard and prolific Jap. I've been growing it, and saving seed, for over ten years.
I think "my" variety is becoming accustomed to the wet weather. I am too.

These "Italian Beans", below, I got from my local Seed Savers group. They just love the rain, with no sign of mould or other diseases so far.

And we know what they say... "Great weather for ducks!" And it's true...
Here are our four young happy Muscovies - three ducks and a drake (we think).

But not such great weather for some other creatures.
I saw this moth on the underside of a glossy leaf. Weathering the storm.

And up on the hill, my young orchard in the clouds...
One day we'll be looking up into our very own food forest. Stay tuned.

Pigeon Pea

2009-01-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Botanical Name: Cajanus cajan syn. Cajanus indicus

Family: Fabaceae

Yesterday we finally planted out the Pigeon Pea plants I grew from Seed Savers' seeds. They were well overdue for planting out, all 15 of them crowded into a styrofoam box (which I use for seedlings) and quite tall already.

Pigeon pea grows as a shrub to about 3m high. I have one mature plant from last year's efforts growing on a terraced area behind the house with numerous other edibles and natives. Yesterday, we planted most of them around (outside) two sides of the duck yard, another one on the same terrace and one amongst some bananas.

This edible hedge will have many purposes:
- as animal fodder (the seeds are 25% protein and the leaves are also edible)
- food for humans (the seeds, cooked, become dahl)
- as mulch for themselves and nearby fruiting trees, pumpkin vines and banana plants
- nitrogen fixing for surrounding plants
- a windbreak
- to beautify the duck pen built from recycled materials

These shrubs have a lifespan of up to five years or so, but are quick-growing and can be started from seed when we need to re-plant.

In Season - Passionfruit

2008-12-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

Passionfruit - Passiflora edulis
Brazil

HOME GROWING: Will grow in most places, tolerating some frost. Plant fresh seed and encourage the vine up a trellis, pergola or fence. Available in several varieties producing pink, purple or yellow fruit. Does well in most soil types, but appreciates feeding during fruiting periods. The vine is attractive with glossy green leaves and beautiful flowers.

TO EAT: Slightly wrinkly passionfruit will have more pulp and a sweeter flavour. Fresh (or frozen) passionfruit can be added to juices and smoothies, basic muffin recipes, heaped onto ice cream, stirred through yoghurt, plopped into muesli and enjoyed straight from the shell with or without a spoon!

FREEZING: During fruiting season you can freeze excess passionfruit whole, scrape pulp into containers, ice-cube trays or snack-size snaplock bags. You can mix 2 parts pulp to 1 part sugar to prevent pulp breaking down, but I never bother and ours keeps and defrosts fine. Passionfruit has a freezer life of about 12 months.
Iceblocks: Mix 1 part passionfruit pulp and one part fresh juice in re-useable moulds. Delicious!

Passionfruit Syrup (1 cup)
Approx. 8 large passionfruit
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
Halve passionfruit and scoop out pulp into a sieve. Rub through sieve to separate juice and seeds. Discard seeds (or save to add to another recipe not requiring much juicy pulp) and measure juice to 100ml. In a small saucepan mix sugar and water and stir to dissolve. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 - 7 mins or until syrup spins a thread when dropped from the tines of a fork. Add passionfruit juice (and some of the seeds if you wish - for looks), return to boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour into hot, sterilised bottles of your choice and seal while hot. Boil the bottles 10mins. This recipe is easily doubled, tripled etc. Best kept in the fridge. Can be used as a cordial or syrup for desserts.

Passionfruit Jam (1.8kg)
24 passionfruit
5 cups cold water
1 cup water
1 lemon
5 cups sugar
Wash fruit well. Scoop the pulp from the passionfruit into a container, cover and place in refrigerator. Put half the passionfruit shells with the 5 cups of water into a bowl and leave to stand overnight. Bring to the boil with the water and boil for about 30 minutes, or until inside of shells are tender. Scoop out this pulp and discard the thin paper skin that remains. Discard the cooking water. Chop or mash the pulp and put into jam pan with fruit pulp and seeds. Add the second measure of water and bring to the boil. Add the juice of the lemon. Add sugar and boil briskly until the jam will set when tested. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before pouring into hot, dry jars. Seal when cold. Store in cool, dark place.

Passionfruit and Lemon Butter (3 cups)
4 eggs, beaten and strained
¾ cup sugar
125g butter
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
½ cup lemon juice
1 cup (approx. 12) passionfruit
Place all ingredients in top half of a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, a stainless steel mixing bowl over a large pot so that the bottom of the bowl rests well into the pot works just as well. Stir until combined over simmering water. When mixture thickly coats the wooden spoon. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal when cool. Store in fridge and use within a couple of weeks.

Passionfruit Icing – for most cakes, biscuits, slices…
1 ¼ cups icing sugar
2 passionfruit
15g butter
Melt butter over low heat. Remove from heat and add sifted icing sugar and passionfruit pulp. Beat well until smooth.

In Season - Choko

2008-11-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Choko - Sechium edule
Mexico

HOME GROWING: Buy a choko and place it in a dark cupboard. When the wide end splits to reveal the inner seed and a sprout, place into well-draining soil with the sprout just visible through the soil. The vine may be slow to become established, but once warm weather arrives it will grow rampantly. It needs a trellis, pergola, old shed, chook house or fence for support.

TO EAT: The central seed may be eaten when very young and the young leaves and shoots and fleshy roots are also edible. Choko may be used in place of fruit in some recipes (stewed with sugar and optionally a pear or golden delicious apple) – typically used as pie filling. It can also be preserved into pickles or relish. For any recipe that uses marrow or squash, choko can be substituted.
Tip: peel chokos under running water to stop the slime sticking to your hands.

FREEZING: Boil or bake until half-cooked. Cool and freeze in airtight containers or snaplock bags. Defrost slightly before resuming cooking. Choko has a freezer life of 6 months.

Creamy Herbed Chokos (serves 2)
2 tbsp butter
1 small onion, chopped very fine
1 medium-sized choko, peeled and cut into cubes
A handful of fresh chopped herbs
½ cup cream.
Melt butter and saute onion until golden. Add cubed chokos and saute for further 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a casserole dish sprinkle with herbs and top with cream. Cover and cook in a 180 degrees C oven for about 25 minutes or until choko is soft but still bright in colour. Serve as a vegetable accompaniment to a main dish.

Easy Baked Chokos
If you have chokos with prickles, knock these off with the blade of a peeler, but otherwise leave the skin on. Place a piece of baking paper in an ovenproof dish. Cut chokos in half and lay choko, cut side down, on the paper in the dish. Bake in a 180 degrees C oven for about 40 minutes (test with a fork to see if cooked). To serve, place cut side up on plate. Make diamond shapes cuts into the flesh with a knife. Smother in butter, salt and pepper.

Choko tendrils (serves 4)
8 cups choko tops – tendrils, tips and small leaves
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
1–2 tablespoons stock or water
salt and pepper
Heat oil in wok and gently saute garlic for ½ minute. Throw in the choko tops and stir for one minute. Add stock and continue stirring until wilted. Add pepper and salt.
Try with:
- a few drops of sesame oil
- a couple of squeezes of lemon juice
- Chilli and lime juice
- Toasted chopped macadamias
- Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Salade Chou Chou (serves 4)
(Choko Salad)
1 kg chokos
1 tablespoon white vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly crushed garlic
1 medium onion finely sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh green chillies (optional)
salt and pepper
Heat enough water with a teaspoon of salt in a large saucepan and boil all the chokos for about 20 minutes or until tender. Remove from boiling water and allow to cool. Peel and halve the chokos. Discard the seeds and cut into slices. Mix together the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, freshly chopped green pepper and sliced onions. Pour over the sliced chokos and carefully mix without breaking the choko slices. This salad makes a good addition to any meal as a side dish.

Quick Curried Choko Soup (serves 4)
6 Chokos
2 carrots
1 onion
Fresh beans
Water
Salt, pepper and curry powder
Peel all vegetables, place in a saucepan with enough water to just cover and boil until tender. Add curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. Puree to serve.

Choko wedges (serves 4)
5 medium chokos
½ cup breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
oil for shallow frying.
Cut each choko into 8 wedges. Boil, steam or microwave until just tender. Drain and pat dry. Combine breadcrumbs and garlic. Dip wedges in egg, then in breadcrumb mixture. Heat oil in large pan. Fry wedges in batches until well browned all over. Drain on absorbent paper.

Stir-fried chokos
Peel a few chokos – small green ones are best. Remove the seed, slice them into matchsticks and then stir-fry them in olive oil with garlic and chopped parsley, then add a splash of balsamic vinegar at the last minute.
Or in sesame oil with garlic, ginger, chilli, and any other vegetables you like. Add a dash of lime juice and soy sauce. The texture of choko is ideal for this method.

Choko Jam
12 Chokos, peeled, de-seeded and diced
juice of 6 lemons
110g finely chopped crystallised ginger
½ a cup of sugar to each cup of cut-up chokos
Prepare chokos. Add the lemon juice and stand overnight. In the morning, pour off excess juice and cook fruit with 2 cups of water until tender. Measure the pulp and allow half a cup of sugar for every cup of pulp. Add the ginger and boil briskly until set. Bottle and seal while hot.

Growing food with Children

2008-11-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

Where does our food come from? I wonder if many people know or care… There’s an international revolution promoting local food, which is very exciting and radical. How can that be so when only a couple of generations ago local food was considered to be a typical diet? When compared with the bright and loud fast food advertising, the locavore’s advocacy seems but a whisper. It’s up to us to provide the balance and teach our young that nature sustains life.

It is vitally important that our children have access to fresh, wholesome, affordable and tasty food. The freshest food is local food. Food from the earth, not wrapped in plastic from a store. The most local is our own backyard, a window box, or a school or community garden.

Children need to know their food, be connected to it. An edible garden provides more than understanding about ecology and meaningful work - it has the capacity to introduce new flavours, encourage healthy snacking, bring children into the kitchen and the family back to the table. Home growing is as much about culture as nutrition.

There are many books in the library and informative websites describing how to create your own vegetable plot. Food plants can also be planted amongst ornamentals in existing gardens. A basic, no-dig garden in a sunny but sheltered spot can be set up in a couple of hours and produce food in a matter of weeks.

Potted gardens are fast and ideal for those renting, living in small spaces, with changeable weather or just starting out. You can use regular plant pots – often available through Freecycle or other recycling solutions. Polystyrene or waxed boxes in which produce is transported, or other re-useable containers from around your home are also suitable.

Even if you start with a sprouting jar on the kitchen bench, children will observe and be involved with the production of their food. From there you might progress to other creative ways to fit home growing into your lifestyle.

Ideal first foods to grow include peas and beans, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, radish, herbs, salad mixes and fruits such as gooseberries and strawberries. Simple varieties, properly cared for, will ensure a quick harvest. This enhances the gardener’s understanding, self-confidence and enjoyment.

Even if you’ve never grown anything before, learn beside your little ones. Sharing this knowledge now could foster a lifelong interest in gardening, a forgotten skill that some day could become vitally important once again.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/
http://www.kidsgardening.com/
http://www.freecycle.org
http://www.cityfarmer.org/sprout86.html (growing sprouts)
Spiral Garden

Self-Sufficiency Book Review

2008-10-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

My Mum ordered me a great Christmas pressie this year. She took advantage of the pre-release sale, and the book was meant to arrive late November or early December. But it arrived on Friday! The book..?

How can I be prepared with Self-Sufficiency and Survival Foods? by Isabell Shipard.

"This book covers many practical facets of self-sufficiency and informs readers about survival foods. Isabell shows how we call can be prepared for hard times, no matter what the future may bring."

Isabell's new book continues on from one of hers I already own, How can I use Herbs in my daily life?, which describes in detail a huge variety of herbs, weeds and native plants - how to cultivate (or find) and use them. They are both invaluable guides for me - quite local, well-researched and written by someone who has had decades of experience. I'm fascinated by perennial plants, 'weeds', bushfoods, what pioneers ate and the imported tropical delights of our neighbours...

Thanks Mum!

Another Blog!

2008-10-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

Today I finally accepted Rhonda's invitation to take part in the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op blog. I've committed to one post per fortnight, and since I work well with deadlines this should get me in the habit of more prolific writing! Stay tuned...

PS - my garden is packed full and flourishing!

Just Keep Planting

2008-08-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Kez's Blog for awhile and I just love this graphic she uses! I think I first heard this from Jackie French, and it's a bit of a chant of mine, when I need inspiration to keep that garden growing! So I asked Kez if I could pinch the graphic and she said yes. So here it is, and it's also on my fridge! Thanks, Kez. x

Magical Seeds

2008-08-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Natural Life magazine.

Few things in nature hold as much magic as seeds. With a small fistful of seeds, children can observe the full life cycle of plants. They can observe how plants reproduce from watching plants flower, go to seed and self-seed.

To save seeds from your garden or wildflowers, collect them at maturity during the late morning on a dry day. Clean them to store in a cool, dark, dry place for re-sowing. If you have enough seeds sprinkle them around the garden to see when they come up again. Collecting your own seeds will save on seed costs, create a connection with nature through the seasons, and improve your gardening success rate as the seeds adapt to your locale. For more detailed instructions on cleaning seeds to store and save, look to resources such as the International Seed Saving Institute’s comprehensive guide, available online.

Various types of plants have different methods for sowing and saving seed:

Annuals usually grow from seed through part of a year, then seeds are saved and stored or lay dormant in the ground until the following year. Examples of annuals are lettuce, peas, spinach, corn, beans and marigolds. Most seeds you will save will be from Annual plants.

Biennial plants produce vegetative growth through the first warm period, then slow down through a period of cold weather and flower in the second warm period, typically spring. Common examples are the cabbage, kale, carrot, parsnip and turnips. To collect seeds from these, you will need to wait about eighteen months.

Perennial plants survive for more than two years. They are a very important part of a long-term garden. Some annuals and biennials such as capsicums, chillies, eggplants and kale can behave as perennials in warm climates.

Another way to save seeds is from the kitchen. Ripe pumpkins, tomatoes, capsicums, melons, papaya, and most other fruit provide fresh, free seeds. Usually one dries and stores the seeds to plant in the appropriate season, but our children have had many successful pumpkin vines and papaya trees grow with seed fresh from the cutting board. If the fruit or vegetable comes from a hybrid plant, which many commercial crops are, the fruit that grows from it will not grow true to type. But it will probably be edible and if space in the garden isn’t an issue, you’ve nothing to lose!

More ‘free’ seeds can often be found in the pantry – many dried beans will germinate, for example. We’ve tried borlotti, lima and cannellini beans, and black-eyed peas. Beans can be eaten as a young pod, shelled when mature, or left on the vine to dry. Bird feed is another cheap source of seeds to experiment with. A large bag of sunflower seeds is only a couple of dollars and contains enough to fill even the largest garden with giant sunflowers. Or you can share them amongst young friends so that other children might delight in the magic of seeds.

When buying seeds, heirloom or heritage varieties are preferable for many reasons. Old varieties are more interesting and better suited to the organic vegetable garden. Did you know that carrots come in colours other than orange? You can grow your own red, white, yellow or purple carrots at home! There are also purple peas and beans, multi-coloured corn, capsicums of various colours and shapes, and pumpkins and tomatoes that will amaze! These non-hybrid seeds are most often available by mail order rather than in your local store.

Sprouting is another way to witness the wonder of seed germination. It’s something you can do in any season and any location. All you need is a jar, some cheesecloth, a rubber band and some seeds to sprout - like alfalfa, mung beans or radish. You can buy these in health shops or with the vegetable seeds in stores. Rinse the seeds, and then soak overnight in water. Strain and rinse again in the morning, placing the jar upside-down or inverted on a saucer so it can drain well. Continue to rinse twice a day, always keeping the jar inverted so that there is no excess water on your sprouts. After around four days, your sprouts should be ready for eating and can be stored in the fridge.

A bean vine can also be started in a glass jar. Take a wide glass jar, some cotton wool and a few bean seeds. Soak the beans for a few hours. Place the cotton inside the jar and poke the beans at regular intervals between the glass and cotton around the jar. Add enough water so that the cotton is moist. Put the lid on the jar and you will not have to water your beans for them to grow. Place in a sunny position and your beans will grow roots and sprout leaves. If you turn the jar upside-down, within a day the seedlings will change the direction they grow in so that the roots are facing down. After a couple of days, you can turn it up the right way again and your bean vines will adapt so that the roots are growing down once more. Children will see that gravity, water and light affect plants.

Because seeds hold so much magic and wonder, many tales have been told about them. Jack and the Beanstalk first springs to mind. There are stories from all around the world with seeds as a symbol for life, regeneration and new beginnings. I hope that through exploring the wonder of seeds with your children, your journey as a gardening family begins…

* International Seed Saving Institute’s Guide.

Love to Harvest

2008-08-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing more exciting about gardening for me than the harvests. I just ducked outside to collect a couple of ingredients for tonight’s vegetable stirfry from the greenhouse garden and came back with:

bok choy, silverbeet, kohl rabi (and young leaves), celery (and leaves), baby carrots, broccoli side-shoots, beans, a snow pea, ceylon spinach leaves, garlic chives, ginger, lemongrass and onion tops!

* cross posted on my personal blog because I like to brag!

Aussies Living Simply

2008-06-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

Have you been to Aussies Living Simply? It's a fantastic website with a very active forum, articles, news and links about simple living, permaculture, sustainability, living on less, organic growing, raising a few chooks in the backyard and more!

A fantastic source of information from the people who are walking the talk in Australia. Check it out!

WWOOF Again

2008-06-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

Last year I told you in this post about WWOOF when we had hosted some Danish WWOOFers. This past week-and-a-bit we've been hosting a German WWOOFer. I forgot how much FUN it is! Great company for the children an I, someone to work with, and extra pair of hands around the house and farm, seeing our place and local area through new eyes...

I recommend WWOOF to anyone who think they can spare some space and need a hand. You don't need to be a farm to be a WWOOF host either.

Today in the Garden

2008-06-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

Today I took some photos in the garden, and thought I'd share...

Part of the weekend sweet potato harvest.

A purple sweet potato vine.

A little sugarloaf cabbage in the herb patch.

Here's some of the girls - these hybrid hens are our egg machines. They're a bit wet and scruffy looking today, but they're very happy eating bugs and worms between rain showers. They're around a year old and we have five hens like this.

This garden runs along one side of the greenhouse. It contains ceylon spinach, sugarloaf cabbage, broccoli, radish - red and white, tomatoes, bok choy, peas, Italian beans, petunias, native violet, various lettuce, land cress, rocket, silverbeet, leeks, onions, parsley and probably a lot more!

Wanting it All

2008-06-11T03:30:00.000-07:00

Years ago I used to read books about food forests and wish for more land, more time, more money to set up the gardens… I was missing the point. There was enough in my life already – seeds to save from the vegie scraps, green waste to compost, a plethora of books in the library and kind-hearted neighbours to learn from and swap seeds and produce. And so the garden grew.

And it grew onto a spare block of land next to our house. And materials were recycled and we waited until the things we needed came our way. And the garden kept growing – big, abundant patches of food plants, chickens for eggs, entertainment and fertilising manure, fruiting trees and vines, rainwater tanks, a roadside stall to make a little pocket money from the excess… And it rarely seemed like work.

Then it came time to move. We’ve come to the perfect place to create the food forest, and have one hundred times the skills we had back in the days of wishing for more, more, more. There is a season for everything in life, after all.

Sharing the Bounty

2008-06-11T03:18:00.000-07:00

I think this is a great idea. We all have gluts of various produce at one time or another - why not swap with another backyard gardener? Here are some ways to connect with others locally:

GROW LOCAL

Australian Garden Exchange

Seed Savers

A Fun Way to Design Your Garden

2008-05-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

I am an avid gardener, always keen to learn more, either from other people or from my own observations.

Starting a garden can bring about many questions, and to be able to fully enjoy it there is usually a lot to consider, especially if we aim for a sustainable garden. Getting the most out of our garden is easier if we design it well.

In such a sustainable garden design, we ask more why, how, how many, what, where, when… questions and than consider the connections between all of them. Or maybe we just have different reasons to take certain actions.

Many times I have immersed myself in projects without thinking profoundly about what I really wanted to achieve, and of course I ended up not getting what I needed. Planning beforehand is so rewarding though, and will diminish the hard work.

There are many different ways of designing your garden. It is helpful to become familiar with the place around you. We can use all our senses; most people however have a preference for one or a few.

Look around, what do you see? Observe what is already there, before you start a big clean up. What resources can you find and use right on the spot? Listen to the noises and smell the fresh air, the plants and flowers. Touch the plants and the leaves. And then smell everything.

Touch, smell and feel the soil. What does it look like? Sit down, close your eyes and visualise your garden the way you wish for it to be. All these observations can bring us creative ideas and are a great help in the design process.

Now you are ready to go into action. Take pencil and paper and jot down all your needs. Let your imagination flow to the full. Think of food sources, materials for clothing or furniture, privacy needs or the beautiful flowers that will spread their fragrance throughout your backyard and make it a paradise for the butterflies of the area.

After that, write down all the possible ways for these needs to be fulfilled. Make sure that you find more than one way to provide for your need. For example, if you need building materials, you can plant timber, bamboo, dig for earth or grow grain and use the straw in your building. If you eat a lot of fruit, plant different species and varieties, this will spread your harvest. Manure, legumes, mulch, compost and many other sources, can provide fertiliser.

You will now probably see the connections between all the elements that you want to put into your garden. Choose the appropriate place for your vegetables, buildings, orchard, and grain crops. Draw your design on a map if you like. You will find that it becomes clearer how your garden will look, and where to start.

Permaculture delves very deeply into every detail of the design and I really like this approach. I started thinking in a whole new way after doing my permaculture design course.

I have developed a tool that can help to make the designing stage more fun. It is a card game and each time I play it with someone, so many ideas come up. It brings about a lot of discussion, different each time, depending on the personalities and desires of the players. You can find out more about the game here.

Copyright Lizet Frijters 2008.

It's a Jungle Out There!

2008-04-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so some parts of my garden appear to be less than tame, but I love the rambling beauty of those sections. In the above photo I can see:
Yam
Tomato - 2 types
Asparagus
Bush Basil
Camphor Basil
Strawberries
Rhubarb
Celery
Lemon Grass
Sweet Potato
Parsley
Tumeric
Leeks
Comfrey
Yacon
Asian Greens seedlings
Aloe Vera
Land Cress
and weeds...

Gardening Goodness

2008-04-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

I am really enjoying my garden right now. I have mulched and fed more areas within the greenhouse over the past two days. I planted out the peas against a rustic trellis made from a broken baby safety gate. I also planted out some rocket, red cabbage, corn, Italian and broad beans.

Today I planted another ten punnets of seedlings-to-be. Who knows where I'll plant them out, though! That's presuming success. A few varieties of seed were old, and not all fitted into the mouse-proof cage I'm using to protect my seedlings. The last lot did so well- only the purple-podded peas didn't germinate.

So far everything is growing fantastically - this weather makes it easier! I've harvested a lot of cucumbers and pumpkins, a handful of beans, the odd cherry tomato, plenty of salad and cooking greens ... and we're still enjoying and giving away many macadamias. And the chickens are mostly laying again - hooray!

Locally - citrus, chokos, pumpkins and bananas are doing really well. We're lucky to have friends and neighbours sharing their excess with our family. I can't wait until our gardens and orchards are more productive so that we can have an abundance to share too. Growing and eating local food is really important to me. Meanwhile, I'm happily passing on nuts and pumpkins to those who have none, and accepting others' abundances to eat and preserve.

How does your garden grow?

A Day in the Garden

2008-04-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

This morning my garden brought me much joy (and dirty fingernails) so I thought I'd share the progress...

I harvested three cucumbers and four pumpkins today. I love the harvesting part of gardening!

I also thinned some Radishes, planted out some Eggplant and Italian Bean seedlings, and also some pretty Petunias. I like flowers in my vegie patch! I have Gerberas, Nasturtiums, Petunias, Native Violet and something else I always forget the name of as well. :p I put in a few new parsley plants too. The Rocket, Cabbages and Carrots should need planting out this week I guess. And the Peas and Broad Beans too.

I found the solution to the mice, I think! Putting the seedling punnets in the mouse cage has worked - they're all sprouting! So far, so good...

I also planted some trees today, three varieties of natives, as well as a Tangelo, a Fingered Citron, a Jakfruit, Blackberry Jam Fruit, Rollinia Deliciosa. I also planted out some Dwarf Sugar Cane and some other cane that clumps and doesn't grow too huge and makes great garden stakes.

I have several Pineapples and Chokos to plant yet (this week?). I just keep on planting those, can never have too many!

I weeded the Pineapple garden and the huge patch of 70+ trees closely planted for a noise break/privacy screen from the road. It's a mix of about 15% edibles and 85% natives. Possibly more edibles in there than I know, because I didn't record all the names of the natives I bought! Grrr. It looks nice now that it's weed-free though. There weren't many, because it's thickly mulched, but they do get away in the wet season.

I made maps of some more areas and labeled the trees etc on the maps. I've done this for the orchard areas and it's really useful. I think I have five maps now as I try to fill our house paddock with trees.

I hope you're enjoying some time in the garden too...

Mid-Autumn Update

2008-04-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

It seems a long time since I've posted, reading that last update. I've been writing some guest posts about Living Simply over at Rhonda's Down To Earth. I've written three of five posts for April, they're submitted every Tuesday.

I've been doing a bit of a grocery challenge this month, trying to cut our food bills down without compromising on the quality and variety of food that we eat. On my main blog I share weekly menu plans and the odd recipe. I get tons of ideas from Simple Savings and other people's menu plans found through the Organising Junkie site. Doing this challenge is showing me how important the garden is and how I need to increase its yield to a consistent level.

Autumn is really creeping into the garden now. The pumpkin vines are slowing down, but there are still a lot to pick yet. We've had plenty of nice big Jap pumpkins from my vine, and barrow-loads of very strange pumpkins from Abby's vine (which is strange itself with bizarre stem and leaf formations happening). I gave her several types of seeds to plant one day, and we believe that her small pumpkins are all cross-pollinated. The seeds I gave her were Jap, Jack-Be-Little and Butternut.

The asparagus is looking tired, and I'm trying to decide whether to cut it back or not. I have some asparagus and rhubarb which need to be in different spots, so will need to look up when the best time is to dig up the crowns. The cucumbers and greens from the Permaculture Seed Mix are doing well. We're still getting winged beans, the various greens (perennial types), the very last of the bush beans, the odd eggplant and capsicum... I see the latter 2 are flowering again, so should be back in production soon. The lettuce are nearly ready some of the tomatoes in pots are setting fruit. I'm quickly discovering that the perennial plants are my friends. When the weather or bad timing mean we have a break in greens to harvest, for example, having the kang kong, brazilian spinach, ceylon spinach and miscellaneous unidentified greens is a relief (they're only unidentified by me, other people know what they are called!)

I put four more tomato plants into pots recently, and a pepino cutting. I planted corn, bean and pea seeds and they're just beginning to germinate. I am still battling mice and so have them inside a pet mouse cage, up on a stool in the greenhouse! I have other punnets tucked into the hanging baskets with the strawberries and Warrigal greens. Fingers crossed! In the styrofoam boxes I'm raising seeds in, none of the corn germinated (stolen by mice?) but all of the cabbage and carrots are growing. The radish seeds I sprinkled amongst the lettuce and silverbeet in the long garden bed are doing well - so fast! I planted Greenpatch's Winter Permaculture Seed Mix on a newly manured-and-mulched bed and there are seedlings everywhere. I'm yet to identify many of them though, which is an exciting challenge.

My garden is getting to the stage where I have strawberry runners, corriander, ginger etc to share with other gardeners! I just love working with others, either together on a project or sharing seedlings, seeds, cuttings etc.

I still don't know what to do about the sweet potato. I might tidy it up a bit on the weekend and see if there's any sign of tubers amongst the jungle. The purple flowers are pretty, and I wonder if they mean that it's nearly harvest time?

I finally emptied the tubes of the dozens of tree seeds I planted a couple of months back and in those which did nothing the seeds were gone! Mice again? I have jakfruit, albizzia and icecream bean seedlings to further raise - these were successful. I also got some pigeon pea trees which I planted out already. I really wanted to grow a lot of my trees for planting next wet season to save some money, but so much to learn there still. I have a couple of mango seedlings from the compost, and will plant them out next Spring, even though they probably won't fruit here I'm told. Oh, well, plenty of room for some nice big trees anyway!

Our chickens are doing well. Buttercup has been sitting on eggs. One hatched two days ago but the chick died. We're hoping the other two hatch today, as they're 'due'. Immi saw a great doco on SBS last night and now she's keen to increase our flock, get hold of an incubator and be more like Madeleine on the Inside Australia. Two more of our 'hens' started crowing in the past couple of weeks, so looks like I need to plan them into the menu sometime soon...

We ran a lot of water lines on the weekends to feed the milking bails, small paddock at the front of the block, new banana plantation and second greenhouse (to be). It was hard work!

Of the natives I planted earlier in the year, I've only lost a handful or so altogether. The chickens scratched up a couple - despite the little tree guards we manufactured for each one. And the combination of very wet weeks and transplant shock killed a few more. I also lost a few passionfruit vines to those scratching chickens, which was quite annoying. I like having them free-range but it does mean that I need to protect my plants.

We transplanted ALL of our banana trees in the past couple of weeks. Where they were, they leaned onto the milking bales and because the soil had built up around them, mud and mulch washed into the bails when it rained. So we've moved the lot across the house paddock and we're hoping some suckers survive the shock and that they'll do well over there.

I fed all of the fruit trees down in Stage One of the orchard a couple of weeks ago now, but I need to walk up the hill and feed those in Stage Two. I made up a manure/comfrey/seasol/minerals stinky liquid for these ones, but up the hill I'll need to use dynamic lifter because I can't cart all the liquid that far without a tap to dilute it etc.

We've had a couple of lemons of our baby tree, and we have a few lemonade ripening now. I left up to 4 fruit on the young trees because I'm impatient! I think I was meant to remove them all this first year in the ground. Thankfully we have the wild fruit - yellow guavas this past month. We eat them fresh and I also made about 6L of guava jelly for the pantry. It's lovely - sweet and tangy.

We're still getting a LOT of macadamias. One tree makes twin nuts - inside the green husk are two hemispheres intact in shell. They're really cute and the children rush to collect these special nuts (there are nuts inside too!)

One fine day I'll take more photos. I promise!

Autumn Days

2008-03-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

The year is just flying by! At last I've cleaned up most of the greenhouse garden after the wet season. A friend brought me some fresh sawdust for the paths and I've removed the overgrown and spent plants and put in some sugarloaf cabbage, various lettuce, broccoli and silverbeet so far. I have more seeds germinating nicely in styrofoam boxes, pots and punnets, as well as in the fresh manure and mulch laid on the beds. It should be a jungle again in no time!

The cucumber vine which came from Greenpatch's Summer Permaculture Seed Mix is setting it's first tiny fruit. I hope they're lovely and we get some before it gets too cold. The pumpkins are still producing, so we have a good store of pumpkins and more to come. Winged Beans are climbing prettily over the back of the greenhouse - their delicate leaves and flowers as lovely as the frilly pods. I'm getting the last of the butter and bush beans picked, and hoping another variety comes along more quickly to replace it. There are some local "Italian Beans" from Seed Savers I'll be trying. I want to grow lots of peas this winter too. I have some yellow cherry tomatoes fruiting, and some more tomatoes just starting to flower. I have had trouble with wilt recently, so I hope that by growing the large tomatoes in pots I get to harvest some before winter. We've had nothing like the gluts we had at our old house, where I dried and bottled roma tomatoes for weeks, but I'm sure we'll get there as I build up the soil and find the right areas in which to plant things. It did take me a good while at our old place to get it right too!

Soon the yacon and yams should be ready to harvest, and probably the ginger and tumeric etc too. All of these tropical plants die off during Autumn and it's time to harvest for next planting season. The sweet potatoes are rambling wildly and I'm not sure how to get in there to harvest except clear the whole lot. Someone told me that if I miss any, just watch for new sprouts and I'll know where to dig - sage advice! I'm sure the horses and chickens will love picking through the vines - they love to nibble the leaves which poke out from the greenhouse. I'm not sure I'll get chokos or aerial potatoes from my vines until next summer, because they were late getting into the ground. I'm just happy to see them becoming established after a bit of trial and error.

Our chickens are doing really well - breeding, coming of age and producing plenty of eggs. We ate our first two roosters a couple of weeks ago and that went well overall. I think we'll do it again since we intend to keep breeding chickens. We've been vegetarian and/or only eaten fish for a long time (over 14 years), so this was a big deal to us. The ethics of food is a complex issue, but I do feel that eating a little organic, home-grown flesh is probably the best choice for our health, our planet (and our budget).

Today I fed the fruiting trees and some other plants with a smelly concoction of diluted horse manure, seasol, minerals, fish emulsion and comfrey - all mixed up with water and applied with a watering can. I'm hoping this will please my first planting of stone fruit who suffered from some bothersome insect in spring. The leaves were nibbled and stung and turned yellow. I applied pyrethrum as suggested by the nursery where I purchased them - a farmer who specialises in stonefruit. Many dropped off and I feared the trees were dying - our first casualties. But today I see there are new green leaves coming on and the first blossoms now that our nights are cool. Let's hope today's 'tea' encourages more of the same!

The cherry guavas are still fruiting and we've found several yellow guava trees too. The aroma of this fruit is such a delight. Hopefully when there are more ripe fruit I can make some jam or jelly and preserve the sweetness to enjoy over the coming months. We have bucketloads of macadamia nuts, which is fantastic. They keep well so we're just collecting and peeling. We keep a basket of fresh nuts and the BONK handy for ourselves and our guests to enjoy. I bought this nutcracker from eBay Australia and it's the best tool for the toughest nuts around!

And so, the abundance continues and I am counting my blessings and enjoying the lessons and the harvest.

End of Summer Update

2008-03-02T05:42:00.000-08:00

This is part of my monthly ramble on my main blog site.

We have planted every single tree! All the trees we’d bought and had in the greenhouse are now in the ground. It started with the area behind the house. Then we finally planted out the noise/privacy barrier of natives and bushtucker trees along the driveway. Then the final 18 fruit trees went into Stage 2 of the orchard. That brings us to over eighty new food producing trees and about as many natives in the ground in our first year here. I’d hoped for one hundred trees in the orchard, but we just don’t have the time or money to meet that goal in the next 2.5 weeks. I’m sure we’ll get there soon, though, and perhaps we will aim for another eighty in our second year here?

We have done a lot of maintenance work on the orchard areas too - trimming, slashing, fixing up tree guards, applying dolomite to the trees and so on. A few are bearing their first fruit (a total of a dozen or so citrus fruits, for example), and many have at least doubled in size already.

The tree seeds I planted I’ve had mixed success with. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but we have Pigeon Pea, Albizia and Jakfruit taking off. Perhaps the rest of the seeds were not fresh, or will still germinate yet. If not, I will keep trying! Despite the mice, weather and other obstacles!

We now have over thirty chickens, including four mature roosters. Not really sure how to deal with them, as at least three have names and are considered ‘pets’. Last week we had 4 chicks hatch out of 11 eggs under 2 hens. Another hen was stealing and eating the eggs, 2 new chicks were walked upon or otherwise damaged and the other eggs were rejected or didn’t hatch.

Sweet Pea the pony has settled in well. She quite happily tolerates ‘Pony Rides’ and is easy to care for overall.

I’ve had to clear out the greenhouse a little with some tomato, squash, rosella and gooseberry plants being past their prime. Everything is growing prolifically and it’s like a jungle in there. Very difficult to get enough light and space for more delicate plants like lettuce and the asian green seedlings. It’s probably time to finish of the second greenhouse now and use that as my tidy garden. The best producing plants right now are the various beans - butter beans, dwarf French beans, winged beans and another type I don’t recall planting. Hmmmm. I presume it was one of my little helpers and think that when the pods come on I’ll find that they’re Purple King Beans - meant to climb but planted with nowhere to go…

We’re still enjoying loads of fresh macadamias, a few raspberries and plenty of cherry guavas. I love wild foods!

Seed Savers Meeting

2008-03-02T05:33:00.000-08:00

This weekend I attended my first local Seed Savers meeting. There were around 20 people there and it was so lovely to be surrounded by like-minded folk for the afternoon. The meeting opened with general business and planning for the year. Then we went around the circle and introduced ourselves and explained a bit about our place and what we'd been up to in the garden. And next was afternoon tea and sharing items. I took some lemongrass plants and 3 varieties of seeds to share, as we've not been here so long that I was able to take more than that. I was introduced to a huge variety of plants and given a whole lot of seedlings, cuttings, runners and even a couple of little fruit trees! I was so rapt and can't wait to get into the garden when the rain stops. I'm nurturing them all through the constant downpours until then and hope they all survive and flourish. I should have written down the names of the plants I received, to share them here. Instead I know them as 'the lettuce-type vine', 'another perennial spinach-type plant', etc. I am such a non-technical gardener... I will gather the names of the plants I know, though, and update the post soon.

Garden Update

2008-02-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

I updated last year's post listing what's growing in our gardens.

Orchard Update

2008-02-24T02:10:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote a post about our orchard. I've just updated it because we've planted so many trees lately. Check out the many varieties of food plants we've planted in the past 11 months on the farm! And that's outside the vegie patch!

Cherry Guava

2008-02-17T18:44:00.001-08:00

The bushfood for February seems to be the Cherry Guava. It's really quite lovely!

These attractive trees line the edges of the forest on a lot of our block. I think they're considered a pest, though. Sigh!

Seed Savers

2008-02-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

I'm rapt to have found a Seed Savers group nearby. I love to save my own seed and have quite a collection. It's fun to swap seeds too. The Seed Savers Handbook is really useful when learning how to process and store seeds. It also explains a lot of unusual food plants with great line drawings. For more info, see the Australian Seed Savers site.

GrowLocal

2008-02-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

I love this idea!

"Ever thought of bartering the food you grow with other people whom grow food within your area but couldn’t because you had no way of finding them? Ever pondered the possibility of establishing a system of localised food production that clusters numerous households into growing rings within your suburb but didn’t know where to start?"

Check out the GrowLocal website!

Pineapples and an Update

2008-01-14T00:22:00.000-08:00

And so it rains! Wow. Part of the greenhouse is under shadecloth, so that limits the rain which falls, but it's still soggy! And part is under plastic, which I need to water by hand. Very strange to do when it's pouring outside! It is great though as I can plant mildew-prone plants in the dry zone, and thirstier plants in the shade zone.

On the weekend I pruned and trimmed and pulled out a heap of herbs, weeds and spent plants in the garden. I used them right under the thick mulch in one of the garden beds, recycled on the spot! It is so tidy in there. I'll take another photo when it stops raining!

I planted at least a dozen types of seeds - leafy greens, beans, lettuce, sunflowers in the corners and more. I'm planting direct because rodents (or something) are still stealing from the seedling punnets. Direct-sown beans had much better results last week.

I also planted a pineapple patch. We dug the area, applied mulch and then lay chicken wire flat over the area. I cut holes in the chicken wire and planted the pineapple tops in the holes to grow. It's at the front of an area where I'll grow some native shrubs. The chicken wire is to keep the hens from scratching up the mulch and plants. I will probably add a little mulch on top of the wire when it settles, to make it more attractive only. It takes between one and two years for the pineapple plant to bear fruit. It will fruit again, with a smaller fruit the next year. Pineapple plants are simply the tops cut from pineapples. Peel back any skin or flesh which remains and the lowest couple of rows of leaves and plant in the ground. These pineapple tops had been laying in the garden for up to a few months. They just seem to lay there, waiting to be planted. I think they even grow more successfully when they've dried out a little.

The current harvest includes: cherry tomatoes, various lettuce, sweet potatoes, potatoes, herbs, cucumbers, button squash, eggplant, gooseberries, rosellas (for jam), capsicum (various types), passionfruit, macadamias, a few mulberries and plenty of eggs!

In the forest, we still have raspberries to enjoy, and we found another fruit called Woolly Pear (Misohocarpus lachnocarpus) which is another one our local tree kangaroos apparently enjoy. We also identified what we think is an Atherton Nut (Athertonia diversifolia) in the front yard, but will need to wait until it bears fruit to tell.

Overall, I'm having much more success in the garden up here than we did on the coast, where it was a constant battle through summer with the pests, rampant growth of weeds, fruit rotting, floods and more pests! I'm looking forward to having bigger and better harvests as we build up the gardens and learn about growing things in this climate.

How does your garden grow?

Mid-Summer Update

2008-01-04T16:52:00.000-08:00

This is part of my monthly news at my other blog.

The chicken flock continues to grow, with three orphan chicks arriving this month. I think they are bantams. Our black frizzy bantam was broody, so she is looking after them. Two of our young roosters started to crow, so we need to think about their future. We hope their sisters start to lay soon! I think we have 28 in the flock now, mostly young ones - so only 5-7 eggs a day so far.

Some plastic tore off the greenhouse during a storm a couple of weeks ago. It has been replaced with shade cloth now. Everything is flourishing in there, it’s wonderful!

The bushfood of the month is the Atherton Raspberry (Rubus fraxinifolius), which is yummy eaten fresh. I might even make some raspberry jam in January! Speaking of jam, I have a lot of rosellas awaiting processing, so had best get to those as well. I think next month’s bush food will be the Cherry Guavas…

Orchard Goals

2007-12-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

When we moved in I decided I'd like to plant 100 food-producing trees within the first year. Most of these are fruit trees, but some are nut trees and some for tea or other use - such as the Lemon Myrtle and Bay trees.

Well, last weekend we planted another lot of trees and passed the "50 Trees" milestone! Almost all of these trees have a tree guard (we make them from chicken wire) and stake to provide some protection from the wildlife, mower/tractor, and wind. A couple of the trees are big enough to not need a guard - the growth in these first few months has been amazing!

This is the early days first stage of the orchard, with the chook house,
a grazing horse, and farm machinery in our house paddock.
I will take an updated photo of this area soon.

We have about 20 trees close to the house - around the 2nd greenhouse (to be) and hen house, and alongside the horse paddock. These are mostly stone fruit, but also some citrus and a dwarf mulberry etc. The other 30 trees are up in a sloping paddock behind the house. We've made rows and planted them fairly evenly-spaced but mixed the varieties a lot in order to attempt to trick wildlife and fruit flies and disease in the future. Now, as we walk through the very wide areas between each tree we imagine them growing up and out so their branches are almost touching and a canopy is created. We imagine the food forest to be...

We have a couple of mature fruit trees near the house. More bushtucker and other wild species grow on the edge of the forest (within view of the house). Also, 37 mature macadamias which were planted about 20 years ago. There were an estimated 50, but Cyclone Larry in 2006 knocked down or damaged many.

I was speaking with a friend about my goal, and the fact I'm only half way there with only 4 months to complete the task... He encouraged me to get the other 50 trees and put them in the ground as a priority. And asked, "Why don't you do it every year? Why stop at 100 trees?" Hmmm, there's a point!

I have a wish-list of fruit trees, and just need to find them, and fit it into the budget over the coming months. Some of the trees I'd like are:
- different varieties of avocado
- mid and late season oranges
- persimmon
- pomegranate
- tamarillo
- custard apple (and/or similar - rollinia, sour sop)
- white sapote (we have black and green)
- more bananas (varieties and clumps)

Any suggestions? We're about 750m above sea level in north Queensland. We have red volcanic soil and high rainfall. I mound up trees which prefer good drainage. We have fairly reasonable summers - wet and temperatures in the 20s. We have cool, drizzly winters with occasional frosts.

Summer Update

2007-12-01T02:14:00.000-08:00

Taken in part from my monthly update on belindamoore.com.

The greenhouses are happening! The first one is 99% complete. It just needs a little reinforcing so it’ll last longer through wind and storms. There are new raised beds in there, a hanging basket of strawberries, dozens of new plants, paths of sawdust (the other mulch was breaking down too quickly) and a new-and-improved door! I am so happy with it, and it just feels productive already!

I am still adding to the fruit tree collection, and they’re still nestled in a corner of the greenhouse. With the regular rain we’ve been having, I think we might plant them out this weekend, and hope for a wet December. Lemonade, Meyer Lemon and a Bay Tree were my most recent purchases.

I’ve been busily spotting wild foods in the forest this past month. The latest and tastiest is the Millaa Vine (Elaeagnus triflora). It has small glossy leaves and red oval-shaped berries like a large lillypilly. We have lillypillies too, but they're really sour. There are various types of guavas in the forest, it's probably nearing time to go hunting for some to eat! And the raspberries are flowering, so maybe we will get some. Enough to make some berry jam would be a bonus!

Will take photos of all the progress one fine day!

Seeds for Kids

2007-11-30T03:34:00.000-08:00

Some of you have been asking about our seed packs, which used to be available through this site and on eBay. For a limited time, we have stock of the ‘Kids in the Garden’ packs available through Spiral Garden.

Greenhouse Update

2007-10-25T04:29:00.000-07:00

Everything is flourishing in the greenhouse. I spread mulch all through the non-planted areas the other weekend, and moved two more raised beds into place. I'm currently filling the raised beds with whatever I can get away with so I don't have to cart toooo much soil by wheelbarrow! I have been harvesting for salads, snacks and stirfries - which is the best part of having a garden I think. Oh, next to the surplus that makes for a nice big cook-up or jam-making session.

I have been having issues with seedlings. I have some little visitors who come in the night and dig up my seeds for a snack. Or nibble the fresh seedling sprouts. Or pull the things out of their punnets! I think the cat is going to get the sack if he doesn't hurry up and get to work in the greenhouse!

This is yam, tomato, comfrey, sweet potato and maybe the tip of a yacon leaf
- all rambing on the greenhouse floor.

Fact Sheets and Online Gardening Info

2007-10-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

There is some fantastic info online for gardeners. I often do a quick Google if the computer's on, rather than hunting down the right page in a gardening book. Books are fantastic resources and I love to sit and browse and absorb all the info. I use the computer more for quick research tasks though.

Here are some fact sheets I've found useful -

Bulleen Art & Garden Fact Sheets

Burke's Backyard Gardening Fact Sheets

Gardening Australia's Fact Sheets

Introduction to Permaculture - 155 page pdf file

Other places to search for info are your local council's website, nursery websites within your state, local tree-planting/revegetation groups, the Department of Environment, and sites for other gardening TV shows and publications such as Earth Garden.

Fact sheets make a useful addition to a gift of potted plants or seeds. Print out appropriate fact sheet and include with the gift if the recipient is likely to need some info to keep their growing gift alive.

Another source of info is online forums. I've found some great friends and answers at sites like -

Aussies Living Simply

Permaculture Research Institute

There are more forums attached to the gardening TV and magazine websites, as well as more specific ones to do with chooks, bushtucker, natives, roses, etc. Happy networking!

Mid-Spring Update

2007-09-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

I write a monthly News post on my other blog. This post is cut and pasted from there.

Forest child.

The greenhouses are at the same stage as they were last month, I think! The plants are flourishing though, and I have the materials here to build more raised beds now. And mountains of mulch and manure too. Only a gardener knows the thrill of having an abundance of manure to play with! We are eating food from the garden - bok choy, salad greens and herbs mostly. It’s so lovely to rush out and pick them fresh at tea time!

There are two fruit on one baby nectarine tree. They’ve only been in the ground a few months, so I was rapt to see them blossom at the start of spring and fruit is just a bonus! I wasn’t expecting any fruit for a year or three…

Our hens we raised from chicks are now laying. The bantam hatched just one of her three eggs - the cutest little white chick! We bought her four more hybrid chicks which she happily adopted and is mothering beautifully. Bantams are such natural mothers. We also bought another four chicks on a whim at the feed store. They’re not even sexed and of unknown breed, so it’ll be interesting to see how they grow. They’re five weeks old now and doing well on their own with the flock. They don’t venture far and stick together, which is a good idea around here. We were just given three new hens by friends when we went to collect a spare rooster from them. We’re still waiting for the rooster whom no one could find. The reason we’re getting a new rooster is that early last month something (feral dogs, dingoes?) took our frizzy bantam rooster, our red rooster and one of our hybrid hens. We were so sad to lose three birds in one night. The next day we lost a frizzy bantam who was egg-bound. More sadness - farming isn’t easy on the heart! Our friends gave us a replacement rooster who settled in nicely. He was becoming quite tame and was wonderfully protective of the girls (hens). He didn’t sleep in the pen, though, preferring to roost in a nearby tree. We missed his crow one morning, and found a few tail feathers in the middle of the house paddock later that day. We presume he met the same fate as the three birds who disappeared a few weeks ago. Let’s hope our newest rooster (when we get him) will choose the safety of being locked up at night.

Mrs Blackie and her little white chick.

The horses are still skinny (especially the mare, Amber), even after unlimited grazing and supplementary feed and minerals every day. I hope that they pick up condition soon, though with such old horses it’s a common problem that they suffer during the cold and are slow to gain weight, are prone to scour etc. I’ll keep trying various remedies and keeping a close eye on them, though. They’re teaching me a lot about horses in the very least! I’m currently looking for a younger horse whom I can ride, whilst nurturing these two as best I can.

Amber our retired old horse

We have had two male peacocks walking about the horse feeding area, drinking from the trough and checking out the chook pen. They look beautiful but have an awful call and are renowned for making an awful mess of mulched areas. I’ve no idea where they came from, they just walked out of the forest and made themselves at home. They retreat to the forest each evening. Scrub turkeys are our other visiting big birds. They like to finish off the horse feed as well, and wander about looking for scraps to eat. I hope we don’t get too many, as they also make a mess of the gardens and eat eggs from chickens if they can.

We’ve had a lot of earthworks happening here, which is why the greenhouse-building has been on the back-burner again. A lot of cyclone debris has been cleared away now, as well as lantana, rampant mock ginger and other messes. Roads have been cleared and a pad has been cut into the hillside for a new shed. The big new water tank is in place and connected to the system which gravity feeds the house. It has made a difference to the water pressure and more than doubled our storage.

Some areas are looking very bare after the debris was scraped away. I’m waiting on some mulch delivery (more mulch!) and when the rain comes I’ll start planting some more trees - a mixture of natives, bushtucker and fruit trees. Carting water to trees is tiring work which I’d rather avoid.

The red tractor.

Greenhouses

2007-09-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

We're building greenhouses to grow our vegies and tree seedlings in. We will grow mostly in raised beds, with some plants around the beds to make use of all the space within the greenhouses.

The first greenhouse we've built over two recycled halves of an old rainwater tank which were here when we bought the farm. I transplanted the ornamental plants out of those and onto a terrace outside my sewing room to improve the view there.

The greenhouses were made by placing halves of star pickets into the ground, and bending lengths of poly pipe from side to side to form arches. Poles were erected at each end and in the centre, and a length of timber runs along the centre top of the tunnel to hold the arches into place. Lengths of various materials (hat section steel battens and some timber) were then attached parallel to the top beam, providing framework for the shadecloth and plastic to attach to.

We decided upon shadecloth at each end and one strip in the middle for ventilation. All-plastic can lead to some problems with mildew on plants. The majority of the tunnel is plastic because we live in a high-rainfall area. It will also help maintain temperatures and humidity on those days where the weather varies.

I'm currently watering the plants by hand with a hose. Water is either rainwater or creek water and is gravity fed from a tank on the hill behind the greenhouse.

The greenhouse in these pictures is close to the house and sheds. There is another, larger greenhouse on the other side of the house amongst stage 1 of the orchard and the chook house (which is also a poly-tunnel like this but uses different materials). That greenhouse will be for larger crops - corn, pumpkin, cucumbers and anything which rambles or likes to spread out or up. In this first greenhouse I will grow mainly herbs, salad greens, other greens, peas and beans, some tomatoes etc. I will post an update when as the greenhouses are finished.

Here are two of our helpers!

WWOOF

2007-09-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of WWOOF?

We had our first wwoofers here last month. And we were their first wwoof hosts! We have a few friends who are wwoof hosts and decided to join up ourselves.
Some of the tasks our first wwoofers completed included:

Sanded and stained the timber handles of the big garden tools
Weeded and mulched the lily garden
Planted new fruit trees
Made eight tree guards and ‘guarded’ the new fruit trees
Planted fruit and nut tree seeds into tubes
Planted vegetable seeds into seedling punnets
Set these up with clear plastic over them to protect from any frosts
Cleaned up the sheds and helped move stuff from one shed to another
Moved and stacked firewood
Cleared cyclone debris from under trees into a pile for burning
Picked fruit (locally)
Juiced fruit
Helped with meal prep and clean up
Entertained the kids (a LOT)
Fed and watered the animals
Chopped at big weeds with a machete

In turn, they were supplied with accommodation - single beds in a caravan beside the house with TV/DVD etc, three good meals and unlimited snacks, tea etc each day, pickup from a nearby town and drop off to another town at their next wwoof hosts, use of internet, laundry and other facilities, brief trips to town every couple of days. They said it was really luxurious here compared to the camping and backpacking they’ve been doing for awhile now.

I was really impressed with our first wwoof experience.

Wildlife!

2007-09-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

As well as the plants and animals we've brought to the farm, I am fascinated by local species.

We’ve been blessed to see some unusual wildlife close to our home. Last month we saw a tree kangaroo. We’ve never seen one before, not even in captivity, so it was such a treat to have one amongst the trees just metres from our front door.

Not long before that we were driving along our road and close to our front gate we saw an echidna digging a hole in the cutting on the side of the road. Perhaps it was digging for food?

When we took our wwoofers down to see the creek at our back boundary, two of the resident platypuses were sitting on a rock in the middle of the water.

Gardening with Kids

2007-09-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, encouraging families to grow plants with their children, especially food plants, is a passion of mine.

Seed Savers has just published a 90-age book, Seed to Seed Food Gardens in Schools.

Click on the title to download. Enjoy!

What's in the Orchard?

2007-09-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

This is a list of what is growing in our mixed orchard and forest so far… Some trees were existing, a couple were gifts and a lot have been purchased. I’ve included the bush tucker species I’ve identified so far as well. I am also propagating seeds of edible tree plants, in the hope that next spring (or the one after perhaps?) I will be able to plant some of those.

Apple (Tropical) Dwarf

Atherton Nut

Avocado (2 varieties, 1 mature, 1 new)

Bamboo (7 varieities, all clumping, 1 known edible)

Banana - Ladyfinger and Cavendish (multiple)

Bay Tree

Black Sapote

Black Wattle (in forest)

Boysenberries

Brazilian Cherry

Calamondin variegated

Carambola