Maculata Grove

Muscovy Ducks and Ticks

2011-10-12T21:22:00.001+10:00

We have been getting heaps of bandicoots through the garden these days. The wet weather over the last 2 years seems to have increased their numbers quite significantly. Besides the annoyance of the bandicoots digging up seedlings in their quest for worms, they also bring another problem along with them: ticks.
Bandicoots are a natural host for ticks and (as with any host) once the tick has had its feed, it will drop off. This break from the host may be to grow some more or to lay eggs, in the case of a mature female.
Unfortunately one of our Muscovy Ducks, Edgar, came across one of these ticks and it managed to attach itself to Edgar's carbuncles. My daughter noticed that Edgar was not coming in for the nightly feed and lock up in the pens, so my wife investigated. Edgar was hardly able to move and allowed himself to be picked up (unheard of for our ducks). My wife had to use pliers to remove the tick as it had gotten too big for tweezers to get around its body.
We were not sure what to do next, so put a search on the web found that Muscovy Ducks had been recently reported to be affected by ticks (and yes we confirmed that). But what about the recovery rate or method for recovery? There was not all that much information to be found, except to keep that animal calm and comfortable.
So we let Edgar stay in the shade in his cage with the door ajar as the weather was not too hot (low 20 degrees C). The first day he did not do too much apart from lie in the one spot with his head lolling on the ground, but was able to drink some water when provided to him (i.e. water dish to bill). The following day he perked up a bit and was talking water more readily. Up until this time there was a small amount of white foam visible in the corner of each of his eyes, which seemed to annoy him a bit; he was observed shaking his head occasionally to try and clear the foam. After about 3 or 4 days he was eating again and able to move around with the rest of the flock.
Previous to this attack, Edgar had been the alpha male. There is one other male in the flock and they had gotten on quite well, probably because the number of ducks to drakes was quite high. But some Wedge-Tailed Eagles had started taking our ducks so the ratio was dropping.
The other male thought that this would be a great time to overthrow the recovering Edgar. I had to intervene a number of times by covering the eyes of the other male (this causes them to stop what they are doing - also handy when dispatching a duck for dinner). Muscovy Ducks can really fight when the get into it. They can be a bit like a couple of ice hockey players going at it. Their wings pack a punch when they connect with your hand, let me tell you.
After the first day of challenge, Edgar had enough and made himself scarce under some recycled materials. That night he did not want to go into his cage, though the males aren't penned in together. The following day he was stronger and thus was able to hold his own a bit better. Then after a few days of duking it out he was top drake again.
So I learned a number of things from this episode: the first being that Muscovy Ducks (or drakes) can recover from a tick bite. However prompt removal of the tick is important, as is ensuring that the animal is kept in a calm state with constant access to water (that is, you might need to bring water to them periodically). And finally, protect the recovering animal if there are other males when either a duck or drake gets a tick.

More Google Earth Updates - Circa 2010

2011-03-27T22:35:00.001+10:00

It seems that I have not been paying attention to how things look on Google Maps. However tonight I noticed that the pond was visible when viewing the property. In fact, two imagery updates had been done in 2010 without me noticing.

The first aerial photograph, taken on the 9th of March 2010, shows the beginnings of the swale orchard on the bottom left-hand corner (the south western part of the property). This had just been marked out with grass clippings along the contours of the land. The citrus orchard north of this had also been recently mulched. My parents were visiting at the time, thus I was able to get a significant amount of work accomplished. In the center of the property, the pond is now clearly visible.

The second aerial photograph, taken on the 21st of June 2010, shows the swales as being more substantial as planting had been well underway. The citrus orchard mulching was also being taken over by grass seedlings and other weeds. This area is a bit of a jungle now. To the west of the citrus orchard is the start of the mango line. This area has poor soil due to the cut for the road. It is also exposed to strong westerly winds. So it should be perfect for growing mangos. I have supplied them with manure and compost as mangos can be gross feeders when young.

Notice the colour of the pond water as compared to the other picture. The natural flow of the water and my sediment trap design at the inflow to the pond, really seems to help reduce the amount of suspended particles which most dams suffer from. As a result aquatic life flourishes in the pond. We have even seen evidence of a platypus with heaps of fresh water clams along the pond edge. We know that they exist across the road in our neighbours pond, so they are probably checking out ours as well.

Beneficial Pests

2011-03-17T22:26:00.001+10:00

I did not always think of curl grubs as a beneficial pest. I had been told that they could kill lawn and other plants with their appetite for roots. However, it was once I started making huge compost heaps that I realised the information I had been provided was not the complete picture. If you make a compost or have a large pile of manure, once things cool down, the earthworms and other soil animals will move in. This includes curl grubs which help create wonderfully rich soil. So now instead of squishing them, or feeding them to the chooks, when discovered I toss them to the most organically rich spot in the garden. Eat, my pretties, eat!

Understanding why insects are attacking a plant is the best approach in being able to create a healthier garden. Are you starving your soil, thus starving your plants? Have you recently fed your plants high levels of soluble nitrogen? With organic matter and compost in the soil, everything becomes more balanced and stabilised. Root knot nematodes will not be a problem. I can grow tomato plants in the same place for over 6 months and get great crops off them to the end ("the end" being when I need the particular garden plot for something else) with no visible nematode damage to the roots. I do not fertilise the plants during this time either. The reason I can achieve this is that I have made the soil, so incredibly healthy it can support plants for long periods of time thanks to the well fed soil life. I know I have root knot nematodes on the property, as when feral tomatoes come up in the rose garden, their roots have shown signs of attack.

A health plant can respond to trimming of its roots, branches, and leaves, as long as it is in proportion to the health, vigor, and size of the plant. So when an insect arborist wants to ply its trade, who am I to say no? As long as no major or lasting damage is done to the plant or its fruit, then I do not mind. A healthy plant will respond to the trimming by putting out more growth. I have some native trees on the property that get every leaf completely eaten away by a beetle. But the trees always regrow the leaves and power along quite healthily, so why would I spray the bugs with some organic control? There is simply no point.

When I first set up my veggie garden, I left all insects be. I wanted to see what would happen. Would predators come along? Would the pests really be a problem, such that I could not harvest enough for my family's needs? I certainly found that caterpillars are a pest that needs to be managed, thus my current use of Dipel (Bacillus thuringiensis). But this is because I have not set up the right system in the veggie garden with permanent perennials and similar beneficial plants for key predator insects. Thus once garden designs have been changed, it is important to see if the current control methods are still warranted.

Ants are often thought of as a general pest. But they are fantastic recyclers of above surface material including meat. I use ants to pick the fats from bones before I bury them around the garden. Ants can breakdown the fats very quickly, whereas it will take a longer time if immediately buried in the soil. Ants are great predators. Green ants, which I certainly do not appreciate getting bitten by, will easily take down any cut worms roaming your garden. While ants can tend and protect scale and other honeydew producing insects, the presence of these insects often indicates another problem which needs to be managed for the long term health of the plant. Ants can also assist with pollination, for instance sugar ants will pollinate passionfruit and pitaya (dragonfruit).

Ants are also fantastic aerators of soil. My pastures are allowed to grow tall before I harvest the grass for compost, mulch, and other garden uses. The ants love this and build mounds of soil, excavating from below the surface and bringing it to the top. This improves water penetration, helps roots grow, and even sequesters carbon.

There is no doubt that there are pests which are truly just that. Queensland Fruit Fly being a prime example of such a pest. For those starting out in gardening, it can be hard to know what is a good bug, versus a bad one. So it is nice to know that there is a free locally focused website on Brisbane insects called http://www.brisbaneinsects.com. This website is an absolute gem allowing a better understanding of local insects. If you want to see a 28-spotted ladybird (plant eater) versus a three-banded ladybird (insect and/or fungi eater), then this is the site for you. The layout is well done, giving general information and pictures at the top, which allows people to drill down to more insect specific information as identification progresses.

So the next time you see a so-called pest having a go at your plant, ask yourself if nature has simply posted a job opening for a Sanitation Engineer.

Solar Power Generation Update

2011-03-14T23:30:00.000+10:00

A little under a year ago we had solar panels installed. So I thought an update on how things have been going was in order.

The power savings have been as expected which is fantastic. Our most recent bill was for around $43 dollars (previously we were paying around $240 per quarter). Our power bills include an ambulance fee (around $26) as well as a typical fixed connection charge. During this period, the weather has been anything but conducive to effective solar power generation. In addition, my parents were staying with us for part of the period (and my mother is not quite as power conscience as I would like her to be). So to come out with only a $43 dollar bill is outstanding.

We have been trying to do certain activities at night time, such as using the dishwasher, laundry, baths and showers. Often the computer was being run during the day, but it is a energy efficient laptop. I recently put a timer on the sewage system, so that it only runs during part of the day. This makes a considerable difference to our base power usage and extends the life of the sewage system aerator.

The other great thing is that two other properties right beside me have also installed solar power (they are larger installs as well). I know that my installation helped convince one of my neighbours to take the plunge, which is a positive influence.

So all in all, I am quite impressed with how we have come out. And in another 2 or so years, this system will have paid for itself. Not too bad!

Growth of the Swale Based Orchard

2011-03-06T22:55:00.002+10:00

About one year ago, the swale orchard started taking development. I had previous started the top SE swale/trench and planted two Small Leaf Jaboticabas and a Lemon Myrtle. I also planted other useful plants such as Pigeon Pea, Rosella, and Egyptian Spinach. Since that time I extended the start of the swale so that all the overflow from the rainwater tanks flow through it.

The next picture shows the lay of the land before development of the future swale orchard.

The future swale locations were mapped out using a spirit level, old wooden ladder, and lots of grass clippings. For some reason I neglected to take any pictures when the contour lines were first set out, but they were a maximum of 4.8 m apart, but often merging much closer as they aligned with the contours. Below are some pictures taken around the beginning of May 2010 after planting had been started.

This picture is taken from the main path through the centre of the orchard looking towards the start of the driveway. In the foreground one can see a Bignay or Red Currant Tree (Antidesma bunius). At the next swale to the left is a Black Sapote. As well in the background, there are a Spanish Cherry or Bakul Tree (Mimusops elengi), Hawaiian Guava, Asenia triloba, and Jakfruit (Blackgold).

This picture is taken from the start of the driveway looking through the orchard towards the north east. There are Jakfruit, Vietnamese Mint, local feral Guava, Loquat, Saba Nut or Malabar Chestnut (Pachira aquatica), and Taro planted out.

This picture is also from the same location, but looking towards the east. The Asenia triloba are in the pink protective plant guards and the Hawaiian Guava is to the right.

While it can be seen that many of the plants raised about the "natural" ground, I since found that with settling this was not nearly enough. So I know put much more effort into raising the level for the planting of each tree.

So how do things look now...

This is now the view from the top of the main path down the centre of the orchard towards to the start of the driveway. Note incredible growth of the Red Currant Tree. (Yes the neighbouring bloodwood tree continues to shed branches during heavy winds.)

Next is the view from the start of the driveway looking north east. Note the growth of the feral Guava and the Vietnamese Mint on the far left. The Cassava blocks the view of most of the rest of the orchard.

This time we are looking towards the east from the same location. Note the growth of the Hawaiian Guava.

Now for the overall view.

I have found that the effort in making the swales out of compost, using on-the-spot composting techniques, has been extremely successful. The plants are really responding to the nutrient rich soil. For some trees it is a bit much, such as the Custard Apple and Spanish Cherry. These trees suffer from scale attack and the usual associated problems. The Spanish Cherry is particularly vulnerable to scale.

As I have been building up the swales over time, I have had problems during some heavy rain events with low points on the swales being washed downhill (although not off the property). This was particularly the case when a number of uphill swales were only partially completed. This problem has almost been addressed now, with only a few swales not completed and there are no longer multi-swale gaps.

As the plants get settled into their places and the soil life builds up, I have been seeing trees such as the Carambola (Averrhoa carambola) putting on huge amounts of growth. Our unseasonably wet spring and heavy rain periods have been great for the growth of the trees. None have had any problems with root rot.

As for fruits, I have been enjoying some Acerola Cherries. This tree is simply amazing in its output. It has only been in the ground for about 4 months and has been supplying a trickle of fruit for the entire period. But now it is really starting some serious production. Goodbye vitamin C tablets!

Solar Power

2010-05-31T17:51:00.000+10:00

I figured that this is a post worthy of stopping a drought (at least relating to MG posts). Solar power was installed this month and the system has been doing its thing, and that means it is generating power for us.

The solar panels are not very visible (at least when I tried to get them in a picture). Driving up to the shed and walking around, you would have no idea that they are installed. However moving to the north of the shed, soon reveals their presence. A number of neighbours have commented on the panels, with one in indicating that they too want to go down this route. Nothing like flying the flag. :)

We went with Local Power for the installation. They are a Brisbane based solar power buying group. I chose them as they are price competitive and I knew I could trust their choice of solar panels and the associated inverter.

I had a 1.5 kW system installed and upgraded from the inverter to a Xantrex 2.8. This will allow me to add up to another 1.5 kW of panels in the future with no additional wiring required (other than hooking the panels in). On installation day, the Local Power mob turned up with a small army and installed the system in about 2 hours, despite the rainy weather.

The system was operational at the beginning of May which turned out to be quite fortunate as the REC price I received was $42. It has since fallen. If you are curious about the current retail REC pricing reference http://www.greenenergytrading.com.au/rec-prices.html. There is also wholesale information available (http://www.greenmarkets.com.au/index.html) which provides a graph with the historical REC price.

I did not change electricity retailers as AGL currently provides the best feed-in rate for Queensland. If you want to find out about the best feed-in tariff for your state, reference the Australian Feed-in Tariffs wiki.

The new Energex electricity meter was installed a couple of weeks after the solar panels went in. It is completely digital and allows different tariffs to be recorded using the one meter. At the time of this post, the amount of energy put into the grid was 33 kWh and the amount used was 109 kWh . Ideally I want to get a 1 to 3 ratio or better, so things are going fairly well. Given that we use power to pump water and treat sewage and our hot water system is electric, we are using very little power relative to our basic needs. We plan to install solar hot water in the near future, so this should assure that we hit the 1 to 3 ratio.

Tracking weather

2009-12-24T09:46:00.002+10:00

I generally like to know what the weather is about to get up to. As I am effectively a small scale farmer, the weather forecast, and rain forecast in particular, is valuable information. However the Brisbane forecast is for a large region, complicated by all the mountainous/hilly areas and the impacts from the coast. For the most part, I am interested in what is happening around the Maculata Grove property, not so much about what is happening in the Brisbane CBD or other locations.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has a fantastic web page which shows output from the Mt. Stapylton Radar site. This includes information about current rain and even wind. If there is rain forecast and I need to do an outside activity which is best not done in the rain, then I will visit the following web page:
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR664.loop.shtml?looping=1&reloaded=0&topography=true&locations=true&range=true&waterways=true&roads=true&rail=true

The above link is for the 64km range from the radar site and has a number of map features enabled. The 64 km range from the Mt. Stapylton Radar site gives me greater detail than the 128 or 256 km web pages. The enabled map features allows me to better see where the property is located and also allows me to see the impacts of things like the D'Aguilar Range on rain.

There is also a link for the Doppler wind data. I have not used this link much as I only recently realised it existed. However the next time we get a strong westerly I will make a point of having a look. This link is for a 128 km range from the radar site (I am not sure how I can change the range) with the same map features enabled:
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR66I.loop.shtml?looping=1&reloaded=0&topography=true&locations=true&range=true&waterways=true&roads=true&rail=true

Hopefully this information will be of value to those living in the SEQ region. For those living in other areas of Australia, you will find that the additional map feature information in the link address (i.e. ?looping=1&reloaded=0&topography=true&locations=true&range=true&waterways=true&roads=true&rail=true) will work for other radar stations. You can disable map features by changing the true to false, or removing the "&=true|false" completely from the link.

First taste of home grown bananas

2009-12-21T10:12:00.002+10:00

After close to 8 months since the first banana bunch started to appear, I have been able to taste some ripe fruit. The winter months obviously caused such a long time from flower to ripe fruit. Since the weather has warmed up, the bananas have been filling out quite quickly. But I was not sure that I would even get any fruit after the Blue Java plant collapsed due to the weight of the bunch.

Interestingly the first banana to become ripe was one in the middle of the bunch. Normally they ripen from the top of the bunch down to the bottom. Blue Java bananas are small and plump, similar in size to Lady Finger bananas. Nicely snack sized for small children.

This is the first time I have ever tasted a Blue Java banana. It is described as the ice cream banana as it is supposed to have a slight vanilla taste. However I was not able to discern that flavour. I found it to be a very pleasant sweet and creamy banana, although the centre of the banana was a bit hard. This is where seeds would have been produced prior to bananas becoming sterile. The hardness in the centre might have been due to the bunch having to be cut from the plant sooner than it should have. I had planned to allow the bananas to ripen on the plant, before the plant fell over.

I will try various recipes with this banana, assuming that my daughter Felicity allows me to have any more (she loves bananas). Banana smoothies with cinnamon, banana sorbet, frozen banana covered in desiccated coconut, and various baked banana recipes are in store. We'll see how the Blue Java banana holds up to the relentless tasting.

Meanwhile there are four other banana bunches coming on; another Blue Java bunch and three Lady Finger bunches. Two of the plants have been propped up. The other two seem to be holding their own for now. Hopefully this is the start of self-sufficiency in bananas or, at the very least, seasonal self-sufficiency.

Google Earth/Maps Imagery Update

2009-12-01T22:04:00.003+10:00

After about 3 years of no updates, including requests by government, Google has finally updated the imagery in the great Brisbane for Google Earth and Google Maps. So now instead of seeing shipping containers where our veggie garden is, you actually see the veggie garden.

The big white shed can still be clearly seen to south of the property. At the south eastern side of the shed, the new off-white rainwater tank is now visible. The veggie garden, banana pit, and possible makings of the chook house are also visible to the east of the shed.

To the north west of the shed, the citrus grove can just been seen bordered by other trees to the south and north. One can also see that some of the grass to the west is a bit brown. This is because it has been allowed to go wild. Although the grass in the north eastern paddock was cut by a neighbour.

The pond is not present in this photo, nor is the swale. I also think that the chook house was not completed at this stage. So I figure that the picture was taken around the mid June to July timeframe (EDIT: as it turns out it was taken on 2009-07-27).

Hopefully we will not have to wait another few years until we can see an aerial view of the pond.

Raspberry delight

2009-11-12T10:48:00.006+10:00

We have been enjoying a steady supply of raspberries over the last few months. We planted some autumn variety raspberries around March/April of this year, and they have been spreading readily since. While they are supposed to produce the bulk of their fruit in autumn, they have shown no signs of letting up their production. There are also summer fruiting varieties which mean you can have raspberries for most of the year!

There are two things which really excites Felicity while out in the garden, either saying let's check for strawberries, or let's check for raspberries. Unfortunately one does have to keep an eye on her as she will pick raspberries which are nowhere near ripe enough when she can no longer find ripe ones. She also has a tendency to scarf them quickly, so you do need to be quick to get some yourself.

Raspberries are a must have in the garden if you have some extra space and a sunny location. They are easy to grow and produce lots of delicious fruit, more over they do not have many pest (even the dreaded QLD fruit fly has left them alone thus far). However the do run excessively, so containing them or putting when were they can be mowed over is a must. Just remember to cut the canes back which have finished producing fruit and you will have a healthy and productive raspberry patch for years to come. And you can always offer some of the raspberry runners to friends who are certain to appreciate them.

UPDATE
I took a couple of additional photos which I thought I would include in this entry. These show a couple of different multiple raspberry clusters with different stages of fruit development.

Garlic Harvest

2009-10-31T22:53:00.004+10:00

After being in the ground for over six months, it was finally time to harvest my garlic. I planted over 150 Italian White garlic cloves back around the end of March. It was a soggy start for them due to the unseasonable heavy rains we experienced through autumn. Besides the saturated soil causing some of the cloves to rot, there was the huge number of weeds which vied for supremacy. All the while I had to remind the weedy brethren who owned this particular patch.

Of course, towards the end of the growing period, our rain situation was quite the opposite. The soil around the garlic became like powder at times, so plenty of water was required to keep them going. While dry conditions are great as the garlic comes to the end of its season, it is not so good when the season has not quite completed yet.

Growing garlic in the sub-tropics is significantly different from what I had been used to in Canada. In the old country, I would plant out the cloves at the end of autumn, just before the ground would freeze over. The cloves would lie dormant until spring, when, as soon as the ground warmed, they would be up like a crocus, even when there was still snow on the ground.

In the sub-tropics you plant garlic around March to early April after the intense heat of summer has faded a bit. Then you wait until around September to October to harvest them while they are still very much green and alive; as opposed to dying back like in Canada. The conditions in the sub-tropics at this time of year are ideal for the harvesting of garlic, as they should be allowed to dry out before harvest.

So how did the harvest turn out? Very well I thought. Even the tiniest cloves were able to produce a garlic bulb, albeit on the small size. Even with the heavy rains, I only lost a handful of garlic. While not all of the garlic are large, many are quite sizable. It will be from these biggies that I consider for my breeding stock come next year. Improvements in my planting next year will be a higher garden bed, thus having better drainage. As well, I will provide a bit more space between each plant.

In the meantime the garlic is now drying inside as we have been getting rain again. In a couple more weeks there will be even more reasons to have garlic in the dish; because there is *nothing* like organic fungicide-free garlic!

Mi cassava, es su cassava

2009-10-22T21:47:00.000+10:00

Here at Maculata Grove it is as though mother nature has put a roof over the place, very little rain to speak of. This is typical for this time of year in the sub-tropics and tropics. The so called build up to the rainy season is the driest time of the year. The cracks in the earth are getting large enough to swallow up small children, speaking of which...

Some of our trees are really suffering, in particular some of the lillypillies. Other trees, such as the Illawarra Flame tree, which are used to this dry time of year, have shed all their leaves going into a temporary dormancy. However if you choose your plants correctly, there should be no reason for a sustainable harvest not to be in reach. While I will not be eating cassava root any time soon, the cassava cuttings I stuck in the ground before winter are doing very well. Especially considering they have received no attention or water since planting. Yet there they are with green shoots getting ready to power through the wet season.

It is plants such as cassava and sweet potato, which have adapted to a tropical environment, which gardeners in these regions really need to be embracing. They are certainly welcome in my/your house any time.

Swaleville

2009-10-21T11:33:00.005+10:00

Welcome to swaleville, population one. Well you have got to start some where. I do have plans to continue the swale breeding program. My swale making studs, pick and shovel, are always eager to dig in. :)

If you are not up on your Permaculture jargon, you might be asking yourself - what is a swale?

A swale is a fancy word for water holding ditch. Its purpose is to capture water during high mounts of rain or run-off and temporarily store it. This allows the water to slowly seep into the sub-soil where plants with deep roots can take advantage of it. As well, if swales are built at the top of a hill, this can help deliver ground water to areas near the bottom of the hill. Whether this works will depend on your soil profile.

Swales also have the added bonus of capturing organic material, which quickly breaks down when the swales are damp or wet. This in turn provides nutrients to plants.

Swales are built along contour lines, or as close as possible to. This allows the full height of the swale to be filled with water along its entire length. In my case, the swale was purposely built just off the contour line. However I did mound the soil more on the northern end so that, as the soil settles and becomes more of a barrier, it will fill up evenly across its length.

My swale starts to the south near our grass driveway and continues towards the rose garden. It has been designed so that the overflow will go towards the rose garden and then down to some future swales. This should help reduce the amount of water flow down the driveway during high rainfall events.

The swale has been planted with two small leafed Jaboticabas and one Ceylon Hill Cherry (aka Hill Goosebrry, aka Downy Myrtle, aka Rose Myrtle, etc - latin name Rhodomyrtus tometosa). I will also put in some Rosellas to fill in the gaps for the next few seasons. I still need to finalise what I will do at the southern end of the swale. My current plan is to plant another Ceylon Hill Cherry as well as a native lillypilly. With the exception of the temporary plantings, this will mean that all the plants are from the Myrtaceae family. Moreover, they are all extremely attractive food producing plants.

Anyway I have heaps of other things to plant in the area so that my food forest can start taking shape, so I had better get busy ensuring another round of courtship proceeds smoothly (or on the level).

Pumped

2009-10-06T21:32:00.002+10:00

I have been fairly excited in recent days. I feel liberated from one of the great worries of farmers. And that worry is, when will it rain? While there is no replacing natural rain, having a water source which can be used for irrigation is absolutely fantastic.

The primary purpose of the new pond was for irrigation of the property. We are extremely fortunate that this is a spring-fed pond. So it just keeps filling and overflowing.

I was also very fortunate that the previous owners happened to put the waste treatment plant a short distance away from where I wanted to locate the pump. To me, electric was the only choice to power the pump. While solar might have been a distant second option as well, it is simply more efficient to put larger scale solar panels on the roof, than it is to have a small solar panel only driving a pump. So I have been able to run a temporary extension cord from the power point at the waste treatment plant to the pump.

After extensive research and comparison of Davey, Onga, and Grundfos pumps, I decided that the Grundfos JPB 4 PC15 was the best option. I was only looking for about 30 L/min and it can deliver up to 60 L/min. Moreover it takes much less power to do so than its Australian counter parts. Not to mention it was significantly cheaper even with a recent price rise. So while I would have like to support the Australian pump manufacturers, the simple fact was their engineering did not match my requirements without additional cost and, most importantly, additional power consumption. Power was my foremost consideration due to the existing power requirements of the waste treatment system.

For the piping, I chose 1-1/4 inch rural piping. This is also known as green line. It is an economical pipe with reasonably priced fittings. While it obviously has greater resistance than 1-1/2 inch and 2 inch pipe, the pump is able to still provide the required flow rate through this diameter of pipe. The longest run will be about 100+ meters with about an 8-meter delivery line static head and a 2-meter supply line static head. We have not fixed the pipe in place at this stage, as I wanted to see how well it worked at various locations on the property. So there is still some work to be done for the final fixed set up.

In the meantime, I have been able to lug the pipe around and get water back into the subsoil. How to I know that? Well, I put in 5 Jakfruit Blackgold seedlings into the chook free range area. I intensively watered the ground before I planted and the soil sucked it all up, including the clay subsoil (the green in the grass is thanks to the irrigation). However I did find that for the final planting hole, I had not watered the ground sufficiently. The soil which a shovel was able to shift in the other holes, required a mattock. Even then it was hard going. When I reached the clay layer, I had to stop. I filled the hole with water and let it soak in over night. The next day I was able to resume the planting which included working gypsum and organic matter into the clay layer.

So I look forward to being able to continue with an aggressive planting schedule as are in the driest time of the year for the SEQ area. Next stop, swale-ville.

Oh yes, I should also mention that the pump enclosure was made almost entirely out of recycled materials, with the exception of the roofing screws.

BOGI Fair and Competition

2009-10-04T22:38:00.002+10:00

Today was the grand 2009 BOGI fair. It is a great event which has many varied stalls with a strong sustainability theme, most with a gardening or food focus. There were solar cooking demonstrations, worm farm making demonstrations, Mark Tully and his rare breeds, seeds, plants, food, and the competition.

This was the first year I entered the competition. In fact, this was the first time I have ever entered a gardening competition. The cost was $2 for up to 6 entries and I entered five items: silverbeet, potatoes, snow peas, onions, and tomatoes. I did have other produce as well, but I did not feel that it was quite up to competition standards. When the judging was complete, I was able to secure second prize for the desiree potatoes, and first prize for the snow peas and onion. I must admit that for the onion category, that there was only my entry. However I do feel that even with multiple entries I still would have achieved the top prize as my onion was a whopper.

Of particular interest, the BOGI competition focuses on the taste and brix reading of the produce. So the look of the entry has nothing to do with one's ability to win a prize. And really this is what food should be about, the taste and nutritional density of the food, not how it looks or whether it is a standard size. Variability in one's produce is normal for an organic gardener, and there is nothing like variety to add that extra flavour to a meal.

A Hazy Shade of Sepia

2009-09-23T22:22:00.004+10:00

The weather forecast for today was dry and windy with a haze developing. Well the dust from central Australia certainly did envelope, most of the Australian east coast for that matter. We lost site of Clear Mountain (how ironic) and Mount Samson, as the first two pictures show. The landscape was visually surreal, as the colour was stripped from the background but present in the foreground. It was almost as if some Photoshop whiz was exercising their artistic flair on a grand scale.

The wind and heat over the weeks has been sucking the soil dry. This has required more water from our household water tanks to keep the main food gardens alive. We still have a good supply of water for the house, probably around 19000 L. This is mainly due to sound water conservation practices which attempts to utilise our water multiple times. For instance, we bucket the water from our daughter's bath into the cistern of the toilet. And after we flush, the underground treated effluent irrigation from the waste treatment plant waters our citrus grove.

Tomorrow I hope to get a new pump up and running, so with that in operation we will be able to start irrigating more of the food gardens using the water from the pond. This will hopefully keep plants such as the asparagus and passionfruit quite contented until the rainy season.

Pondorama

2009-09-16T22:25:00.003+10:00

Here is a panorama of the pond shortly after the earthworks were completed. On the left hand side you can see me working on the earth which was put where the water exits the pond. This has helped raise the water level about 30 cm since I did the depth check. The water level is now at the height of the southern end high water flow prior to its construction.

On the south-eastern edge of the pond you can see the concrete 375 mm pipe which allows the water to flow into the pond. This provides a constant pleasant waterfall from the stream coming into the pond. Over time, the lomandra hystrix planted around the piping should cover up the look of the urban pipe-work.

On the final day of earthworks, I also had a new plant shelf on the north-eastern side of the pond put in. This has increased the surface area of the water considerably, and provided a large shelf on which water filter plants like grey rush will be planted.

The final dimensions of the pond are about 40 m long south-to-north and about 15 m wide east-to-west (at its widest point).

You might have noted the use of the word pond instead of dam to describe this new waterway. As there is no real dam wall, it really is more appropriate to call it a pond.

Occupation chook

2009-09-16T19:35:00.001+10:00

As I have mentioned in recent posts, the chook house is now being occupied. We put the chooks in their new home over a week ago and kept them inside the coop entirely for the first few days. As we did not have the chook run constructed at this time, we figured that this would be for the best plus they could get used to this being their new home. It was lots of "fun" capturing the chooks to put them in. Particularly Rusty, as he does not like being caught and is very good at evading capture these days (fox attacks probably have this kind of impact on chooks).

We changed the colour of the paint on the outside of the nest boxes. Although I preferred the original colour, it absorbed too much heat. The new sandy desert colour is significantly cooler. Since we want the chooks to lay as opposed to bake, I figured that colour co-ordination was much less important. In case anyone is wondering why we even considered the darker colour in the first place, it was mistinted paint at half price. We thought it might be too dark and it was. Thankfully the new colour was free, compliments of Mr HHH.

The person door (820 mm wide) was acquired from our local transfer station. As the chook door frame width is only 600 mm, the door had to be cut down to size along the bottom and on one side. It is a hollow door, so I used a very old can of expanding foam to fill in the two cut sides. So while it looks like there should be more door, it works just fine.

The two chook doors were constructed in a similar fashion to the nest box lids, with fibre cement on the outside and ply on the inside. The doors have gate latches on them so that they lock securely when closed. Actually the nice thing about them is that they are large enough for even me to fit through. This has already been handy when we put up a temporary divider within the coop as I did not want the chickens to "own the place". I was stuck on the other side of the divider and exited through the chook door (ever so gracefully of course).

We also made a perch and a perch-type access to their nest boxes. The two perches were made from a feral Jacaranda tree; while it is not as good as a camphor laurel timber, one less feral tree is still a good thing. Now the sad thing is that they are not using their nest boxes, nor their perch. They are big birds and I guess it does take them time to adjust to new things, but they could appreciate the handy work a bit more now couldn't they?! We got three eggs on the second day, so even though they are laying on the floor, this has not impacted their output. Thanks girls.

The remaining coop to-do items are weather strips over the two chook doors, installation of the guttering and down piping, attaching siding along the western roof edge for greater stormy weather protection, and a permanent divider between the two parts of the chook shed.

It is worth noting that in the construction of the chook shed, a significant portion of the materials were recycled. Some of the recycled material used was the roofing iron, roofing channels, ply wood, doors, sisalation, metal strapping, guttering, 6 mm fibre cement, nails, wood piers, tension rod, and some of the roofing screws. The new materials used were screws, hinges, door latch, cement, compressed fibre sheeting for the floor, most of the framing wood, some of the paint, and silicone sealant. So I am pleased that this project has helped to reduce some of the waste which could have ended up in landfill.

By the way, if anyone has any suggestions on a name for the chook coop, please post it in the comments.

Hitting Bottom

2009-09-06T19:36:00.002+10:00

I took the kayak out on the dam to test out the water depth. Sadly, it is the first time this kayak has touched Australian waters. Given the length of time I have been living in this great country, it has been far too long. However it was still up to the task and, despite there not being much in the way of white water, it performed quite well.

During the portage from the shed to the dam, I thought about a great Canadian super hero called Mr Canoehead (Canada's greatest aluminum crime fighter). If you have never heard of this mighty Canuk, then it is worth checking out the link to some old video clips.

After launching into the dam, I could not resist "opening her up" (i.e. paddling quickly from one end to the other). It is always relaxing paddling and I look forward to doing this regularly in the future.

After a bit of fun, I used a depth checker to see where the bottom was. Unfortunately, the depth is not quite as deep as I would have liked. It is only about 1.5 m at either end, with the northern end being just slightly deeper. Throughout the rest of the deeper parts of the dam it varies from about 1 m to 1.25 m. So I would say that the average depth of the water is around 1.2 m. Still, given the challenges with all the water while it was being dug out, it is still a good result. But I will see if we can excavate a bit more tomorrow.

I also took the opportunity to plant some of the reeds back around the shallower areas. Hopefully they will take and start filtering the water. I will also need to speak with the folks at the Kumbartcho Sanctuary nursery and purchase some native water and margin plants to put around the dam.

No thanks, I'm full

2009-09-06T08:29:00.001+10:00

The water level in the new dam has been rising at an impressive rate. So much water has been pouring in, that the dam is already filled to capacity. Pretty much all of the shallow areas on the western side have been covered with water. This has occurred less than 48 hours after the temporary earthen bung wall was removed. Part of the reason for the rapid filling is that there is no dam wall at the end of the dam. Thus the lowest part of the dam is the highest level of the water. But it is still impressive considering that there has been very little rain in over two months.

The first picture is of the water level before the water behind the bung wall was released shortly after 3 PM on Friday afternoon. The second picture is less than a minute after the water was released. You can see the water rushing into the dam on the right hand side of the photo. The third picture is the following morning (Saturday). The fourth picture is from Sunday morning (the day this blog entry was published).

The pictures above are taken from the southern end looking north. Below are some additional pictures from around the dam. The first picture is a view of the water entering the dam from the south-eastern end with the the western side in the background. The second picture is from the northern end looking south. The final picture is again from the northern end, this time looking south-west (with the shed in the background).

The height of the dam edges are quite appropriate, I believe, as they will allow for an increased capacity during heavy rains without the banks being compromised. We'll see if Mrs Nature has anything to add about this thought.

BOGI Day Out

2009-09-05T19:41:00.001+10:00

Not only are we in the process of building a dam and putting the finishing touches on the chook coop (yes, I need to do another post on this), we also had an open garden for Brisbane Organic Growers Inc (BOGI).

Today turned out to be a nice sunny day. I was not sure if the weather would hold as we had just under 10 mm of rain overnight and early in the morning. However the sun came out well before the event.

The tour started at the rose garden with its pineapple border and edible hibiscus. The edible hibiscus was a hit, with many people requesting a cutting. We continued on to the citrus grove which is located over the sub-surface irrigation for the treated effluent coming from our Aqua Nova system. Just below the irrigated area are bananas, sweet potatoes, raspberries, pumpkins, Jerusalem artichoke, and a persimmon tree.

We continued over to the forest of asparagus, past the passionfruit, and on to the main event, the vegie garden. I showed them how the grass paths broke down over time creating a lovely rich soil and explained how the majority of the garden beds is basically compost. I also touched on some learning experiences relating to a bit too much deco in the garden beds (which seems to cause the beds to dry out faster).

I also explained how the banana pit was made, including the amount of on-the-spot composting it required. The new chook shed was also presented including its inhabitants.

Finally we finished off with an afternoon tea. There is nothing like spending an afternoon chatting about gardening with a great bunch of people and enjoying some tasty treats!

There's a Hole in the Gully

2009-09-04T21:52:00.001+10:00

Dear Liza, dear Liza. Or something to that effect.

The time had finally come to put in our dam. Or as it turned out, a big hole in the ground. Unfortunately we did not have the right material in the gully to make a proper dam wall. Damn dam a wholly holey mess! So instead we dug in deep (keeping within council regs of course).

There was an existing hole in the ground, however it was fairly shallow. The main purpose of this new water collection area is for irrigation of the property, primarily focusing on the generation of edible goodies. However there were some important secondary reasons as well.

We wanted the resultant body of water to look good. We also want it to be deep enough so that we could swim in it without touching bottom. As well, we want our future ducks and geese to be able to use it.

We'll see how everything pans out once the water level fills up. However I am feeling rather good about it so far.

While I would have liked the western side to have been deeper, it will probably be for the best that it's not as reeds and other filtration type plants should establish well there. This should help maintain the water quality, which has always been extremely good. Obviously it looks a bit murky now, but with a bit of time all the particles should settle out.

I will post a video of the water surging into the dam after the temporary upstream bung wall was broken. The last two pictures were taken before the water was released into the dam.

Hot, hot, hot

2009-08-24T21:27:00.002+10:00

Well today was a scorcher with temperatures in the mid-30s. The sun was intense and the winds were hot and dry; nothing like a nice winter's day. And, of course, I had a trailer load of manure to spread around the banana pit. As I needed some grass, or dust as it would be, to help the manure break down, I also had to do some mowing.

So there I was outside throughout the day guzzling down litres of water. As this should be the last bulking up of the banana pit soil, it was definitely worth it. Soon I will also have Yacon, ginger, and galangal growing amongst the bananas as well.

I have now pulled out all the invasive sweet potato as it was not forming tubers in that area. I do plan to leave some slower running sweet potato around the enlarged front edge of the banana pit as it has produced some good food without smothering all the other plants.

Put a lid on it

2009-08-19T21:26:00.005+10:00

And so I did. The nest boxes now have lids attached utilising four strap hinges per box. Due to the slope on the nest box, the strap hinges had to go on top of the bracing, as opposed to below. This caused some issues once the metal sheeting was placed above the nest boxes. But this was fixed by cutting about 25 mm off of the bottom of the sheeting. So now the nest box lids can be opened fully. The black flashing will prevent any water from getting inside.

I have to say that I preferred the look of the coop before the sheeting above the nest boxes was put in. But the sheeting will reduce the solar penetration. We'll see if I need to make any adjustments to improve the air flow. It would be cool to have openings which could lift up and hook onto the underside of the roof. However I will not go down that road for now.

I was slightly paranoid after the random planter made a comment about the nest boxes getting hot. So I put a thermometer inside the boxes. The good news is that the temperature does not seem to be any different from a shaded side of the coop. But the true test will be during the heat and humidity of summer.

Still a few more items to complete (such as some paint) before the move in date, but we are getting close. :)

We now have two hens which have gone broody, so it will be good for them to have a proper place to sit.

The Coop Case - Progression Beyond Framing

2009-08-16T06:54:00.008+10:00

There has been further progression with the coop case. Material evidence has been presented for all to see. So impressed was the jury, that the material has been left in place. Although the case development took a turn for the worse when a key piece of evidence did not fit the crime scene. This almost resulted in the case coming unhinged. Although this was a setback to the case, other supporting material is still to be presented. With any luck, Rusty and the egg laying gang will be ready for lock up in another week or so.

TRANSLATION: I sourced the wrong darn hinges for the nest box lids. So after trying to figure out how the impossible would fit on, I consulted with the builder of the Hen House Hilton and asked what he used. Apparently I need to get some long narrow strap hinges as opposed to the non-mortise hinges which I tried to use.

Chickens Framed

2009-08-08T21:32:00.008+10:00

Shocking allegations have come forth that local Maculata Grove chicken residents have been framed. Photographic evidence has been presented which clearly shows the group's mastermind, Rusty, at the centre of the controversy. When requested for a comment all Rusty's lawyer would say was "It's a coop".

It is hoped that further progress of this case can be made for all involved.

Samford Local Growers Public Offering Part Deux

2009-08-08T20:32:00.008+10:00

I have been a part of the Samford Local Growers since the first meeting at the Old Catholic Church back in the middle of 2008. It has been a great experience meeting other like-minded people who are interested in growing fresh organic local food in their backyards. The information shared has allowed me to garden that bit more effectively in the new-to-me climate of South-East Queensland. As well, the local knowledge in the group has been invaluable.

The group generally gets together every couple of weeks. Our meetings are at members properties and involve selling and/or swapping food-related produce, plants, and seeds. We also have morning tea and tour around the host's garden. There is lots of discussion around gardening and how certain plants perform. I have obtained quite a number of plants through attending these meetings and it is great sharing knowledge.

The group recently decided to provide our home grown organic produce to the wider public in the Samford Valley. Our first public offering was at John Scott Park on the 11th of July. Our second offering was at the Samford Valley Markets on the 8th of August. Both public offerings went very well, and our second one certainly had twice the produce available as compared to the first. The reception from the public was very good with many of the local growers (including me) selling out of most of the produce. The majority of the produce was picked fresh that morning, which is something that is simply not possible in the retail shops.

Our plans are to continue selling at the Samford Valley Markets, held on the second Saturday of every month. And who knows, we might even increase the frequency of our offerings in the future.

Torturing Tomatoes

2009-08-04T20:44:00.009+10:00

There is a great article in the September/October 2009 edition of the ABC Organic Gardener magazine on tomatoes. It is written by the knowledgeable and sprightly Peter Cundall. The entire article is a fantastic read, but the part the I found the most interesting involved torture.

Funny enough, I did this exact thing about a month ago. I was given some tomato plants in small cylindrical pots (shaped like a glass which is taller than wide). I left them in the pots for at least a month after they were given to me since I did not have a place to plant them yet. So there they stayed getting watered with the rest of the potted plants. They were not given any food, so they quickly used up what little nutrients there were in the pot. Yet they started to flower and even fruit (that's how long I left them). When I did finally plant them out, I used the tried and true trick of planting them deeply by removing some of the lower growth and planting just below the remaining stems.

In the OG article, Peter recommends giving the tomato plants some potassium when they are potted on from the one week seedling stage. He also indicates that the plants can be transplanted into the garden once they have started flowering. As once they start flowering, they will no longer waste their energy producing leaves and focus more on delivering what we are after, the fruit.

Now in the very same garden bed where I planted the tortured tomatoes (see left-hand side photo), I also planted some of my own mollycoddled tomatoes (see the green mass in the background of the right-hand side photo) which did not experience the pain of being root bound. Well guess what? All the ones who had it tough in the pot are producing fruit, without exception. However the ones that I grew are looking very nice and leafy, but have only recently started flowering. Thus they are still a long way off from providing me with food. Basically they are being slack as I gave them such a cushy start in life.

So there you go, it is worth bringing out the thumb screws on plants such as tomatoes.

Childhood Dream

2009-08-03T20:20:00.008+10:00

One of the great things I love about living a more sustainable lifestyle is seeing my daughter experience and taste what life has to offer. She is a little over 15 months old and just loves being outside and seeing things around the garden.

We have the main food garden area fenced off primarily from the chooks, but it also helps keep Felicity from helping a little too much. But whenever she gets a chance, she will slip through the chicken wire gate with a giggle, go right past the garlic while heading straight for the curly-leafed lettuce. Thankfully for the lettuce, she only pats it. However if one is unlucky enough to be a tomato, well you won't be spending much more time on the vine. Although recently she has learned that the red ones are best for picking and eating.

Felicity loves to share. She will offer her partially enjoyed tomatoes to Mom and Dad, or even to the chooks. Felicity also enjoys sitting down with the chooks and sampling some of their food. Amazingly, this doesn't phase them including Rusty the rooster. I guess even the chooks have learned that life is about sharing.

Planting Asparagus

2009-08-02T18:37:00.008+10:00

I should have done this post a while back. I was just reading the "asparagus in the egg bed" posting by James at random plantings (www.randomplantings.com) and he had done a bit of research about planting asparagus. Well so have I and it is about time I shared, as I have found out some crispy information.

First off some quick basics. Asparagus is a long lived (about 20 years) perennial, so it needs to be located in the garden where it can live out its life for many years to come. While it can be readily transplanted, it will take time to recover from the move, meaning less fresh asparagus in the kitchen (if it even makes it that far). Asparagus does well in a sunny position, but it can also handle some shade during the day and still perform well.

As James stated in one of the comment responses, asparagus loves a deep rich well drained soil. Of those adjectives, well drained is the most important. Poorly draining soil can result in root rot. So don't dig a pit into clay soil, particularly in sub/tropical areas with heavy seasonal rains.

Asparagus is tough, it can grow just about anywhere. If a seed is able to germinate in a crevice between two rocks, it will and will do quite fine thank you very much. That said, you want eat the new shoots, so giving it deep rich soil will allow the plant to produce more spears more often. And more spears means more tasty dishes.

Asparagus is happiest in a neutral soil pH between 6.5 and 7.5. If the pH starts getting below 6.0, then it will start to suffer. As mentioned previously, asparagus likes rich soil, but particularly rich in phosphorus and potassium. So make sure you given them fertiliser rich in phosphorus and potassium when planting. In fact (as I have also proven), the roots can handle being directly on the fertiliser.

Asparagus should be planted about 12.7 cm to 15.3 cm deep. Any deeper will result in a decreased yield. This information is quite different to what the majority of web sites or even "experts" will tell you. Ohio State University is to thank for this tidbit.

Of course the next question is how close to plant them. Again the information in this area can vary considerably, however with good reason. You need to know how you plant to harvest your plants, how rich the soil is, and what other competition exists. In ideal conditions, they can be planted as close as 15.2 cm. That right, 15.200000 cm. This tidbit is from John F. Kelly, J. Bakker, Hugh C. Price, and Norman L. Myers. This means you can get your 20+ asparagus into a small area and get a better yield of harvest. This is much smaller area than what the Gardening Australia fact sheet on asparagus tells you (in fact much of the information there is out of date).

So what did I do when I planted my 80-some home grown seedlings out?

I prepared the soil as well as I could (see the Asparagus Galore post).
I used individual holes for planting out the seedlings as opposed to a furrow (purely by choice).
I offset the rows resulting in a diamond type planting pattern. The spacing between the plants was no closer than 30 cm partly due to the state of the soil prior to improvement. As a future experiment, I will plant some new seedlings in the centre of the diamond (giving a 15 cm plant spacing) to see what the result is.
The plants were planted about 10 cm deep which is even shallower than recommended. This was on purpose as I figure I can always add more compost over time.
I added chicken manure to each of the planting holes. While I did not hold the chooks bum over the asparagus seedling hole, it was freshly collected during the days prior and even on the day.
The roots were not spread out during planting. There is no need to do this as it makes no difference to the growth of the plant.

So I hope that this "fresh" information helps people out there growing asparagus. I will post another entry in the future about harvesting asparagus as I again have some interesting information to share.

One Year Anniversary

2009-07-31T20:20:00.010+10:00

Its hard to believe that we have been living here permanently for just over a year now. We arrived at the property late on the 26th of July, just a breath ahead of the movers. Needless to say chaos ruled, particularly since we had to move all our stuff with the trailer as the semi could not make it up the grass driveway. Thankfully out little girl slept through that episode.

The food producing plants on the property at this time was rather poor (as can be seen from the first photo). Basically we had some pawpaw and strawberry plants bearing fruit. Sure we had a lemon tree, a Hickson mandarin tree, a Navalena orange tree, and a fig tree, but it was either out of season or there was no fruit (due to the age of the citrus trees or poor site selection in the case of lemon tree).

Over the course of the year we have made some serious inroads into increasing our food production capabilities quite significantly. I initially focused most of my efforts towards creating veggie beds. This was soon followed by additional fruit producing plants, such as the two banana areas.

At present we are self sufficient in lettuce, potatoes, snow peas, silver beet, mandarins, sweet potatoes, passionfruit, pumpkins, tomatoes, rhubarb, Asian greens, eggs, and a number of herbs. In fact, there is plenty of excess for some of the items allowing us to sell it to other members of the Samford Local Growers group.

It is also worth mentioning that there is a small quantity of produce such as oranges and raspberries. But certainly not enough to be deemed as self-sufficient at this stage. And if our chooks leave the strawberries alone, who knows maybe there will be enough excess for some strawberry jam.

During the past year, we have planted out a significant portion of the citrus orchard, although there is still more planting space. In a couple of years we will have excess citrus fruit, which is a problem I am looking forward to having. Our banana trees should produce heaps of produce this coming season. We have four different varieties, so I am keen to do a taste test comparison.

There are also heaps of other fruits, gingers, and other delights (such as Yacon or Jerusalem artichoke) which I am looking forward to. I have certainly learned that there is nothing as sweet as the taste of sustainable harvest, not to mention tasting new types of delicious harvest for the first time.

Chicken dance

2009-07-17T09:47:00.010+10:00

A proper chook coop is long over due. While we have not had the chooks for that long, I had wanted to build a chook coop at the end of last year or beginning of this year at the latest. Of course things have not gone quite according to my idealist schedule. Our little girl often has that kind of impact on plans.

Although in reality, the biggest issue with progression of the chook coop was the design plans. The location for the coop is in an area which gets quite wet during heavy rain falls. Even though Rhode Island Reds are a hardy breed, I do not feel that it is all that nice to have them in damp conditions. Thus this meant either a concrete slab or raised chicken coop.

I really liked the idea of a raised chook coop, particularly after seeing one of the members of the Samford Local Growers constructions. His design was based on a BuildEazy chook coop design with a few tweaks such as a flat roof design. The dimensions for my coop are 3.6m by 1.8m, so I am doubling the size of the basic plans. This is so that I can divide the coop into two sections for future purposes.

With a raised coop design, I figure that rats and mice will have a hard time getting access to the interior. I also plan to allow the chooks access to underneath the chook coop as part of their main run, thus it will provide valuable shade during the heat of the summer.

There is still a fair bit of work to complete as only the platform of the coop in place. But at least in the mean time it will allow my little girl a great place to perform her chicken dance.

Rejoining the flock

2009-07-17T09:29:00.003+10:00

Our injured hen has made an amazing recovery. She, along with the rest of the flock, had been attacked by a fox. She was the worst off by far, unable to move that much. She was able to lay an egg on the second or third day after the injury. If a hen has an egg on the way and is unable to lay it, then this can cause death; thus the appearance of the egg was a welcome site.

After the first week of recovery, she was able to visit the other chickens for short durations. I am sure that this helped her mentally, even if Rusty did attempt to get a bit amorous with her.

Finally after two weeks since the attack, her health improved enough so that she was able to roost with the others. So Rusty now has his full harem of girls back.

We got some coloured bands for the hens several days ago. We gave the colour red to the injured hen as it seemed appropriate. We also have orange, blue, and green bands. We have decided that these colours are now the names for the hens.

Fox attack

2009-07-03T18:26:00.004+10:00

A week ago our flock of chooks were attacked by a fox. We had gone over to a neighbours place to drop off some garden produce and by the time we got back the sun had set behind the mountains. Unfortunately this was more than enough time for the fox to do some damage. I first saw evidence of the attack with the heaps of feathers around. Then after getting a torch, I was able to locate Rusty our rooster. He has lost a large area of feathers in front of his beautiful tail feathers. We were able to locate two of the hens, one of which was quite injured. However after lots of searching the other two hens were no were to be seen. We thought that they were fox food.

Thankfully the missing hens had the good sense to make a very long dash to one our other neighbours. This would have been a good 600m or so. They had put them safely in a cage and called later that evening. So we were able to collect them and bring them back home where they slept in the shed.

The next day, three of the hens were no worse for wear, even with some feather loss. Rusty however was very lethargic and did not eat or drink much. The injured hen was even worse than Rusty, having problems standing up and moving; let alone eating or drinking. So she was kept in a box inside.

We moved the chicken house inside the shed for the next few nights. Rusty rapidly recovered and started working the girls and crowing again. This included early morning crowing from within the shed (not a good way to wake up). So for the last couple of nights the chook house was put outside again.

Things were not looking that good for the injured hen as it was only in the third or fourth day that she started eating and drinking again. Her movement improved, but it is still messed up. I suspect that the fox got her by the neck and did some nerve damage. Anyway we will continue to attempt nursing her back to health. However she only has a month to recover tops, after that it is the stock pot. Hopefully it will not come to that.

Asparagus galore

2009-06-24T18:00:00.001+10:00

I recently had some areas tilled with a tractor complements a wonderful neighbour who is also into food gardening. The first tilled section is for a large planting of asparagus. The area is approximately 12m by 2.3m so there is plenty of room for a multitude of plants.

A few months back, I was very fortunate to have been given a couple of mature asparagus plants from a couple in a local food growing group. They also provided me with heaps of seeds. So I attempted to germinate 198 of them and got about 180 viable plants. Not a bad start.

I have slowly been planting them out into the newly tilled soil. Unfortunately the soil in this area is poor. It comprises of subsoil (deco and clay) from the previous owners earthworks. I incorporated gypsum along with basalt rock dust, dead grass, and manure. So there should be hope for the asparagus producing capabilities of this rejuvenated soil. Asparagus is extremely hardy, as long as it has good drainage, so I shouldn't be disappointed. I also raised the bed about 10 cm or so above the existing ground level which will help with drainage.

For those of you who have not tasted fresh off the plant asparagus spears, it is like an entirely different vegetable. Fresh asparagus is unbelievably sweet and tasty. This is a plant worth making space for in the home garden. Come on spring!

Frost damage

2009-06-23T18:17:00.000+10:00

At little under two weeks ago we got hit with a frost. It was a medium severity frost impacting some of the plantings on the lower section of the property the most. This included four sections of sweet potato plants, watermelon plants, a Kent pumpkin plant, and butternut squash plants. I had expected the squash and watermelon to be spirits of plantings past; amazingly all seem to be recovering now.

Up at the top end of things (near the shed), three zucchini plants coped it along with some sweet yellow peppers. I am hoping that the youngest zucchini plant will be able to yield at least one fruit before the stem turns to mush. I will still be able to get some sweet yellow pepper plants growing as not all of them tangoed with Jack Frost. Other plants like the button squash, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, snow peas, silver beet, Hong Kong broccoli, bok choy, carrots, onions, leeks, and garlic all weathered the cold without any dramas.

The banana pit was probably the warmest spot of all. This is no doubt due to the water in the middle of the pit which I maintain for irrigation of the bananas. None of the sweet potato in this area has any visible signs of frost damage. Go micro climate.

So I will need to start being a bit more vigilant with the more sensitive plants when we get forecast temperatures in the mid single digits or lower. Its almost like gardening in Canada again. ;)

Getting tanked

2009-06-19T11:18:00.000+10:00

In a previous blog entry, I made reference wanting to get additional water storage capacity. Well last week a new 5000 gallon Nylex tank was delivered. We had to hold off on the delivery by about one week as the recent rain had made the ground soft. Even with the delay the truck still caused significant impressions in the lawn.

As I do not like to waste anything, I moved all the good top soil from where the tank was to be located. The soil has been relocated throughout the food gardens. This included the creation of two new beds in the main vegetable garden section, bringing the total to 14 beds in the area.

I was also able to use the deco underneath the water tank, which had previously been mined from the banana pit. So nothing was wasted (as it should be). We have also been using rocks from the soil on the property around the water tanks to suppress weeds.

Until the dam is built, all water collected in the tanks will be utilised inside the shed as well as for irrigating the food gardens. Now that we are entering the dry period for the year it is vital to collect every bit of water. So now all that is needed, is to some rain to fill the new vessel.

Hickson Mandarins

2009-06-11T11:10:00.001+10:00

June is an exciting time here. Not because I celebrate my birthday, rather it is when our Hickson mandarin's fruit is ready for picking.

Hickson mandarins are an Australian mandarin originating in Roma Queensland. They are believed to be a limb sport from an Ellendale mandarin tree owned by Mr. Hickson (hence the name). Hicksons are a medium to large-size mandarin and have an orange to slightly reddish colour with between 10 and 15 seeds per fruit. They have a high juice content and a great flavour. They are easy to peel and break into segments.

Another benefit with Hickson mandarins is that they have a very long post-harvest life. This is not a huge consideration for the home grower, unless of course you want to harvest your fruit before any Sulphur Crested Cockatoos start to sample your goods.

The fruit from our tree is quite large. The tree was planted in late 2007 and has been around for two fruiting seasons. In this its second year, it has produced around 50 fruits. We attempted to remove all fruit for the first year, however a few fruits managed to stay on much to our subsequent delight. However it is best to remove all fruit during the first year.

Last night at the Sub-tropical Fruit Club of Queensland bi-monthly meeting, we got to taste a number of different mandarins, including Fremont and Imperial, as well as Tangelo Minneola. I was able to bring home a number of samples to compare against the Hickson mandarin. In terms of sweetness, the Fremont comes out on top, just. The Hickson is a close second. The Hickson is also about as easy to peel as an Imperial, but without as much of the pithy white stuff. However in terms of size the Hickson is a clear winner (in the picture with the three segments, the top one is the Hickson, the middle is the Imperial, and the bottom one is the Fremont) . So overall, the Hickson is certainly a mandarin worth growing in your home garden.

Harvesting sweet potatoes

2009-05-20T15:40:00.000+10:00

The time had come to dig up some sweet potatoes. We had waited well over 3 months since planting. Our first planting location was around the edge of the banana pit. This is a classic permaculture type of set up. The idea being that the sweet potatoes will help stop invasion of unwanted plants such as grass. From my experience this works well.

That said, I would not use a highly invasive sweet potato in this area again. I have three types of sweet potato growing on property. The first one is a small leaved plant which produces white tubers with a white skin. I have been very pleased with this plant as it is not very invasive; which is what you want when you have a banana pit or don't want the plant to take over.

The second sweet potato is a more of your classic looking plant with medium sized leaves. The plant produces white tubers with a purple skin. This plant almost over took my banana pit. Not to mention about the same space again to the right of the pit (where some grass was).

The third sweet potato is again a classic looking plant. The tubers produced have an orange flesh with the same coloured skin. It has similar rampid tendencies.

As the sweet potato vine had intermingled with the banana, it was a bit challenging to remove the tubers without significantly impacting the banana roots. The main part of the banana pit was compost created at the site, basically heaps of horse manure with grass and a bit of deco. This has turned into a beautiful rich soil. The raised edge around the pit comprised of clay and deco, a rather poor soil (or so I thought).

Upon harvesting the sweet potato from within the banana pit as well as along the edge of the pit (with the so called poor soil), I was extremely surprised to find that the harvest was far greater from the clay/deco mix as opposed to the rich compost. The harvest ratio was about 10 times greater for equivalent space. In the picture, the pile on the left is from a space about the same as the area which the pile takes. The pile on the right is from about 7 times the area of the first pile.

It should be noted that sweet potatoes have significantly better nutritional value than "normal" potatoes. Not only that, for the home gardener, they have the benefit of being able to store the tubers in the soil and harvest when needed. Thus they make a fantastic survival food with a significant enough planting area. Just make sure to harvest the tubers within two years, otherwise the tuber quality can significantly deteriorate.

As for a recipe suggestion, try using them in a pumpkin soup. Basically replace about half the pumpkin quantity with sweet potato. We prefer to roast the pumpkin, sweet potato, onion, and garlic for our soup. Sweet potato is also exceptional eaten baked with half a tsp of fenugreek and some olive oil. Yum! :)

What water shortage?

2009-05-20T15:07:00.000+10:00

Things had been a bit dry the last month or so. The soil had started to crack in places and the lawn was going brown. That all changed a couple of days ago. Now everything is saturated including the garden. Our rain gauges have not been able to keep up, so we have had well over 160 mm. Based on the depth of the water in some of the buckets, it has been closer to 300 mm of rain.

Our poor chooks have been getting quite wet. We had put the chook house on top of some piles of dead grass last night in order to help them get higher. I certainly need to build the permanent chook house.

I had been doing some research into getting a dam pump and a new rainwater tank. I think that we will just go for another rainwater tank (5000 gal) until we get some of the dams built. With a new tank our water storage capacity will be around 15000 gallons or 68100 litres. That *should* be heaps of water to last a several months of no rain and being able to irrigate the main veggie garden. However once I get more fruit and nut trees in, the water from dams will be critical to successful growth.

I went for a walk this morning around the property and the area. There were rapids in a couple of spots along the creek in our gully. Very tempting to get my kayak out and do some playing the in the white water.

UPDATE:
I have uploaded a video of the creek as it exits the Maculata Grove property. As can be seen and heard, there are fairly significant rapids being generated.

Chook Breed Research

2009-05-06T19:01:00.000+10:00

Like many new things I do, I usually do a fair bit of research upfront. In this case choosing a chicken breed was particularly important as they are live animals who need care and housing.

Our requirements were to get a breed which was dual purpose. That is, they can be used for producing eggs and meat. As the males do not produce eggs, they are expensive to keep around for no food-related benefit. Since we plan on breeding our own chickens, we will undoubtedly end up with many surplus cockerels. Speaking to some members of the Lawnton Poultry Club, more than 50% of fertilised eggs develop into males.

In addition, given that we are planning on eating surplus birds, we want a chicken that has a bit of meat. Thus bantams are out.

So with those requirements our choice was narrowed down a fair bit. After a bit more research I found the following high level dual purpose breed breakdown:

general purpose breeds: Houdan, Dominique, Wyandotte, Sussex, Oprington, Plymouth Rock (aka Rocks or Barred Rock)
better for eggs: Australorp, Rhode Island Red
better for meat: Langshan and New Hampshire

Of the breeds listed above, I was starting to lean towards Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire, Australorp, or Wyandotte based on reading various blogs and other information, including the ability to acquire the breed in Australia.

However when it came time to choose, I found the site http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html to be the most beneficial as it provided a tabular comparison of all the breeds. There is also a shorter dual purpose table, but I have not provided the link.

In Australia, the Rhode Island Red, Australorp, and Wyandotte breeds are more common, thus generally not as dear as the others.

In the end, our decision to go with the Rhode Island Red breed over others was their egg laying capability, hardiness, large size, excellent temperament, free range or containment adaptability, and attractive plumage (i.e. not simply one single colour). As a bonus we found out that due to their size, they cannot fly that well. Thus even short fences present a significant hurdle to them. This has already been handy during the process of fencing of the veggie garden from their incursion.

Rhode Island Red Chooks

2009-05-02T21:34:00.000+10:00

Today was the day that we finally got chooks at Maculata Grove. I would have liked to have had them sooner, however I still had not built any housing for them. Truth be told, I still haven't. However we were able to acquire a "portable" chook tractor from a neighbour of ours which we are using to house the birds.

We decided to get one cockerel (now named Rusty) and four pullets (to be named). The breed we decided upon was Rhode Island Red. I will explain more about the reason for choosing this breed in another post. We were very lucky to find that we have a breeder of RIRs just down the road in Yugar.

Two of the hens come from one line and the other two pullets come from another line. As well, Rusty comes form a different line from all of the pullets, so we will be able to breed them. The plan is to use the offspring cockerels for meat and the hens for more eggs or sale to people who want a Rhode Island Red chook.

Thus far our experience has been really good. The chooks were very clam about being transported and even though a couple of them got free, they were very easy to catch and put into their pen. Rusty has already been claiming domain over the girls and one of them laid us our first egg. Not a bad start. :)

The first banana flower

2009-04-29T07:36:00.000+10:00

What would a sustainable property be in Queensland without bananas. Probably a little saner.

Around the middle of September I set about creating a banana circle. Given that the soil in the "prime" location was primarily deco (decomposed granite), a lot of good quality materials was going to be required. So I basically composted on site with massive amounts of horse manure and grass.

Unbelievably, I also planted my first Lady Finger banana in the compost a couple of weeks later. That was a HUGE mistake. I could have cooked a pig in that soil after a couple of days, and it seemed to need at least a month to finally cool down. Two weeks was not enough time, especially considering that I planted the bananas to the neck (recommended by the tissue culture company, but overkill in my opinion).

The second banana planted was the Blue Java around the end of October. Again I planted it to its neck and a bit too soon due to the residual heat of the compost. Luckily I realised this and added some well rotted horse manure (about 6 months old) and replanted the banana to that it was level with the soil.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I had three generations of Blue Java bananas growing. This was very exciting. All the other bananas only had two generations. What I should have realised as well was that something even better was about to occur.

Well yesterday I finally noticed it. Our first banana flower emerging! Very exciting indeed. It has taken about six months for the tissue culture banana to start developing the first bunch which is about how long it should take with out any setbacks. Hopefully we will be able to tuck in to the fruit before it gets too cold over winter.

Garden turtle

2009-04-04T19:35:00.000+10:00

My wife and I were very surprised to find a turtle in the garden yesterday. We were walking past the garden bed and I noticed some thing that looked like a turtle. So I had a closer look and there it was. We took a few pictures of it in hopes of identifying which species it was.

I did a quick search on the internet and could not find anything obvious. But I did find the Australian Freshwater Turtle web site. I signed up and posted a question on their forum under the Freshwater Turtle Identification section. Sure enough, the same day the turtle was identified as a male Saw-shelled turtle (Wollumbinia latisternum). So they provided not only the species information, but the gender as well. Very impressive. They also informed me that this species of turtle is the only one which can eat a cane toad and survive. Go Saw-shelled turtle! If you want to see the thread, visit http://www.australianfreshwaterturtles.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=3598.

So if you have a freshwater turtle you need to id, or want to find out more information about freshwater turtles, I highly recommend the Australian Freshwater Turtle web site.

Using what you got (or can scavenge)

2009-03-25T12:05:00.000+10:00

When one does not have a real income flow, it is important to be frugal when it comes to many things including the garden. Thus I am always on the look out for good quality scavenging material.

One item which seems to regularly be discarded in skip bins is cement reinforcement mess. This stuff makes a great trellis for things such as beans, cucumbers, and even tomato plants; anything which like to climb or needs a bit of support. Putting the trellis together is fun as well since it can almost be a bit of art work in the garden.

The other thing I am keen on using is all the grass we have on the property. We allow our grass to get long before mowing it. Then we collect all the mowed grass and use it for building up the organic matter in the soil, or even as paths through out the garden. The hay garden paths soak up excess water and release to the plants when things are a bit more dry. Eventually the grass paths break down, leaving a very nice organic matter to put into the garden.

Feral Guavas

2009-03-22T20:28:00.000+10:00

In the area we live, there are heaps of feral guava trees. The fruits, more specifically, the seeds, are highly prized by Rainbow Lorikeets. They will hoe into barely ripe fruits which can be a bit disappointing if you had your eye on one. Thus the Lorikeet's love of the gauva, means that there are lots of feral trees around a few years after they have sampled the fruits.

It should also be noted that the Queensland fruit fly also love to attack guavas. So even if a lorikeet has not eaten part of the fruit, a fruit fly might have stung it. As the maggots like to hang around the seeds, this is not a big problem as it can be with other fruits. I just scoop out the seeds and any maggots along with them, leaving all the wonderful flesh behind. Obviously one can net your own trees to reduce bird and fruit fly attack, but it would be a bit weird to have nets over feral trees.

Guavas are a beautiful tree. Once they are more mature, their trunks are smooth and shiny with different coloured patches. One could be forgiven to almost think that they were a native Australian tree. There are many types of gauva, to be frank, I am not exactly sure which ones we have in the area. But they certainly make a nice pie. Daleys Fruit Tree Nursery has an extensive range of guava tree to delight one's taste buds.

The feral guava fruit tastes like a whole lot of tropical fruits all in one. Guavas in general have a significant number of hard little seeds which are grouped together in the centre of the fruit, almost looking like a brain when cut in half and taken out. The seeds are often discarded as they can be a bit too fibrous and crunchy (although I did find a guava and macadamia torte recipe which used the seeds).

So after a few forages through the neighbourhood, and the bottom of the pram brimming with guavas, we have been able to make a guava pie and a guava crumble. I have included the guava pie recipe below so that others can enjoy this treat as well.

Guava Pie

Ingredients:

2.5 tablespoons (Au) flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

Pastry for a 9-inch 2-crust pie

4 cups guava, peeled, seeded and sliced

1 tablespoon (Au) lemon juice

3 tablespoons cold butter, cut in small pieces

Preparation:

Mix together the flour, sugar, and salt; set aside. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry; fill with sliced guava, slightly mounding in the centre. Sprinkle the flour and sugar mixture evenly over the guavas. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and dot with butter. Cover with the top pastry and flute edge. Cut several vents into top crust to let steam escape. Bake in a preheated 230° C oven for 10 minutes, then reduce to 170° C and bake 30 to 40 minutes longer.

Other Comments:

- If you do not like things too sweet, cut the sugar slightly. Another option is to add a bit more lemon.

- Cover the edges of the pie with foil if the start getting too cooked. I did this about 20 minutes into the over all baking time and the results were perfect.

Climate Smart

2009-03-20T06:28:00.000+10:00

There is nothing like being armed with information. We had a Climate Smart Energy Audit done yesterday. This is a service offered by the Queensland government, where they install an OWL electricity monitor, install compact fluoro bulbs if required, and replace your shower head with a more efficient one. They also perform a short survey and then send you a customised report about ways to save energy. All this for 50 bucks, its quite the bargain. This audit is a no brainer if you live in the Brisbane City Council area, as the council reimburses the cost (thus it is free)!

The OWL electricity monitor is a nifty device. It uses induction around the incoming electricity cable(s) to monitor energy usage. In my case we have 3 phase power to the property, so three induction clips are required. The clips hook into a device which then transmits the information wirelessly to monitoring panel. The panel allows one to see the instantaneous power consumption as cost per hour, kW energy usage, or carbon output. It also keeps a tally since the device was turned on for the three main settings. So now armed with this information we can be even more efficient about our energy usage.

In general we are quite good about not consuming power unnecessarily. I hate to waste, whether it has an associated economic cost or not. But there are still some areas where we can improve. Some of areas for improvement will be to use the microwave less and the gas cook top more. The microwave takes a considerable amount of power when running on its highest setting; about 1.85 kW. The toaster is another high consumption kitchen appliance, about 0.93 kW. The electric kettle is also a power hog (figure to be provided). Basically anything which needs to heat something up, chews up electricity.

Contrast the above to a 15 W fluoro bulb, which takes about 0.02 kW (of course it should take 0.015 kW exactly, and the monitor said 0.017 kW, but I rounded up so that the same level of precision is used as compared to the other stated measurements). Our fluoro tub kitchen light which takes about 0.10 kW, which is actually much higher than I would have expected.

It should be noted that one of the limitations of a device like the OWL electricity monitor, is that it monitors the consumption for the entire property, thus if comparing the energy usage for device X by turning it on and off and another device Y or Z starts using power, then your information will be incorrect. Thus it is a good idea to take the measurement a few times, just to help rule out energy usage from other devices kicking in (or out).

As we are a rural property with no town water or sewage, the base power consumption for the property will be higher than a comparable city residence. To get any water pressure, our pump must provide the pressure. To treat our waste water, our waste treatment plant aerates the waste water and pumps it out to the treated effluent field. In particular, our waste treatment plant, runs continuously.

That said, there are some big ticket items which I want to install on the property which will really save power. The first being a solar hot water heater. Now that the Federal Government is offering a non-means tested rebate of up to $1600, this is a must do item. As well, I want to install solar panels on the property so that I can start generating my own power; but that will not occur until after July 1 so that I can take advantage of the new solar rebate.

Daily routine

2009-02-17T20:06:00.000+10:00

My daily routine at Maculata Grove is to check out what is happening in the garden. Eventually this routine will be a bit more involved as we plan to have chooks and other tasty creatures, but for now its all about the fruit and veg.

First thing in the morning is always the best time to visit the garden. There are many reasons for this. During the summer in South East Queensland, it can get very hot during the day. So you don't want to be doing too much stuff outside during the heat of the day. But sticky humidity aside, plants in the Cucurbit family (e.g. watermelons, pumpkins, zucchini, spaghetti squash, etc.) are only available for pollination in the morning. Now in a perfect world the insects would pollinate all of the female flowers for you. However I have found that this is rarely the case. Leaving up to the insects can result in very disappointing results. There are enough challenges around here as it is without having produce which does not mature.

Another thing which I generally do in the morning is harvest produce which is ready for eating. In particular peas, beans, tomatoes, and zucchini are some of my main targets. I find that if I do not do this, then I can leave some of the produce too long and it will spoil or be past its prime. However I do leave all the produce that I can on the plants, as nothing is better for you and tastier than freshly picked produce.

The other main morning task is to water the garden if there has been no recent rain. At this time, I do not have an irrigation system set up for the veggies. Thus it is all hand watering with my hose. The only exceptions are the banana pit which receives grey water from the laundry and the citrus orchard which receives treated effluent from my aqua nova waste treatment plant.

All in all this routine is quite relaxing and a great way to start the day. It allows me to keep a close eye on the garden, thus giving me the chance to take action as problems arise. Then I usually move onto the next part of my day, a blended smoothie. :)

History of the Grove

2009-02-16T12:28:00.001+10:00

For my first post, I thought that I would provide some background about the property known to us as Maculata Grove. It is situated the lovely Pine Rivers Hinterland, roughly between Samford and Dayboro. We discovered this property after doing an extensive search of Brisbane suburbs which had larger blocks of land. At the tail end of our search we concentrated on the Samford area since the area is absolutely stunning and had heaps of green space.

We were very lucky to have found the property as we had stuck with one real estate agent during our Samford area search and the property was a private sale. The day after we discovered the property, we able to get a shown around. As it was pretty much exactly what we were looking for, we agreed to a purchase price later that day with the owners.

Maculata Grove is a north facing property with lovely views almost right around. To the east are rolling hills, to the north is Ocean View and Mount Mee, to the west is the D'Aguilar range. There is a lovely spring fed creek which runs through the property. Even during long dry periods, there is some water running. All in all there are five acres of ex-dairy land which will slowly be transformed into various food gardens.

We did not purchase a bare block of land. Rather, a large two storey shed had been built which had a makeshift kitchen, along with a bathroom including a shower. The shed has two 20000 L rainwater tanks which harvest the water from the roof. They are a good sized capacity (40000 L all up) for the roof catchment, although I do have plans to put in another tank. Our aqua nova waste treatment system handles all of our household "waste" water. The treated effluent is pumped to underground irrigation pipes away from the creek.

Some of the land was changed around the shed area to create a relatively flat area for the concrete slab. As a result numerous places around the shed have exposed clay and sub soil (which on this property is decomposed granite, aka deco).

Attached are two pictures from Google Maps and Google Earth which show the property from above. The property is in the centre of the pictures and bounds the two streets. Both of these pictures were taken before we moved in. The second picture on the right shows the shed.