tielan: brown chicken looking at camera, white chicken in profile (garden 01 - pumpkin vine)
[personal profile] tielan
Wiritjiribin is the name for this season in the language of the Dharawal people who lived from the south of Sydney harbour down to the Shoalhaven and the start of the Wollondilly river network. The season is characterised by cold weather and high winds, and we're certainly getting both.

It's been a pretty dry winter. Some rains, yes, but by and large not enough to really penetrate the soil. I've got a number of leafy green plants in and am mostly hand-watering them with homemade seaweed solution and worm juice.

Truth is, I'm not very good at eating my leafy greens from the gardne, which is a pity because they're growing pretty well this year!

I pulled out some turnips - they didn't do very well. Only the size of my thumb and about as long before they developed really fine roots. The parsnips did better - nice big tops for about...as long as my thumb before they split into two or three smaller roots, before ending up with really fine roots about 15cm below the surface.

I have caulis and cabbages and broccoli all growing, but they keep getting attacked by aphids and I don't seem to have sufficient ladybugs or lacewings to deal with them right now. I really have to plant some land cress to attract the white cabbage moth (although I did catch one the other day, killed it, and am now displaying its body on a fine copper wire in order to deter other cabbage moths).

But it's spring coming up, and time to start sowing early crops: tomatoes, corn, peas, beans would be a good starter. I actually have two eggplants and two capsicums that have survived the winter, and I am going to have to work out how to get them the kind of warmth that they need to get a leg up on producing. I am wondering if a plastic bag greenhouse might help?

Already had to start netting one of the trees. On Sunday, a cockatoo had spotted the nectarine tree and was perched on the framework I put up to hold the netting, intent on pecking off the fruits that had already set.

I've started digging out my compost, and while it's not quite as composted as I'd like, there's still some good soil in there. The issue that has beleaguered my garden in previous years is the lack of nutrients and fertility. I'm hoping that I've rectified that this season. I guess we'll see when the summer comes!

Have a picture of Hainan chicken perched in the chicken tractor over a garden bed:
Garden winter 2021
tielan: peaches on the branch (garden 02 - peaches)
[personal profile] tielan
It is the middle of spring, and everything is growing.

well, nearly everything: the chickens aren't... )

Speaking of the chooks, they're spending most of their days out in the front run, are laying, and quite happy to get in yo' face.

what 'choo lookin' at?


Brave Hainan Chicken who bravely ran away


Interestingly, there's a section of the chook run which abuts the neighbour's yard beyond the fenceline, and I've noticed the neighbours have started throwing some of their kitchen wastes into the chook pen. Which, they're from out rural way, used to be farm folk, so I understand, so I trust they're not trying to poison my chooks. I've had a bit of a chat to them about the chickens when they first moved in (because I was worried about the noise they might make) but they've been pretty good about the occasional noisy clucking that takes place when one of the chooks wants something and isn;t getting it. (Hainan chicken is particularly noisy when she's bored.)

--

The big project I want to do in the next couple of months (And really, I should have done it the last couple of weeks) is to get some bed edges in, made from heat-treated wooden pallets. But I put it off and off and off and it would be better to get the bed edges in sooner rather than later...

Ugh. Maybe I'll do them next winter...

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