This year I've had two trees produce fruit for the first time. We've had both about three years. The loquat put out its first flowers in autumn and we got two fruits. I was a bit too eager and one was really sour. Next year I'll try to remember not to rush with picking them.
Next up is the “white mulberry” we got from Bunnings. I was pretty exited to see the first fruits forming and wondered if I'd be able to tell when they're ripe. It seems I needn't have worried. What's wrong with this picture, Bunnings?
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It's that special time of year again. The earwigs are out in force. My plants are under attack and my chickens are probably ecstatic. In the evening I'll go around the garden with a pot and hold it under the plants to catch them falling off in droves when I touch the plant. I don't catch them all, but there are so many it hardly seems to matter. After a while their numbers wool be depleted, then I'll be more concerned to get escapees. In the mornings the chickens get a special breakfast treat as I empty the pot in their run, while I wish that there weren't so many things that want to eat my plants.
This is just a quick whip round, because I was tired that evening, but I usually get three times that amount.
There's lots growing at the moment, mostly weeds, and I'm going to have to start watering to keep things alive, as rain is looking to be scarce again. Some of the onions have started going to flower already, which is probably down to the sudden hot days we've had. We're back to cold again, now though, but not with much rain.
Plums are forming nicely.
I've been fighting aphids on the sunflowers. Initially I was blasting them off with the hose, but the remaining few have succumbed to a parasitic, aphid wasp, so I'll leave them to finish up the stragglers.
The weeds are so big, I've been pulling them up and running the lawn mower over them, to mulch them up for the chickens.
On the chicken front, our australorp, Pancake, got impacted and sour crop. It took a while, but we eventually moved the doughy lump through, with the help of kefir. By the feel of it, the start of it was some fibrous material, like grass or straw. She's in the hospital run until we can get the sour crop cleared up.
Over the weekend we had some chicks hatch out, but it wasn't a great hatch. Three had issues, one seems to have picked up, one has died and the other doesn't look promising. I'm wondering if it's the new incubator, so I'm going to do the next hatch in our old one and see how we go.
The 3 step trick to getting rain in Adelaide.
1: Have a 4 yo daughter lie about doing a wee before bed.
2: Drag the bi-carb covered mattress out onto the trampoline to dry.
3: Pull a muscle in your back.
That's how I made it rain here today.
Can you come and pull a muscle at our place. We need rain but I don't relish pain!
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What I need to be pulling is weeds. The wife's starting to worry about snakes.
And it couldn't have extended some of the rain to us after all that effort!
Hope that back is feeling better soon.
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Nurofen and a wheatbag. Winning combination. I do it every 5 years or so. Twang it bad, can't stand up straight. Doing nothing for 3 days is the only fix I've found. Happily that dovetails nicely with my sedentary lifestyle :)
Magnesium too, lots of. Thanks for the rain though, we got it here. Sorry to hear about your back.
Its already much better today. Every time I do it I swear I'll hit the gym and build some core strength.
Oh yeah Jesus, after last one I SWORE regular yoga.... working so far 4 years on. Mum still has SAME photocopy of back exercises she had back in 80s on her inside cupboard door. She is 70 and whenever she gets a twinge she says ' its ok, will just do my exercises'. And you should watch the woman move wheelbarrows of mulch!!! Puts me to shame.
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Which are your favourite yoga exercise for the back? I don't have back issues (yet), but I have an issue with my arm which could be linked to posture and my back.
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Wild Lettuce is ready to pick and process
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Despite the heat, all of our trees are doing well too. I hope that getting a food crop will be just a case of netting early and keeping the water up.
Earwigs are definitely around but not causing big troubles yet. I've found Dec to the end of Jan to be the worst time for them
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dang...I can't see images because of my signal. What do you mean weed? Isn't it illegal to plant it?
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Haha! Not weed, weeds. Unwanted plants.
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ah okay, sorry my connection is damn, so sloww..
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Not to worry. I have that problem with partiko and have to go to Steemit if I want to actually see the photos, some days.
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Hey, nice work.
Do you give any cuttings to your chickens? I assume you compost?
Do you have any thoughts on capturing methane via the biodrum thingies?
The chickens do most of my composting, as long as it's not toxic. I have a compost bin for anything else.
We have looked into the methane composting a bit. Not sure if we'd implement at the moment though. We don't produce much food waste and in summer not much garden waste either.
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also noticed how you're living tru to your logo - chickens and plants :)
That must have been what inspired my daughter to design it. 😉
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Didn’t even know mulberries came in white 😆 ours is so late this year J thought it was dead but it’s putting out growth now.
Unfortunate with the hatches 😖 wouldn’t know anything about incubators to be able to suggest anything as we always had brood chickens that did all that. Hope you find out what’s going on there.
Hope that chicken pulls up too 🙃
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Yeh, they look kind of like grubs! 😆
When my broodies hatch, they teach the chicks to hate us. People prefer to buy chickens that like them...
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The mulberries are so much tastier than the "white mulberries' - same as what we have here in our Thai garden. Yummy!!
Loquats are really YUM bottled like apricots. :)
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I'm less disappointed now, then. Looking forward to a bigger loquat harvest next year, as well. 😁
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Quiet the assortment going there! I can smell the fresh onion stalks from here!I'm sorry to hear about the babies 😔
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I try to celebrate the successes over the failures. There isn't much left of the lettuces after everything piled on them. It's warm enough for the earwigs, but still chill and damp enough for the slugs and snails. Then the millions millipedes are in higher than usual numbers this year too. I wonder if winter wasn't cold enough to keep the numbers down. 🤔
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Great post,
To being with nature is great a thing the photography are great.👌
Thank you.
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I want an incubator!!! My Plymouth stupidly got up to have water, and went back to wrong nest. On a cold night. Not sure if they'll hatch at all.
Bloody bunnings. No suprise there. But, you have mulberries.
And bloody, bloody, bloody earwigs!!!
As gorgeous as it is to see chicks with a mamma, I prefer the incubator hatches, because hen raised chickens are usually terrified of people. You probably need to separate your broody hen. They are so daft, and decide on a different clutch of eggs everytime they take a break.
I Think earwigs like this climate too much. I wonder if the cold winters in England kept them in check better. It probably also helped that it was damp enough there for them to get enough food from the rotting vegetation, instead of eating the plants.
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