permaculture, chooks & stuff in the Samford Valley (Queensland)
Posted in pests, vegetables on Oct 10th, 2009
The Grosse Lisse are producing big time right now, although I have been losing quite a few to the Tomato Grub.
I think the tomato plants dried out while we were away and so became a little stressed and vulnerable to attack. Although some grubs were already in evidence, by the time we got home, there [...]
Posted in chickens, permaculture plants on Sep 11th, 2009
Vetiver haircut
Last Saturday it was time to give my vetiver a trim – to be frank, it ended up being a bit of a mum cut….. straight fringe, no layering, you know what I mean.
I was rather amazed to discover that the taller stems were nearly 3 metres long.
Well not any more….now they are all [...]
Posted in composting on Aug 26th, 2009
After a couple of weeks of procrastination (my middle name), last Sunday I did get round to stage 2 of making compost with the aid of Eokomit, the bacterial agent that I wrote about on August 12.
Firstly I diluted the Eokomit concentrate with water in the ratio of 1 to 20 in my 7 litre [...]
Posted in chickens on Aug 25th, 2009
A little bit of excitement here today – Coco, the Araucana laid her first egg, a tiny, bluey green effort weighing all of 35 grams.
We now have 5 out of 6 hens laying – just waiting on Narelle, the Australorp, to join the other ‘mums’ – is that the right word?
Having hens that lay such [...]
Posted in organics, vegetables on Aug 19th, 2009
In late June I wrote a little post entitled ‘Not a bug in sight’, where I rather smugly described how easy it was to grow vegetables in the Brisbane winter.
Not long after, the much feared Zucchini Gang descended upon my patch and things around here changed dramatically for the worse.
While the gang are not actually [...]
Posted in chickens on Aug 15th, 2009
This is a very clever UK campaign that has just started, to highlight the plight of factory chickens in that country.
The website is set up as a 39 day blog to follow the daily life of a broiler chicken – 39 days of course being its whole short unnatural existence.
Here is the latest posting
day 6: [...]
Posted in chickens on Aug 5th, 2009
It looks like a poultry club is going to form in our area.
Not your average poultry club for super serious breeders – with this club, 2 or 3 backyard cross-breeds and you’re in!
A local couple held a meeting last Saturday morning to gauge the level of interest in forming a club, for people with chooks [...]
Posted in chickens, permaculture plants on Jul 28th, 2009
This here’s the wattle, the emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand.
(’The Bruces’ – Monty Python)
The wattle blossom is starting to go ballistic here at my place. I have put in three or four hundred plants over the past few years, so I suppose [...]
Posted in weeds on Jul 15th, 2009
A month ago, I blogged about some of the weeds on our block that I’ve been able to identify so far. At the time, I did say that I was not “not that anti-weed these days”, particularly after reading Peter Andrews’ book ‘Beyond the Brink’, which helped me put their purpose in life into [...]
Posted in chickens, permaculture plants, weeds on Jul 5th, 2009
I created quite a stir in the chicken run today – it was time to build the residents a herbatorium.
This is an idea that I must have read about somewhere in the permaculture literature, I just can’t remember where, so I don’t know who to credit.
As most of you would know, chickens left to their [...]
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