a new herb garden

As plans for a redesigned veggie patch take hold, I've realised I'll need to start a new herb garden. The existing one, in what was one of the old veg 'beds', has actually been one of my few successes. Mint, lemon balm, chives, shallots, sage, oregano, thyme ... for a couple of years now there's always been something to throw in the cooking, toss over a salad, or brew into a tea.

trying to love capeweed

Capeweed colonises poor and disturbed ground, so it hardly needs saying, it flourishes here. Unfortunately, efforts to improve soil and watering only seem to speed it along! I may even have inadvertently encouraged it in the orchard by using sheep manure as part of compost to build up beds, as it likes soil rich in nitrates, as often found round sheep pens. 

now you see them ...

Cape tulips - priority 'regionally controlled' weeds in this area - appear to have no particular use or benefits. So after ripping off new shoots last month and finding them resprouted, am now pulling them out properly as they reappear. Hopefully this will finish them off!

dynamic accumulators

Homework for September permaculture class: present info on 'dynamic accumulators'.

water water everywhere

Rain, rain and more rain. Fryers Creek is flowing. Lake Johanna in the Botanic Gardens has filled, an expanse of water linking it with the overflowing Barkers Creek along the gardens' boundary after last Saturday's rain, and our dams - as good as dry a couple of months ago - are full of water. The back dam is still filling, broadening and deepening, with overflow from the dammed gully behind. We've never seen it like this.

winter salad for a VIP

Sunday saw a community gathering for a working bee at the old school, to launch the revival efforts to turn it into a community hub. Chris spent the morning hammering flat nails in the old floor from which lino had been lifted. I managed to get down for lunch (a big showing being in order, as the local MP was attending) but remembered only at the last minute that I was supposed to take a salad or cake.

Permaculture class at my place

Lay awake listening to a night of heavy rain and mulling over a big day ahead, and woke to a drizzly morning and an early start to the day. There was the vegan cake recipe found online to try (with my own lemons and rosemary), the weekend’s pumpkin seeds and dried olives to prepare for snacks, and a ‘leftovers soup’ to make while clearing the fridge and tidying the kitchen.

when is a weed not a weed?

Been busy looking into weeds as part of a Cert III competency 'Using Weedy Plants in a Permaculture System'. A bit disappointing to discover, reading the details of this competency, that it seems far more focussed on eradication than use!

lovely lovely gums

Our block includes a few introduced gums, presumably planted as ornamentals. These have flowered through much of winter, and are a joy to have. In permaculture terms, they serve a number of functions, including providing bird habitat (the wattlebirds, particularly, love them) and pollen (if not nectar) for bees at a time when food is quite scarce.

the ‘drying day’ and permaculture principles

For a notoriously unhousewifely person, I’ll admit to one unmitigated housework pleasure – drying laundry on a good old-fashioned clothes hoist. Watch it effortlessly harness wind and solar energy! Towels are drying well with winter sunshine and a bit of breeze.

neglect, forgetfulness and pleasant surprise

Despite best efforts to record and document garden developments this year, I’m rather glad some things have escaped me. Let's call them uncontrolled experiments and pleasant surprises ... Daffodils have appeared between feijoas in the first orchard bed, and broad beans in one of the beds further back.

winter’s mushrooms

Mushrooms are growing all over the grove and lower area of the property. Why so heavy here, I’m not sure. But they’ve sprung up throughout, everything from scatterings of fairy-sized knobbly orange buttons to dense, wrestling clumps of heavy, leathery, soil-encrusted brown wads that break open seams in the damp earth.

drying pumpkin seeds

Successfully dried and lightly toasted pumpkin seeds following the method discovered a couple of months ago. So simple, I'm kicking myself for only discovering this now. A great way to make use of something usually discarded, a free version of something I usually buy, tastier - if I say so myself! 

beautiful tools for a better job?

Does a beautiful tool do a better job?

And is it completely irrational to invest emotion in the tools we use?

the most valuable animal in a permaculture system

Pictured in its winter plumage is the most valuable animal in the permaculture system: the spouse. This particular spouse variety (Fryerstown Fox, common name 'Chris') can be observed clearing away any sticks, stones or other debris, and forming mounds of soil.