cucurbits and calcium

oh, so like remember when I whinged that the slaters were eating all my zucchini and cucumber and pumpkin seedlings? Well, after a work trip to Townsville to spend some time with a very clever person who knows more about soil biology and fungi and yeasts and little tiny fellas than anyone rightly should, I found a SOLUTION

Apparently my problem is a lack of CALCIUM in the soil. My little seedlings were all super sweet and delicious to bitie things. But worst of all, the lack of calcium was letting a fungus attack the seedlings and the slaters were eating the fungus. Anyway, the solution has been a top dressing of dolomite with the new seedlings and voila, I picked our first cucumber today and the zucs are not far behind.

The moral to the story is slaters are not eating healthy seedlings, their job is to help with decomposition. The lovely thing is that the slaters are still there, zillions of them under the mulch, but they are ignoring my little seedlings.

So slaters are in, but there is still no room in my heart for earwigs. Although I must admit, I havnt had any problems with them this year - quite a few are floating disgustingly between the oil and water levels in my gruesome earwig traps in the glass house - but the living are leaving my babies alone and for that I am truly grateful.

So, note to self: curcurbits need calcium - especially to get them past the 2 leaf stage.

lacuna sabbath

In the interests of starting the year off the way I intend to keep it, today was decreed a lacuna sabbath day of worship. As such, all independent consultants hid their mobiles under their desks in the bottoms of their bags and headed outside into the world of green.

We have superb fairy wrens nesting in the garden. Mr Fairy Wren rouses on me whenever I walk up to the duck house. Usually we are told off each year with the chicka chicka chicka of the willy wag tails but this year the rousing emanates from the brilliant blue of Mr Fairy Wren. I will try and get a photo of him but if you are interested, they look like this.

In other news, I pulled up the last of the first lot of onions. They are AMAZING. Is it rude for an onion to weigh 330gms? Imagine - three onions to the kilo! Nothing tastes so good as caramelised red onions especially THESE sweet sweet onions.

This year I grew Red Shines, Hunter River Browns and Sweet Reds. I have another patch of gladalans in - but they are just babies and it remains to be seen if they bulb up before winter.

Big - but not as big as a little tubby Poppet tummy.

Other events of the day include fixing a leaking water pipe, collecting a trailer load of horse poop and sawdust from the stables up the road and cycling over to Ma and Pa Duck Herder because I heard Mama was baking orange rock cakes I mean for a visit.

Thats what the lacuna sabbath is ALL about.

delish!

Whats this? Is it a bottle of Cornwall's vinegar? oh nooooooooooooooooo!

Its a delicious bottle of home made elder flower cordial freshly made and gifted from Sue next door.

What a lucky duck herder I am!

I never realised how pretty those vinegar bottles were....

resolutions and a roll call

Small but significant new year developments include a resolution to let go of desperately yearning for a farm and instead to totally surrender to being here. Anyhoo, the princess castle and surrounds pretty much looks and feels like a farm already - minus the fencing maintenance. After having a big long hard look at myself, I realised that the things I associate with living on a farm are deep peace, deep quiet, stillness, calm and solitude. Well, obviously these are things I can have RIGHT now. I can have a farm on the INSIDE and take it with me everywhere. And as such, 2009 will be the year of the farm on the inside. And its cheaper too.

And anyway, my kiwi vines are fruiting. I can't leave now.

Now, a quick look at who's who in the duck herder zoo.

This is "Big Fella" the $50 chicken. He is supposed to be a faverolle cockerel, but who knows. He has the wrong number of toes. Regular viewers will remember he was the only one of 12 faverolle eggs posted from far off Proserpine at great expense to hatch. He is called Big Fella because he hatched out with about 20 pekins and he TOWERED over them. I think he is going to be a boy, but he doesn't seem to be colouring up very well yet - too much black, not much red....... but he is quiet and lovely and is BFF with............

Winky. Winky is a pure bred pekin hen. Now unlike the faverolles, the pekin eggs hatched out wonderfully - 75% which adds further evidence to my theory that air travel does not do fertile eggs any good at all. One of Winky's eyes was stuck closed after she hatched, which explains the name. Nothing that a deft touch with a wet cotton bud couldnt fix. She is all good now.

Here is a shot of Miss Quentin and Annie Clare. Winky and Big Fella are hiding on the left.

And here is Camilla. The only chicken on the block who is actually laying. Everyone else is either too old, too fluffy or too young.

For example, dear old Charlotte here, is WAY too old to lay eggs anymore, but she has very important jobs like pooping in the garden and marching inside to steal the cat food and entertaining our guests by jumping up on the outdoor table to see what is for lunch. Charlotte loves BBQs.

Well, thats it for chooks. Perhaps ducks next?

news on the fruit front

Yesterday we glimpsed our first leg less higher order predator in the garden - Miss Quentin the silly white fluffy chicken hopped onto a rock and alerted us in no uncertain terms that there was something amiss. On further investigation, a brown snake slithered quickly away from the big girls house. After the mice I suspect. I will ask Poppet to step up her game. I think I would prefer to have Poppet in the garden after the mice that a resident snake.

Here are some of the nashis on Miss Kosui. They are still fairly small, but getting there. Poor Hosui and Kosui are bowed down with their luscious fruit!

And here is the new Apricot - a Morepark Early. Welcome to the family Miss Morepark

I am trying something new -duo plantngs. Here is a peachcot and an Angel (flat) peach.

And here is my tara fig / grape kiwi / kiwi berry call it what you will actinidia arguta. In case you are not familiar with them - they are the little hairless grape sized kiwi fruit you see in little square plastic punnets at the supermarket (for those of you who still go there!). They are sweeter than normal kiwi fruit. This variety "issai" is actually self fertile although depending on when it flowers, I am sure it will benefit from Mr Kiwi's presence. You can use a normal kiwi male to fertilise argutas.

And here is the real thing! As mentioned elsewhere, these are of the "hayward" variety. It is hard to believe how many kiwi fruit are on these two vines. I stopped counting after 200.

And finally, this is the first year that BOTH the feijoa trees have flowered - so it will be interesting to see if we get any fruit this year.

red shine to you too

While on the one hand I have been a very bad blogger of late, I have actually, been a much improved and highly committed tenderer of the duck herder estate. We have been blessed with RAIN and cool weather which has made such potterings a joy. Everything is JUMPING. And BEHOLD, the Red Shine onions are ready. HFS they are HUGE, and sweet and divine. The largest was 330gms!!!!!!

The Hunter River Browns and Sweet Reds are not far behind, but as their little tops are still going strong, I will leave them a little longer.

These were all planted in later winter. I popped another lot in just a few weeks ago - I found some gladalan seeds lurking in the seed box and thought we just might be lucky enough to get at least a small second crop this season.

Well, I am back to the garden. Today is a happy day - a peachcot, china flat peach and angel peach arrived today from Daley's Nursery, and I must go out and nudge a few thousand wriggly worms aside and pop them into the earth. (That would involve using my NEW PITCHFORK now wouldnt it? OH what joy)

Long time readers will remember the avocado shanty? Well, it is now a food forest orchard wolfberry patch. AND, I haven't completely given up on the avocados - I am thinking of trying a couple in a wine barrel shuggled up next to the water tanks where they can be warm, sheltered and have their delicate little roots safely out of the clay.

Happy new year to you all. Mr Duck Herder and I are planning on taking a few beers up onto Mt Stromlo to watch the fireworks. What ever you do if you can't be good be careful. ;-)

bliss

Sorry I have been a little quiet lately.......

The garden is looking so lovely atm. This picture was taken just after Mr Duck Herder's 40th. Sorry about the fold up chair - sort of spoils it a bit, but you get the idea. It is hard to tell that there are nashis and mulberries and all sorts of food trees hidden in this mess with glass house, duck ponds and chook runs up the back!

I miss represented the nashi trees - there are close to 40 baby nashis coming along, and the KIWIS! well, at least 200.

In other news, poor old Nefley the original fluffy chicken passed away (the plague again - regular readers will remember Maurice the Trojan horse rooster who bought beauty, babies and death to the backyard) So that just leaves Quentin. Quentin went clucky, so I popped a little day old egg layer under her (ok, lets just pretend you have been sitting for three weeks, and these plastic eggs were real, and that this is your baby and she looks just like you)

The little one just shot strait in under Quentins wing, and Quentin started cooing and keening and it was the sweetest thing ever and they have been inseparable ever since.

Here they are, a few weeks later, still inseparable.