Oh we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for the joys of winter now.
However I did find something to offer up to you, if not quite a joy, it is at least about winter.
A few weeks ago, amidst my blatherings about life, the garden and everything, I mentioned that one of the impediments in my path towards attaining Master Gardener status, was the fact that our soil is of very poor quality.Mark very aptly pointed out that I needed to get over my aversion to worms and start composting, and I agreed that yes, throwing scraps to the chickens is not a composting system. He didn't quite put it like that, but I'm sure that's what he was thinking.
So composting system is coming... I of course have a complicated plan for it, nothing so straightforward as simply purchasing a compost bin.
All that aside (I told you I blathered), the second impediment on my path towards becoming one with a food forest, is water.
Or lack thereof.
In winter, in Brisbane, it doesn't rain. Pretty much not at all. It is dry, dry, dry. So dry that you can just about peel your lips off your face after a day outside, and if it's windy you can peel off your face too. So dry in fact, that Australia had the dubious status of being the driest inhabited continent in the world.
It's really dry, okay?
And it does wonders for the soil. See the patch above? In summer, it's grass. In winter, our yard is a dustbowl.
The fruit trees and all the vegetables are safe for now, we are extrememely lucky to have a 3000 litre watertank keeping them in liquid. But the water in the tank is down to the bottom 20cm, and when that runs out, that's it.
Oh yes, the joys of winter. Here's linking up to Hazel.
p.s. if you look at the photo of Felix's feet for long enough you can, bizarrely, begin to imagine that they are the feet of a large chicken.
15 comments:
A chicken wearing pants :)
And what's wrong with throwing the scraps to the chickens? What else are you supposed to do? When I was growing up, we just shovelled out the chicken coop whenever we wanted to renew a garden bed. Worked a treat.
L
Did you? I feel like I should have a more serious system in place, you know, one that involves layering and turning and a thermometer. How are you going with your chicken
Sorry, with your let's get chickens campaign?
At least you're wise enough to realise you need water. We were so daft when we started off that we couldn't figure out why everything was dying...oh goodness, do we actually need to water them? :)
We have pretty crappy soil too, but the chook dome is really starting to make a difference. We also have worms, but I won't go anywhere near them. Sometimes Pete says, "wash those leaves before you eat them, as I've just watered them with worm-pee".
If I might blather back at you, my Pete thinks there are two options when you have crap soil - you can either try and improve it slowly and organically, by letting the chooks and worms and compost do their thing, or you can pay a fortune each year and bung on lots of commercial compost. We can't afford to do the latter, so we have to keep trying to keep the organic matter up so the girls can keep breaking it down and working it into the soil for us.
Have you read Linda Woodrow's book? Apologies if you've mentioned that before - I haven't had a chance to go all the way back through your posts. If not though, it's a really good guide to permaculture in Oz conditions and suburban gardens...
Sigh..I'm longwinded tonight, sorry.. :)
A composting system. Oh that sounds like too much work to me. We just chuck ours in a compost bin and it looks after itself. Not much to it... although I do have a nest of mice in one of our bins... and sometimes it stinks. Come to think of it maybe I need to consult Mark about a composting system.
I like a good blather :) I haven't read Linda's book, and I should, I adore her blog and really like her lovely relaxed manner. I think sometimes I get overwhelmed with just how much of the soil I want to improve, ie the whole house yard, and need to go have a lie down instead of doing something about it.
I am still not sure about having a worm farm, but I had a quick look at your chook dome and I think that's something I'd like to have a go at. I am with your Pete on the slow and steady or spend a fortune, and spending the fortune part of it would seem like cheating. I want to work for my garden!
I couldn't find any posts on your chicken dome other than the ones where you are moving it... did you make it yourselves?
Depends on the spare garden space your time and strength what kind of composting 'system' you use. Simplest is a heap or heaps, turned now and then. Next is a big plastic garbage bin/s with holes in, layer with wet and dry, add a starter, mix now and then and wait a few months.
Then there's the chook system (chickens are the babies and the meat, chook is the grown up domestic fowl - or it is in Oz). Read about this, don't keep chooks myself so take the info for whatever it is worth ... if you've the space, move the chook run every year or so and plant into what was the chook run. Supposed to be fabulously fertile.
Or bury your daily kitchen scraps in a new place in the garden, it will compost in situ (doncha love the fancy words? ;-). Or you can make a covered bucket and put scraps or compost in there or compost in situ and let the garden worms feed the garden for you.
Many variations on the theme. No need to spend megabucks on fancy dancy compost bins or tumblers.
Compost worms don't wee by the way ... the liquid is either from condensate within the intensive worm farm or usually is made by flushing water through the worm bedding.
The more organic matter you have in your garden the better the soil or mix will hold water. Making a cover crop and using it to dig in or as a mulch does help and is cheap to produce - a couple of bags of bird seed make a really thick cover for a 2m x 1m garden surface. Do this as often as there's time between crops. If you can buy some Biochar that will help hold water and it doesn't break down. Recommend Bigchar (Black is Green) as it's made up here in Queensland.
Ali, yes we did, with the help of Pete's brother. A smaller version of the one Linda has in her book, and we house six ladies in there. They really do a good job on the beds - before we started the ground was quite compacted, but the chooks have really dug them over and made them quite usable. All we do now is move them to the next bed, rake over the old one and rest it for a few days, then plant it out. No weeding, no de-slugging, no manuring or composting. We are actually very lazy gardeners!
Linda's book is good for other things too though - great suggestions for almost every sized garden. And as you say, she is very relaxed - one of the things we like best about her book is that she is very easy-going and reassuring - try that, see if it works, don't fret if it doesn't, try something else.
Mark thinks: I'm flattered that some of you should consider me worth consulting! However, if you use the "Search this blog" facility in the sidebar of my blog, you will find plenty of mentions of compost. My "system" is actually very straightforward - I put any suitable organic material in one of my bins, and leave the worms to get on with digesting it. I do turn the material every now and then (or at least poke a piece of wood into it to allow some air in) but that's about it.
We have a surfeit of rain at present. Yesterday it was what I would call "tropical" rain. Very heavy, for about an hour non-stop.
There's just one thing puzzling me... how come you have grass in summer when it's red hot and dust in winter? I'd have thought it would be the other way round.
Just because of the rain LBM... in winter there is just no humidity, and little water and so everything turns brown, brown, brown... the grass crunches underfoot. As soon as it rains it tinges green, the recovery is amazing to see. Throughout summer it usually rains quite a bit, and it is quite humid too. With the hot sun it's kind of steamy and tropical like, and everything is lush and green. I'll have to dig out some photos to show you the difference between summer and winter here, it's interesting I think in that it is quite different.
chickens are composters of the best kind..they turn left overs into fertilizer..why complicate things
I'm hearing you Ali! Loud and Clear! Living out on Acreage we are solely reliant on our Water tanks, when our tanks get low (and they are well on their way) I either have to stop watering the garden or stop bathing the children!!!
JFH, I agree with you about the chickens being fabulous composters, but they don't, or at least mine don't, eat everything... my ladies turn up their noses at fruit and vegetable peelings, radishes, celery and a whole host of other things... these are things I'd like to put into a composting system.
GJ no town water! You really are in it... I'd choose grubby kids :D
I'm in the same boat as GJ only water here is tank water but I manage the house and garden quite well with 3000gal storage capacity we have buckets and all sorts of containers in the house for catching rinse water, hand washing and any other water then cart it out to the fruit trees and vegie gardens...it can be done but takes some training.
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