Hi all

More pictures are to come.

General garden news:

The pine trees that were on the western boarder were removed by the developers next door, as they said they don’t want any on their property and they built a 1.8m high colour bond fence. I won a  Grass Tree in a raffle at the 2016 AGM of the Logan Branch of Society for Growing Australian Plants and planted it. It would have been worth around $100.

The developers also removed the large mound that was there. Then we had worse flooding than before and they replaced the carpet in my brother’s shed. Then they reinstalled a smaller mound at the base of the fence and the lowest point is in our top back (south) corner.

One downside of the development, is light reflection will probably make the starry sky less clear and noise from construction and occupation will affect us. Wildlife will also loose habitat. There is also the thermal island effect.

Improvements I’ve made to Mick’s area are making new and rejuvenating old garden beds. One rejuvenated bed is out the front of his house. It had a loose rock boarder which was impossible to maintain. The tree had yellow flowers on that the bees loved; now they have formed pink seed pods. I’ve been told it’s a ‘Rain Tree’ because when the flowers fall, there is a carpet of yellow. I’ve transplanted at least four seedlings from it.

I rejuvenated the ~18m long and ~3m wide garden bed, which had various trees in it, which lost their leaves in winter, including a Chinese Privet. Since he plans to put an in-ground pool next to it down slope, I suggested he cut the trees down and we plant evergreens. I put lime, crushed egg shells, rock dust and gypsum down, mulched it heavily and planted it with pigeon pea to recondition the soil in the mean time. Then when the WWOOFers came, they remulched it, which was about one year after I did.

Initially Mick liked my idea to have a natural pool, rather than a salt water pool, but now he’s changed his mind. I explained how we could use the existing solar pump on the dam for the pool too and avoid having to buy another electricity consuming pump. Of course a natural pool would use NO chemicals, so that’s another way to save money and it would have fish and plants in it, to clean it.

The cubby house, which is only used to store the play junk now, is where I used to live. It was cold in winter, without doors or windows. Now I put the water from the tank into a bio-sand filter for drinking in the caravan, which is to the left/east (out of picture).

Now the gum tree has been cut down, as the swimming pool will go over that side.

Water:

A shower base had been in a shed for years and there was no need for it. So my brother let me use it. I placed it into the paved area on the north side, under the trellis with Madagascar beans. My outdoor setting and Flow Hive are in the same area. This is my solar heated shower for winter. Water comes from the high tank, goes through the coil of pipe on the roof. My heat regulator is a sheet of ply, to shade the pipe. My summer shower is in the banana circle on the south side. That is my most favourite thing in the garden and is my no-cleaning self-grown bathroom.

I installed a solar pump on the dam and the solar panels and controller are on the south side of the dam, due to trees on the north side. The solar pump’s outlet pipe is on the north side and is slightly underground, so it is not in the way of mowing. Most of the day the water circulates to the dam for aeration and I have used a leaking wheelie bin filled with leftover river gravel from my wicking bed build, to mimic a creek bed, for more aeration.

Initially, when I needed it, I turned the tap to the fountain off and the tap to my shed on, to pump to my shed to water the garden, but now I just leave both taps turned on. So if there is pressure (enough sunshine), I can just turn the tap on up near my shed and don’t have to walk down to the dam. There is a one way valve not far from these taps, to stop the line draining, as the solar pump does not have that feature.

Next is the tank at the front of my shed, with first flush and overflow to the back tanks. I did use the rainwater from this tank for drinking, when I stayed in the shed. I put it in a glass jar and keep it in the sun for a couple of hours before using it. The UV irradiates the water and kills bacteria.

Next are the tanks at the back of my shed. I pump rain water from the first tank to the highest, at the end, for my showers and the shed’s kitchen sink. The biogas plant is to the left, only a few metres away. I take the liquid fertilizer outflow from that and mix it with water 1:6 to fertilise the plants. I cover tanks with black plastic to help protect them from UV, to extend their life and to help prevent algae growth.

The first rainwater tank overflows to the second, which overflows to the third, which has a lower overflow pipe that goes under the tanks, long the fence and ends at the base of the bird bath. So it can overflow to the gravel trench that leads to the veggie and herb patch. The rainwater overflow pipe from the front tank goes past the higher tank and over the two lower tanks to the first tank.

Food trees:

Now that I have water up at my shed and around the back to the other (south) side of the property, I have gone ahead with planting food-bearing trees mostly in my budding food forest. There are Jelly Bush tress (Leptospermums related to the Manuka honey trees in NZ) planted between them for the bees. These are most of the fruit/berry (f) and nut (n) trees I’ve planted (number of trees follow the tree): (f): lemon 2, kefir lime 1, china flat peach 1, grumichama 1, Brazilian cherry 1, olive 1, mulberries 7 one white Shahtoot, cherry guava 1, mango 2, pomelo 2 (the largest citrus), jackfruit 1 (the most prolific fruit tree), acerola cherry 1 (that was originally used for Vit. C tablets), black sapote 2, Florida peach 1, wampi 2 (a native tree with fruit similar to grapes), jaboticaba 1, raspberry 1, blueberry 1, loquat 1, olive 1, tamarind 1, avocado 2, kei apple 1, feijoa 1, brazil guava 1, thai guava 1; (n): saba nut 1 (the most prolific nut tree), pecan 1, macadamia 1, native peanut 1; other types of food/medicine trees: bay leaf 1, maringa 2, sweet leaf 1 and curry leaf 1.

The olive and loquat are next to the chook pen. One mango, pomello and jackfruit are on the north boarder in ~0.5m high dirt mounds with lots of mulch along with the pecan and macadamia.

I’ve raised 30 or more Bunya Pine saplings, which I gave away. I donated 10 to the Logan Food Gardeners for the LEAF festival in June, but it was cancelled due to heavy rain. I’ve planted six here.

Veggies:

I have used the old swing set for the kids, who have grown up, as a base for a trellis for winged yam. This yam has no pests (yet) and grows well in the subtropics. My other carb crop is Qld Arrowroot.

I have many greens (see https://www.academia.edu/34731885/Summer_Greens), but my favourites especially for summer, are in the wicking beds: Brazilian spinach, Sambung, Shio and Surinam spinach. Along with parsley, these four can be eaten raw in salads. I’ve planted beetroot, carrots, bok choi, heritage eggplant, spring onions and tomatoes there too.

Food value adding: I make these ferments: sauerkraut, mead (honey wine) and jun culture (honey tea, replacing Kombucha and Kefer water which need sugar). I don’t particularly like cabbage, but I do like sauerkraut.

Bees:
Initially I was only going to have four bee hives, but due to various factors they became 8 (and now 11 including one Flow Hive), which were all on the north side of the shed. The neighbour complained that too many bees were flying around his house and shed. So I offered to move them all down to the lower paddock and about the centre of our property. He said he’d be happy if I just reduced them back to the four, as there wasn’t a problem with four. In the end I moved six of them and increased the number down there to nine.

I have painted an old honey super black, put an insert in and glass on it. This is my solar wax melter.

I now have six native bee hives.

Chooks:

I’ve planted a couple of chokos to grow over the chook pen and am trying to grow grapes over too.

I noticed that the chooks like the leaves and ripe berry of Black Night Shade. So I put a couple of plants in their pen and have been cultivating it for them.

I made new dust baths for the chooks, which a metal plate, a car tyre, some plastic and soil. They will keep dry in heavy rains, as they are on bricks. Plastic helps keep the soil in the tyre and I put various herbs in the soil, such as, lavender, rosemary, tansy, wormwood and rue to ward off lice etc.

Magic Wonds:

Wond is a contraction of w-icking p-ond and I think they are magic, so they’re ‘magic wonds’.

I have now made four of them. 1. made with a kid’s pool that was put out onto the curbside cleanup in Feb. 2017. It’s between the chicken coop and the veggie garden. 2. made with a truck tyre and a half plastic 44 gal drum as a pot, which sits on some bricks in the water. It’s near the White Shahtoot mulberry and the bees near the shed. 3. made from a bath and the pots are: three car tyres and the drum of a clothes drier.

Shade house:

The southern shade house has pavers. The plumbing has been installed under the pavers that brings the winter shower water and the kitchen sink water to middle of the bananas circle in the herb and veggie patch.

That’s it for now.