Odds and Ends

Sam enjoys mowing the lawn when he gets to use the ride-on. Him and Will had an
argument over who got to mow the lawn today.
I have moved the chooks and am letting them dig up a new bed for my strawberry plants. They had been out all morning but they decided that my pot plants were the only things in an acre of yard that they could find to eat.

Will not happy that Sam is getting to do the mowing. I did offer the use of the push mower but apparently that wasn't a good suggestion.

Raymond has been building things in his shed.

Roma

We woke all the kids up at Toms house so we could take a photo, they look very happy.
Kate is not pleased because she hasn't had a shower yet and refused to use Tom's bathroom.

Watermelon

A few of the ones we have picked so far. The middle one is an heirloom variety, the two outside ones are from seeds Will and Sam spat of the back porch.

Before and After

I found these pictures which were taken shortly after we first moved in so about 18 months ago. I'm not so sure the after photo from out the front looks better because the mulch looks nice, but it does show that the plants have grown a lot.

My Mandala Garden

I have been really obsessed with the idea of a Mandala garden which basically is a round garden a bit like a wagon wheel. Apparently this is a common permaculture design. I am trying the no dig method so have been gathering up horse manure, sugar cane mulch and card board to make a bit of a mulch sandwich.
As you can see from the photo I haven't finished the garden yet, I have run out of mulch and manure so will have to get that before I complete the segments.
Because the garden is on a bit of a slope and should really be on a flat area I gathered some rocks to create a bit of a barrier, maybe eventually I will edge the garden properly with pavers or something. I'm not sure quite what to cover the pathways in, will have to give that some thought and am also not decided on what to plant in the gardens either. I'm not in a great hurry with this as I think it will need to be left until next spring to make sure it is broken down properly for planting.
The little circle in the middle is supposed to be a pond however the cane toads would just use it for laying eggs. I did a bit of research and cane toads cant climb so I think I might put a large pot there and grow water chestnuts in it.
The manderine tree was already growing where I wanted the garden to be so I decided to just incorperate it as well. This might prove to be a problem, but we will see.

My Mandala Garden

My garden after rain

Worm Farm

Raymond got these stackable containers for me to make my worm farm. We attached some fly mesh to the handle area to keep the flies out and the worms in and drilled some drainage holes in the bottom.
We also got a plastic tub and attached a tap so that I could collect the worm 'tea' for the garden.


I ended up doing some research on worms before getting any and apparently the most common compost worms, tiger and reds, are not really the best to use in warmer climates, though they will survive just not eat as much or breed as much. So instead I got a mixture of five worms that contain the African Night Crawler, Indian Blue and The Gardeners Friend Worm as well as the red and tiger worm. The other worms function better in hot conditions and grow much bigger so they tend to consume more food.
I also got 1000 worm capsules which apparently produce around 5 baby worms on average each. We were very excited to see them hatch and now have heaps of babies. They will take a couple of months to reach maturity but it is pretty interesting to watch and a cheaper way to increase the number of worms fairly quickly.

Plants

This is my fruit salad tree. It's a varigated variety and I spent ages trying to find one so was pretty pleased to get it. It was posted to me so it looks a bit rugged, but it has new shoots growing so hopefully it will take off (as long as the chooks don't get to it first).

This is a Brazillian Cherry tree. I have planted three of them along the fence to offer a bit of privacy eventually. They should grow into small trees.
The arrowroot that Justin gave me has gone mad. It is such an great plant. This is one clump of it, there are two more, but we haven't dug any up yet I am just waiting to grow a few more first. Whenever I go outside I let the chooks out which they love, they follow me around the garden like little dogs, and make me trip over all the time. I only let them out when I'm outside because the neighbours dog can get through the fence and I don't want to risk the chooks getting hurt. The other day I was busy weeding and forgot the chooks were out and herd a whole lot of noise and clucking comming from the chooks, when I looked up the dog had come through the fence and was busy trying to catch the chickens. It was sort of funny because they both ran flat out straight for me and stood behing me for protection. After I got chased the dog back home they happily went back to scratching in the dirt, but stayed within a couple of feet from me the whole time.

More plants

The top photo is a Ceylon Hill Gooseberry. I have planted a number of them together with the hopes that eventually they will form a hedge of sorts.
My Blueberry bushes are still producing a few late berries, but I think that they are coming to the end of the season now. Eventually I would love to get lots more blueberry bushes, they are fantastic as far as fruit goes and seem to be really hardy and easy to grow.

The last plant is my black bat plant. Unfortunatly the rain we have had lately has ruined the flower, but I think they are a really cool plant. The kids love the whiskers.

Mango Trees

These are the three mango trees we have. From top to bottom there is a bowen mango grown from seed, a grafted Glenn mango and a grafted R2E2.

The Chickens

I put the chicken cage up onto the vegie garden and let the chooks scratch all the weeds out and poop there for a few week. They do a pretty good job, the other garden looks pretty good. I turned it over once the chickens were finished and then covered it in mulch to kill any other weeks. I'll leave it for a few weeks then maybe plant it with some spinach. Now we have the extra tank I will be able to water the vegetables properly and hopefully should get more success than last year.

These are pumpkin seeds that have sprouted from where we had the chook house for a while down the back.
This is where I dig up the ground where the chooks have been and use the soil as potting mix or for when I plant new plants in the ground. The plants love it and always grow really well when planted in this soil. Unfortunatly Raymond doesn't love it so much because it leaves holes in the yard that are a pain for the lawn mower. I probably should get some of the horrible soil and fill in the holes, but it is very hard to dig.

I just noticed this little plant growing in an area where the chooks were at Christmas time. At that time we were eating lots of mango's and there are quite a few old mango seeds half buried in this area, but I think that this is one that has sprouted. Raymond is pretty excited, if he had his way Mongos would be the only plant we planted here.