Details This New Zealand apple is now one the world’s top commercial selections. It has delicious, crisp, juicy flesh and superb sweet-tart flavour with a noticeably aromatic aftertaste. Excellent keeper. Late season. Requires 700 chilling hours to set fruit. Spur bearing.
Located in a damp spot and surrounded by twitch grass, the ground under tree has proven more difficult to control. Currently there is rhubarb, chives, strawberry and some self sown mustards.... and quite a bit of grass.Date September 01, 2002Height (m) 2Tags apple
It's not everyday that you get offered a trailer load of bull shit and hay.
Friends of ours had access to a supply of the rich smelling garden additive just over their fence and I couldn't pass it up.
Our new, extended garden area is now fully mulched and the worms are doing their bit to transform it into the ideal growing medium.August 29, 2010CompostManure
Details Our yearly ritual of dressing in aged wedding attire and making a photo shoot to mark the passing of time. This year we had the assistance of intern, Zach, behind the camera to make things more creative.Date November 01, 2017Tags anniversaryweddingspring2017
We decided to cook our young rooster since he was eating plenty and not making any eggs. He was about 6 months old, one of our first set of baby chickens. Follow my easy steps for killing, plucking, gutting and cooking.April 06, 2010Chooksmeatbutchering
I first heard about the Stirrup hoe from Nelson Lebo during his interview on Two Beers with Steve. As it sounded like a must have tool I set about finding one.
It turns out this hoe is known by many different names, including:
Details One of the first things we started growing in the new tunnel house was some transplanted red lettuce that had been growing nearby.
It is simply amazing to see how different the two sets of plants are. Those that remained outside have hardly grown at all while those inside the warm humid tunnel house are ready to eat.
Listening to someone discussing this phenomenon recently and it sounds like the plants generate their pigments in response to UV light, of which there is less under plastic.Date September 18, 2010Tags LettuceTunnel house
This sparkling and refreshing (mildly alcoholic) drink is made from the fermentation of flowers from the elder tree using a process similar to that of ginger beer. The flowers give the drink a light, sweet airy flavorNovember 10, 2009brewingbottlingalcoholdrinkelderflowerspringrecipe
After 35 days sitting patiently on 8 eggs, our first time mother muscovy hatched 3 cute little babies. Now if only we can out smart nature and keep them alive.December 05, 2012duck
Straw delivery
We've just had a week of damp weather so it's perfect timing to mulch and retain that soil moisture. Today we took delivery of 12 large bales of old straw. That's over 15 cubic meters of compressed cereal straw, weed seed free. Time to get working.November 29, 2013mulch
After several failed attempts to create a low cost, low tech solar water heater I gave in and purchased a complete kit off the shelf. It's only August but we've been having some nice fine days and the temperature has been getting up to high 50's. This unit has 20 evacuated glass tubes with some kind of antifreeze that exchanges heat with water that is pumped through the header. While I would have preferred a passive system I do like the modular nature and programmable smarts of the control centre.August 21, 2013solarenergywatertechnology
Always room for more swales
A brief spell of rainy weather revealed a few swale 'deficiencies' and so I got to work rectifying the situation. This latest effort really fills out the young food forest area nicely. Over the next year or so these will be amended slightly and planted up with edible plants and support species.July 02, 2013swalewater
Finally, after much waiting on transport, we have our concrete water tank. I was pleased to find one for sale close by but was dependant on availability of heavy machinery to get it moved. This will be setup to collect water from the roof of the house as a backup drinking supply.March 13, 2014rainwater
It's high summer in 2012 and we have had a pretty good crop of nectarines from the 2 grafted trees and I was surprised to see a couple of almonds on the seedling tree. It is only 3 years old! The food forest area looks completely different now with all the sweet broom (nitrogen fixing small shrubs) and the primary swale feeding nutrient rich water down to the fruit and nut trees.December 07, 2012summerfood forest
The first serious winter storm hit with a snowy wet blast and dumped over 75mm in 24 hours. This is exactly the kind of situation the extensive network of swales was built to handle. During the day I made numerous excursions out into the cold to assess and marvel at how the water was collected, channelled and redirected, distributed and absorbed.June 20, 2013wintersnowswale
