Natural Sequence Farming Contours

We told ourselves that we wouldn't make any changes to the property until we'd lived on Serenity for 12 months. Well, we didn't quite make it! We've had trouble with ticks and flies since we've been here and think that the paddock and water placement has been partly to blame. For example there's 20 paddocks or more on the place but only a few of them have troughs. Most have laneway access to a dam, which means we can't get enough rest and therefore aren't able to break the tick cycle if the cattle are always watering on a dam. 

Another problem we've had is the extreme rain events early in the year have created a lot of erosion around the dams and one dam in particular is likely to blow out. We needed to do some earth works on this and on the property in general to hopefully prevent this. 

These photos top and bottom are two different dams.  The bottom one, we'll do more work with if it survives the wet season this year. We did a bit, but I haven't taken photos of it.

In 2020 we did a Natural Sequence Farming workshop with Stuart Andrews and we have finally put this in to practice at Serenity. We had a little play with the concept out at Cherhill last year, but this time, we've had Stuart bring is machines and put the contours in for us. He's also done some remediation around the dams. 

This contour is coming off the dam and going across where it would normally bywash. It was then taken out through the boundary fence and continued on the neighbours place. Picture below shows this contour on the neighbours side.

At this stage we have one large contour that goes almost the length of the property - about 1.5km. This contour has been fenced off, which means that we have a lot more paddocks. We have also put in a water pipe-line and will eventually get a tank and then troughs put in so that we don't need to use the dams. Because the contours are fenced to prevent stock damaging them while they are so new, it's a perfect opportunity to plant trees. The property has been over-cleared in some paddocks, so it will be good to get more trees going. We will plant a mix of trees - fruits, both exotic and native, timber trees, nut trees, livestock fodder trees and also some natives to encourage the wildlife. 

One section of the contour. It's really hard to get a photo of the entire contour! We need to get a drone in and take a video.

We're even recycling fence posts. You can see the top and bottom fence and this will have gateways as there is also a sill where the water can off load - we can also drive across this area when it's dry. A sill is a ground level area without a bank. The contour is completely level and so the water spreads out along it. In very heavy rain, it will gently overflow the contour and spill out in these areas. Sills are usually put on ridges.

Three wires - one for pigs, one for cows and three hopefully will keep in the sheep and goats.

Our very good friend Mick, who used to work with us on the pig farm, has generously offered his time to help us establish trees and also a small syntropic plot. Mick is incredibly knowledgable about trees and is very keen to use this as a case study for future jobs etc.  

Sophie, Mick's partner who is also helping, planted a few packets of seeds, which included a lot of pumpkin seeds. These are planted on the actual contour as they are currently bare of grass and so the plants will help protect the bank until pasture grows. We've planted so many pumpkins that we may even make some money out of them!!! 

We hired a rotary hoe to prepare the ground below the contour for planting. You can utilise the moisture better with plants below the contour as there is a natural irrigation action that happens with the water being slowed down and held in the contour for a few days - it then seeps through the bank and into the soil below.

This exert is out of Mick's very thorough Plan:

This is just the beginning of what will be a very exciting long term project. I'll write more about it as we go along. 

Spring is sprung

My garden is starting to look pretty good and as the weather warms up and more importantly the soil, some plants are growing well - others not so well.  

I recently attended a syntropic course and was blown away by the possibilities for this kind of farming. I can especially see how it would be great in a broad acre sense or for market gardens, but I'll talk more on that another time. We'll be putting our own small plot in soon (hopefully with help from a friend) so I'll share what we do then and will talk more about syntropics later on too.

This post is more of an update on my garden and includes a few ideas I took away from the course. One of the main takeaways, was that it's okay to take a plant out if it's impacting on another plant and it's the other plant that you have a preference for. Plants especially don't like senescence, so if theres a senescent plant, it may stunt the growth of a nearby plant. 

I went through my veggie garden and mulched/weeded with a knife. This is an amazingly quick and easy way to do it. I usually pull weeds out, but they always come back and it also leaves bare ground.  Soil does not like to be left bare! The weeds may come back with this method too, but I'll do the same again and eventually there will be a heavy load of mulch that they can't get through as easily (which is another principle of syntropic ag, actually the most important thing is mulch and the second is mulch and the third is mulch!)

No fancy knife, just a regular serrated edge kitchen knife does the job.

Senescence is when a plant is starting to die or go to seed - basically ending it's lifecycle. I have always had the attitude that if a plants wants to grow, I'll leave it and if it goes to seed, well I'll leave it then too. Do I need 20 pak choy or 10 lettuces going to seed, or will one of each do? Yes one of each is all I need to leave! And instead of pulling out and composting (which means pulling and then walking to the compost bin), I just used my knife and left it in the garden. So liberating!!

Pak choy before mulching, even though the flowers are pretty and attracting bees, we don't need all of them. And they were affecting the growth of the nearby plants.

Pak choy after mulching. Much better to see the ground covered than bare.

I have great big continental parsley plants which I only ever use a bit of, so I cut them right back and mulched them, same with the lettuces that haven't gone to seed yet, but were starting to taste bitter. I have plenty of new ones coming on that will only go to seed if I don't eat them, now that the weather is warming up!

Parsley gets a hair cut.

My three sisters are just beginning. I've trialled a couple of different methods. 

Using seedlings - I planted some zucchini's at one end, then alternate rows of corn and dwarf beans.

Seedling trial - 3 sisters

A trombochini seedling in the middle (as I'm guessing that it will creep along like a pumpkin, although I have no idea as I've never grown them) Then I planted a climbing bean seed and a corn seed together- maybe a few cm apart at most. 

Bean and corn seedlings just coming out of the ground.

We'll see how they go and if you follow me on instagram (@healthyfarminghealthyfood) I'll post updates there.

Also in the garden and currently being eaten - perennial spinach and normal spinach (which look the same). I have a couple of varieties of kale - one lot I planted too close and they haven't been doing very well, so I actually pulled some out (thanks to my new syntropic knowledge, that it's okay to take plants out if that will benefit another plant!) I didn't mulch these, I took them to the kitchen.

Garlic is nearly ready to harvest. I've been eating the small ones as I've run out of last season garlic.

Out of the many varieties of brassicas that I planted, only the savoy cabbages (apart from the kale) look like they may actually grow properly. Some of this is because birds keep eating them - they especially like the purple varieties! I haven't cut the others out yet, I'm waiting until I have the time to turn them into some form of kraut. 

I'm starting to get enough spring onions growing but will still plant more. I have a fair bit of celery which I just cut stems and use as needed. It doesn't get a chance to grow very big, but cutting it small will hopefully mean that it'll last a couple of years. One lot of eggplant are flowering and fruiting and the other lot are abit slow. Both these are from last season. I lost one plant which I think was due to the excessive wet rather than the cold. 

Potatoes - we have planted another couple of patches and they're all starting to come up. Apparently we can grow them a couple of times a year. I know last year I planted some over summer and they did alright. I did okay with the last lot just harvested - 20kg's out of 5kg's planted.

I've got lots of new seedlings planted and if I can keep the birds from eating them I'll be a happy lady - cucumbers, zucchinis, mizuna, lettuce, pak choy, beetroot. Also lots of different patches of carrots.

Seeds planted in pots - asparagus - they are very cute when they start as seeds, basil, capsicum, chillies (I hope I get some to come up!), star fruit, melons, pumpkin and cucumbers.

Now I just need to get some more mulch into the hill area above my my main garden bed and below the fruit trees, where I plan to plant pumpkin, melons and cucumbers that will be ready to plant out next month. Also root planting time coming up soon, so the plan is to plant more carrots, beetroot, kipfler potatoes and radishes. I've also started some sweet potato cuttings, and will have a go at planting some arrowroot seeds. 

What's happening in your gardens?

Winter garden update

Well, it's a miserable, cold and blowy day outside today, so I thought I'd do a quick walk around the garden to take some photos. It's much more pleasant looking at garden photos inside the house than actually doing some work in the garden! I've been very lethargic of late and haven't really been very inspired for a while now. Covid taking me out for a couple of weeks has not helped, but I'm on the mend now and really need to get my mojo back. 

Kim and I dug up one section of the turmeric bed and I think the rest may end up staying in the ground! We got so much turmeric. I processed 600g into some fermented turmeric paste, and then I don't know how many kgs have gone into the dehydrator. I'll weigh the final powder product. This turmeric seems less yellow than stuff I've grown in the past - perhaps a different variety? I also wonder if the previous owners have ever dug it up, as there was a massive clump. I will offer the remainder to anyone in the permaculture group to come and get some if they want.

My Bean Teepee. Kim made this for me the other day. I've planted a third each of Good Mother Bean, 7 year bean (thanks to Ruth for these) and Scarlet runner beans from Sophie. 

Kale at the front and some walking onions at the back.

Garlic, lettuce, cabbages, spinach, marigolds, red onions. 

Potatoes. These are growing really well, I just hope that they are as productive under the hay as they are above the hay. Garlic growing alongside the potato patch.

Tatsoy in the foreground and some spinach behind it. Further along, you may see my baby leeks near the tap. 

I had a go at planting some chickpeas. They have not grown very well. Not sure why, but maybe there's been too much rain.

The pumpkin patch keeps going. This came up by itself soon after we came here. We're currently eating some of the produce from it and there's more growing. 

Beans at the back and weeds at the front. The beans have not done very well, once again, maybe too wet!

Daikon. I planted these on the area where the pigs had been. They've grown really well and we've been eating a few. I put them in stews, stirfry's, salads and I've also recently pickled some. I did a vinegar pickle, but will ferment some also.

Shallots on the left, celery behind and perennial spinach on the right. We just pick these as we need them.

Warrigal greens, with lettuce going to seed behind. These lettuce had resown previously, so they'll just keep on coming on. Red cabbage seedling at the front. I bought some cabbage seedlings as none of my seeds struck. They haven't done terribly well. I got a good strike with cauliflower and brocoli seeds, but they have not done so well once planted out. Some rodent has mostly eaten them off.

Tomatoes that I have intentionally planted have not done so well, but this one above is a huge cherry tomato that has been growing through one of the grapefruit trees. The photos below are also self seeded and I'm yet to discover if they are yellow or red ones.

So that's some of my garden in pictures. I didn't take photos of the  citrus trees that have been producing the most amazing citrus. We have one tree of oranges left (two have finished), still have 3 grapefruit producing (why would anyone need 3 grapefruit??). A lemon tree is loaded and we're still picking the odd lime. The fig trees are getting leaves again. One banana has formed another bunch. The pecan trees have defoliated. My strawberries are struggling. Sweet potatoes are spreading throughout the orchard. I have a small avo tree, a chocolate pudding fruit, pawpaws, passionfruit vines and so much potential food! 

Cassava

Anyone that is into permaculture and lives in the tropics, will have heard of cassava. It's a well known addition to a food forest and is used for it's edible tuber and to chop and drop. When I used to do the markets in Rocky, Frankie next door to my stall, used to sell it and I'd often be given some to take home, but by the time I got around doing anything with it, it was a bit dried out and to be honest I didn't think it was worth the bother. However, recently we visited a friend in Monteville and had a tour of her food forest. She urged me to take some, so Maitland pulled up a heap of roots. We ate some that night cooked like mashed potato. I didn't peel it properly as it was very fresh and soft. That was a mistake, as the outer bark remained quite fibrous and didn't mash very well, but otherwise definitely a good substitute for mashed potato. I decided to make some flour out of the rest of the roots, so this time I googled a how to video.

Peeling the root - just cut into it with a knife and the outer layer comes off quite easily. I didn't actually weigh the amount I started with, which would've been useful information.

After washing all the root pieces, they are chopped small to enable processing in the thermomix (or blender or food processor). Water is added to the processor first and then blitzed to quite a fine dice - almost paste like. You can't add too much water - it comes out at the end anyway. You can also grate it by hand on a fine grater, but that sounds like way to much effort for me.

 

I followed the video and did the first strain through a sieve, but next time I would just strain the whole lot through cheese cloth a little at a time, giving it a good squeeze. You keep this cassava to cook with later on. 

I made bammy with this strained cassava. I made little ones, as I had trouble getting them to stick together. 

Take note of this bowl of liquid above, as this is what it looks like straight after straining.

Bammy is twice cooked. I'm assuming that this is so that they stay together better. Then, when you soak them in the coconut milk for the next frying, they don't fall apart. 

I really liked the bammy, which we had with a Jamaican Goat curry, but I also think they'd work as a dessert with some honey drizzled over them.

Now, back to the tapioca flour, because that's what it's called once it becomes flour. The bowl of white liquid, once it sits for an hour or two, settles out. You end up with some dirty looking water sitting on top of a solid layer of wet starch. If you've mixed tapioca flour with water to thicken something and not put enough water in, you'll know what this white layer is like. It's really thick! (I forgot to take a photo before I poured off the water, which incidentally was very easy to do). The bowl was full, so you can see how much starch you get from all that cassava!

I dried the cassava paste in a 100 degree oven.

After it was dry, I gave it a whizz in the thermomix to make it all fine and fluffy and then I did use a sifter to make sure there were no lumpy bits. The final product was 205g of tapioca flour.

We have one very small cassava tree growing already, but I took some cuttings to propagate some more. I would like to have access to a lot of this food source. It's very high in starch, but I do wonder if once you take the flour/starch out, whether the resulting fibre is just fibre. Fibre is good for the gut. Cassava is also a resistant starch so easier to digest than some starches. I'd like to play around with the pulp and maybe make some different flatbreads, maybe by adding eggs and seeing if I can make them rollable. One thing is for sure, it's easier to make tapioca flour from scratch than wheat flour (growing and harvesting wheat is very difficult on a small scale) It'd be nice to have a good easy bread substitute that we could grow here.

I've done some cuttings (3) straight into the pot and the other 5 pots have a horizontal piece under the soil. I've grown them like this in the ground before - we'll see which one works best. If you've got any recipe or other ideas for cassava, please comment below.

Biodynamics

We have dabbled with biodynamics for many years. For a while at Anabank, we were involved in some carbon trials with other land managers, where we were measuring the amount of carbon that we were building using various methods. It was some time ago, and I can't remember how many people involved, but we were doing biodynamic spraying and another bloke was making and spraying compost tea. We were both cell grazing. It didn't continue long enough to see how much carbon we were building, but I do remember that we tested the spray liquid - ours was BD500 and his was compost tea. The BD500 had better biology than the compost tea. So for those of you that think Biodynamics is just woo woo stuff, it's not. It is grounded in science (and astrology or, is that astronomy).

If you want to read a lot more than I know about Biodynamics, please check out these two sites. This is an American site and this on is an Australian site and the one I am a member of.

The way I understand it, is that it's based around preparations (preps) that are made through a composting process and are a bit like homeopathic, you don't need a lot of them to do a job.  For example BD500 is a prep that is mixed at the rate of about a handful in a bucket of water and then sprayed or splashed by flicking out droplets over your entire garden. It's the essence of a fertiliser, rather than a fertiliser spray.

We have recently put down two different preps. BD500 and Cowpat Pit (CPP). CPP can be done any time of year, however BD500 is done over the winter, so is usually put down around Easter and lifted in early Spring. The CPP takes about 3 months, but will depend on the temperature and conditions at the time. It's easy to keep an eye on as it's only in a box with a bag and tin cover. The horns are buried, so we hope for the best with them.

BD500 is just cow manure, stuffed into cow horns. The cow manure should be from lactating biodynamic managed cows. The horns should also be from females, but ours are a mixture. The manure is from lactating cows, but we haven't been managing them biodynamicaly.

Manure collected from my milking cows. Four cows produce a lot of poo. The horns we got from the Biggenden abattoir. Back in the day when we were regularly going there, we asked them to keep some. It cost us a carton of beer. We did lose some horns because the dogs found them once and chewed a few up.

Me (Lucy) filling the horns. Gloves are optional......

Kim placing the horns in the ground. He dug the pit with the tractor first. We read in a book by Peter Proctor, to "plant" the horns and to have soil around them. When we've helped in the past, the horns were just piled in, but we thought we'd do it this way.

You need to back fill with soil. We put the bag down to hopefully make it easier when it comes time to retrieve the horns.

We had space in the hole and still had manure left so we thought we'd make some CPP. We went down to the shed where Edmund was building a dog cage, and asked him for some timber so that we could frame up for a box to contain the CPP. He quickly put together what we required. I love seeing a craftsman in action! 

Back up the hill to the garden and the box was a little big for the space left. I also love seeing a man on the end of a shovel. Men can handle a shovel so much better than a woman!

The box doesn't have a base, as it needs to connect to the earth.

Mixing the CPP. Manure, 200g crushed eggshells, 400g basalt rock and we also added about 200g seaweed as I reckon that would go well.

I had previously bought the preps, as I had intended to make some of this when we first moved here. 

The 5 compost preps are put in holes and then a liquid prep is added - first in the two bigger holes and then sprinkled around the whole area. 

The area around the BD preparations need to be kept moist, like a garden. We've covered the horns with hay to help insulate them and we'll keep it watered and will keep an eye on the CPP to make sure the bag covering the manure stays moist.

I have done several intro to Biodynamic courses and read some books but am a long way from being very knowledgable about it. It's one of those things that you just need to start doing and learn along the way. If you would like to know more, please click on the links I gave above or just google it and then you can spend hours down the rabbit hole of the the www.

I look forward to writing more about it once we dig it up and start using it. Although, I do have a kg of purchased BD to use yet - I bought a mix of BD500 and CPP - it's called Combine Soil Preparation. And we also need to look at purchasing a flow form or stirring machine when we go to put it out. More on that when we get one.