I want to grow my own food, preserve it, cook it, eat it, share it.........I want to do it all. I just can't! I have always loved blogging as I find it a way to share what I do with other people, and perhaps show people that it's possible to grow some food and cook from scratch. I also want to share what I know about how to farm regeneratively and in a way that grows healthy food for animals and people. There are not enough hours in the day. OR maybe I'm not young and have boundless energy anymore!!
I thought for this blog, I'll just do an update of what's in my garden and briefly what's happening with the farm and animals.
The goats and sheep were becoming problematic moving with the cows as we started getting very low on feed and they decided that they wouldn't stay in the fences any longer. We got rid of a lot (put in freezer or moved on to greener pastures) and now we rotate them in electric fencing again.
We have pigs again and we move them around in electric fencing! We put them in the syntropic row - they're only little, they won't cause much damage. We'll be moving them very soon to another spot! We'll run them above the contour so that the fertility will wash into the contour and spread down the hill.
The ngunis are going well, quite a few calves on the ground now. They are so pretty!
I'm also milking most days and making either cream or cheese. I've now got 3 cows, although two have had problems with mastitis so aren't 4 titters. But I'm getting 20+ litres so plenty of milk still.
We have baby chickens - 6 out of 14 hatched, so not a good result. And we have another chook sitting on eggs. On top of that we have 14 roosters fatting up in our bottom garden/food forest. These roosters we were given, so we didn't even have to breed them ourselves!
The garden is going so well.....well, it's got a lot of diversity! Maitland installed a sprinkler system, which has made life so much easier over this dry spell we've been having. I have a lot going on and we eat something out of the garden at each meal. We've been overflowing with citrus and are now on our last orange tree (out of 3). Grapefruits are still going. Lemons and limes are all but finished, although plenty of bush lemons still out in the paddocks.
I planted the seeds from our asparagus and have planted them out. This is the second time I've done it. I won't be able to eat them for a few years, but then we'll have asparagus for the next 20 years!!
We keep throwing avocado seeds into the food forest. Here's two fairly close together - there's quite a few that have come up.
A bunch of bananas on our Cherhill Bananas. We brought these with us when we came - not quite two years ago.
Very happy with the size of this carrot. I plant carrot seeds in any spare spot in the main garden bed, so we always have a carrot or two to pull out. Not always this big though!
This is a celery that has has re-grown from last season. The celery has self seeded, but this one is growing out of the old stump - might be a bit hard to see in the photo. But I was impressed!
I finally have eggplants fruiting. I planted them before winter and they struggled along until now.
Warrigal greens self sown from last year.
Strawberries! I got a bucket full of strawberry runners from a permie friend and planted them every where in the food forest as well as some on the edge of my main garden. We've been eating a few every day. You'd have to grow alot to have enough for jam!!!!
We bought a rotary hoe and have made some new garden beds on the flat area. I've already planted tomatoes on the furthest one and these two closer ones will be eggplants and zucchinis.
I've been making my own seedling pots out of arrowroot or banana leaves and recycling toilet rolls. I'm very happy with how the plant material ones are going. I use old black plastic trays as a holder for them.
Cavolo nero is the kale that keeps on giving! Most Kale does keep growing well, but this is my favourite one.
Lettuce in the front with some spring onions, but at the back are my proper onions that haven't bulbed up.....maybe I need to weed them again.
More lettuce this time all self seeded alongside the self seeded parsley.
Orange tree in the background and jungle in the foreground.
Parsnip!!! I've got a nice little patch of them!
We've been feeding the goats branches of trees to supplement because of the lack of good grass, so I collect the branches and chip them. That's the pile on the left. The pile on the right are cassava cuttings from the big cassava processing I did recently with the help from some friends from the permaculture group. I've started chipping but it seems to take a while and I only have spare bits of time!
What are you up to in your part of the world? Is it dry? We've had a few storms go around us (one we got!) and it's been a very dry year so far. Lets hope we get some good rain soon.....
Thanks for taking the time to read to the bottom of this post.......much love, Lucy
