How to de-brood a chook....

Find a pet carrier from a defunct airline.

Farewell all her friends

Take her on a road trip.

Introduce her to some new friends a long the way



Expose her to grand new destinations

Show her a sense of adventure

wine and dine her with luxury accommodation along the way

She'll not only stop being broody, but you will develop a special relationship that will last until she finds some other hens to hang around with.

Stay tuned for Buttercups' arrival at her new digs..............

A visit to Davids' house - April

I arrived at Davids' house and parked under a large oak tree in the back streets of Olinda on Mt Dandenong.  I was to meet David and Margaret Angus - two people whom i had never set eyes on before. I had been corresponding with Margaret from Southern Cross seed savers and she kindly agreed to organise a few gardens for a stick beak. I was very interested in Davids' garden as it was on the same soil and a very similar altitude to our place, so what i saw at his place would be almost directly applicable to my place.

I was not disappointed. The first plant of note on our wander around the garden was a Chilean guava which were offered to help ourselves to. The fruit were just ripe and delicious - quite guava like but no noticeable seeds.

Another plant which i head read about was the Yacon which is sort of a bit like a Dahlia with an edible starchy root. I did not however expect it to grow as tall as me. I think David had eaten them but they were by no means about to replace potatoes on his menu.

That was not the last of the supersized vegetables in his garden. I wanted to keep lingering and marvelling at things such as the hip high Rhubarb plants with  with 50cm wide leaves and gigantic stems to match. However David was onto the next thing down the garden path.

What a feast! One thing after another i saw and wanted to have one growing myself. The Oxalis tuberosus or Oca is a small tuber that is popular in New Zealand but relatively unheard of in this country. I have never tried them but i'm wondering if they might be a good stand by crop to have in the ground when other things fail.

Oca

David had a number of very admirable bean trellises holding up several varieties of heirloom beans which he was growing out for the local seedsavers group and making available to its members.  Most of his beans he need to pick and bring them inside to dry as the wetaher doesn't allow them to dry very well on the vine.

Ukranian noodle bean below.

I was just generally full or admiration for Davids methodical work on his garden beds, productive plantings and local knowledge. The hot house too was full of plants in different stages of growth. A special variety of Peas had gone in (Delta louise - specially bred by David Murray) as well as tomatoes still hanging on from the summer, bountiful capsicums and also chilies and Basil. David recommeded a book called "The four season harvest" by Eloit Coleman i think and i will get onto it when the time comes.

Other trees of note were two types of Persimmon, Tamarillo a variety of semi wild quince which aparrrently was growing very fast - and also had some big thorns. David had a thriving lime tree and a japanese mardarin which was also doing beautifully. He did have a Fejoia which had never done well for him.

After our walk we retired to the kitchen to talk seeds and have a cuppa and also showed the children where the rasberry patch was to be found, which kept them busy for a little while.

To top this all off David also supplies vegetables, fruit and eggs to the "hills organic box scheme" HOBS. Everyone was all pretty happy with this arrangement besides his daughter  who had to battle for her once safe supply of eggs and organic produce. Though there must have been a few eggs left for the lovely baked things we were offered.

Now that i have seen Davids' garden i vow to return to get cuttings and bulbs when the time comes to plant our place out. As i told Margaret there's nothing more than i love to do on my holidays than look at gardens and this one is high on the list of the most interesting food gardens i have seen.

A visit to tenderbreak

Having been following the tenderbreak blog for a while i was keen to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the wonderful garden and house in April.  I managed to get onto a tour with a permaculture group from Melbourne, so after grabbing a map a high tailing it over from Healesville we arrived at the garden right on time - although after the lovel lunch had finished.
Sadly i must have been a bit too rushed to grab my camera so no photos for the blog - but you can easily visit the tenderbreak farm blog.http://tenderbreak.blogspot.com/
The highlight for me was tasting lovely fruits like cherry guava, figs and fejoias?

Visit to Allowyn gardens

Now I'm not averse to looking at pretty gardens with manicured this and that, so with this in mind we stopped into Allowyn gardens on the Yarra Glen road while Dad and other relatives were off gawking at Marysville.

However i found these gardens were a bit of a treat as they had incorporated fruit trees into large portions of the garden and had lots of vegetables to display as well.  Not a bad way of encouraging people to squeeze more food plants into their gardens. We were welcomed to pick an apple or two so while i strolled around munching i took a few photos.

Now the other strictly ornamental bits are very nice too and the creators of the garden are lovely people with passion and one has to appreciate the work that has gone into creating this garden. Oh - yeh - has coffee too if you are feeling the need.

Plan of attack

So instead of getting straight into the orchard we thought we'd wear our bodies out a bit first by slogging away at the gravel on the roads to avoid them deteriorating more. Nothing like hacking away at solidified road metal and scraping away at stony gutters - so good for the abs.

After a couple of hours on the road we were due for a lighter job so we thought we might go into the orchard and slog away at some of the blackberry growth and try to pull it out by the roots. This is so not the permaculture way of doing things. A goat or a couple of pigs and a couple of months would be how they would deal with our blackberry issue. however - i am keen to fast forward the tape on food production and goats and livestock are out for now as long as we aren't living here full time. So we made lovely little piles of blackberry focusing around the trees first then working our way out.

 Eventually we said stuff it and slashed the rest with a brush cutter and save that job for a little later. maybe the goat will be around later. We also did the same with the bracken after getting jack of pulling it out by hand.

The plant which has made a star appearance in the newly planted orchard was sorrel. i didn't think we had much of it but now i think that it is going to be quite a challenge to control (especially in the vege garden) as it is quite happy poking its way up through significant layers of mulch, and has lots of roots in the soil which it can resprout from when it is cut off. And i'm not sure any animals like eating it either - except perhaps people.

last year in spring when i was weeding i direct seeded a range of plants where there were holes left. i also planted seeds in the unused fruit tree holes.  Hey presto - we have pumpkins which grew on natural rainfall without any additional watering. We also had a couple of Zinnias and sunflowers and red clover making an appearance.

Once enough of the weeds were cleared away it was time to put the berry vines on a trellis. Not knowing any better we used two strands of wire with a couple of support poles. i think i have seen something like that while "u-picking" raspberries.

Spring report card

The orchard growth has surpassed my expectations in most cases. This was probably partly due to a wet and warm summer which meant there was no water shortage on the unirrigated orchard. Star performers were just about everything except perhaps the almond and fig although they were probably still quite good .

apples

The Loganberries and Boisenberries were also quite amazing and put out 2.5 meter long canes in all directions. These were planted as mere twigs last winter so i quiver to think how much growth and fruit they will deliver after this winter.

The Rasberries had not grown as rampantly but had put up plently of suckers uner the ground, while my Autumn fruiting Rasberry gave us our first fruit , which were very welcome little jewels.

The mild Autumn that prevailed in southern vic also led to us getting our first figs from our tree that have never before ripened as far as we know. This hasn't stopped the Currawongs eating them green though. This year the birds were not all over them (although the king parrots did stop by) despite the ripe fruit so we easily had our fill although many more will not ripen with the weather turning cold now.

King parrot in fig tree

A few trees were bashed around by pear slug - most notably the pears while the cherries seemed to outgrow their attentions.

cherries

The most recent pest outbreak seems to be copious numbers of small brown striped grasshoppers which are usually found on the pasture. They gave a few trees some trouble including the almong and the currants also seemed to be popular. These will not be so much of an issue when we have hens on patrol down the track.

Orchard anatomy

This orchard is just for domestic use with some consideration for planting more of the better performing varieties for non domestic production

Apples planted.
. somewhat hurridly chosen. had to contend with a lack of any back ground knowledge in the area so here's my rationale for the choices.
Rome beauty - later apple and good storer
cox's orange pippin - great tasting apple i'd heard about
Irish peach - coz Jackie French siad it was good.... so we shall see
Akane - early producer

The aim is to spread apples over the longest period, grow varieties i can't buy elsewhere and i can always graft on other varieties once they are big enough.

Pears
most ashamed of my lack of knowledge here and chose the following
Burre Bosc
Packhams Triumph

i emphasise my willingness to graft!

Cherries
who knows?? most of the ones i've trie din the shops seem to taste pretty good
Bing
Van

short names - hopefully not on flavour.

Plum
Now i would have liked to choose more plums - and possibly i do need another one for a pollinator. But i started to wonder how overloaded with fruit i was going to be?
Satsuma

Berries - brambles
I grabbed a bunch of differnt ones to see which would do well in the conditions here.

Boysenberry
rasberry autumn fruiting
Rasberry summer fruiting
Loganberry thornless
I'll divide them in a couple of years and plant some rows but for now they are interplanted between some other fruit trees. hope i don't live to regret that.

Fig
we have a fig on the property that never ripens as the weather is too cold, but it makes a lovely display in a vase.
The fig was requested to ripen.
Black Genoa

These were suck and see. if they do well i can plant more - especially the almonds. I was told to plant them in an airy situation as they could possibly get fungal attack.
Almond "self pollinating"
Apricot - Tilton
Peach - golden queen

Will it be cold enough for currants?? Blueberries should be fine.
Red currant
Black currant
Blueberry - sharp blue
Blueberry - Biloxi

The wish list.... for future planting

Kiwis
Avacados
Medlar
Hazel nuts
Quince
Japanese raisin tree