Yesterday Sido and I got an early start back out in the garden bed we have been working on. In the "creepers and climbers" bed… We scavenged all the bamboo we could find from old trelisses that had fallen into disrepair or were no longer in use after last season and reworked these bits and pieces into 2 nice trellises, one for climbing beans and one for cucumbers. For the beans we used simple uprights and one cross beam and a couple of triangluated pieces, then strung it across with string up the height of the trellis for climbing.

sido with the bean trellis 

For the cucumbers we built an angled trellis so the cucumber vines can climb up the trellis (again, strung across with string) and the fruit can hang down on the other side of the trellis. We made it so that it was 2 sided, the vines can grow up both sides of the trellis, hang down in between.

sido and i with the bean trellis 

I’m chuffed with these structures, and the bed is really starting to take shape, with asian greens, lettuces, zuchinnis, cucumbers, climbing beans, onions, strawberries, tomatoes…

cucumber trellis in the foreground, beans in the background, tomatos in the middle 

beans in the foreground, cucumbers in the background 

After we finished the trellises we moved down to the pigpen and fenced the top half in order to protect the space, so we can cultivate it. It is a pumpkin/tomato jungle at the moment, and I shall plant some watermelons today. There’s a tamarillo tree in there which is struggling, so it might get a go ahead with less animal activity around it. I’ll also plant the bananas and maybe another berry tree in there.

I should be posting these journal entries and pics on myfolia.com, a kind of myspace for plants! I’ve joined, as has my friend and mutual online gardening fan glittertrash (this is her myfolia link. See the sidebar for her personal blog), but I’m yet to post decent content. Too busy with the backyard blog! Anyway myfolia.com looks fabulous. It’s in beta mode at the moment, so lots of people testing it out. An incredible user-driven resource.

this garden bed is planted with corn, spinach, water chestnuts, beets, rhubarb, some herbs, tomatoes, onions, celery (for seed), and some good bug mix! more planting to be done here… 

I love farm technology. For fencing we use these great little ratchet gadgets which tighten the top wire of the fence in order to then tie off the chicken wire to it. I’ll post a pic..

We then drove Sido home to the Permaforest Trust, out by the Border Ranges in Barker’s Vale. Lovely lovely land, but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance in the bucketing rain to see much of the gardens, just a glimpse of the kitchen gardens, looking very bountiful, very ordered, very lovely with some raised beds, some squash (?) in a tent to prevent cross pollination with the pumpkins (I think I got that right) and a visit to the wee spot (a bucket full of wee… mmm…)! They collect their wee and watered down, use it as a highly nitrogenous compost tea on their fruit trees. I was very keen to see their banana circles and their kitchen gardens. We’ll have to make another visit soon.We came away with warm dandelion coffee and chocolate and carrot cake in our bellies.

As I write this the sun has just come out, for the first time in way over a week. It has been somewhat madness-inducing, the endlessness of the rain, but I shall never speak ill of the rain, for as soon as the sun comes out it feels like it might never rain again! Anyway, I shall do some more planting this afternoon, while the ground is wet and the sun coaxes new life out of the sodden earth.

Loving you. Muddygrrl x 

It’s so lovely to have visitors. We both have friends and family who live far away (happily, some closeby as well) and it’s no small thing for them to make the journey here. It’s a gorgeous place, very beautiful, a kind of paradise, especially for inner urban dwellers. The farmhouse has been lovingly fitted out without taking away any rustic charm and historic ambience. Michael, my good friend who owns this place has put great effort into the design and infrastructure, and the establishment of the gardens and the renovation of dilapidated outbuildings etc. So it’s a lovely holiday for those who visit.

Everyone who has made the effort to come and stay has been so engaged with our projects, and we really appreciate their interest and eagerness to get their hands dirty. We’d be happy for them to sit on the verandah, snoozing in the hammock, or doing the tourist drives to the local villages or going for coffee to bangalow or whatever, but instead they coose to grab a mattock and decimate thistles and other such hot and thirsty work.

I really wanted to thank our lovely friends for their efforts, and hopefully put pics of their pet projects up!

Sarah was official photographer of everything we did while she was here! The lovely banner pic and many more are her work. She also taught Charlene to play guitar and built a pyramid hay feeder for the cows so they wouldn’t foul their hay and so it wouldn’t get trampled and blown away. We’re off to buy some lucerne and so next time it’s in use (read: when the sun finally comes out!) I’ll take a pic and insert!

Matt the aspiring tree farmer hardly sat down. Despite the fact that his wardrobe was decidedly metrosexual, he was up and at em with the mattock, waging a personal war against the weeds. He also built us the Chook Hotel for Mamma Chook and her 4 babies. Their accommodations were inadequate, space wise, and not snake proof (we’ve had alot of snakes), so using discarded corrugated Matt built a moveable run for them, with their smaller house inside (they like the safety of the smaller space at night, so they can snuggle under mamma’s wings). Covered half with shade cloth and half chicken wire it was a larger and safer space for them to learn how to be chooks! This has been decommissioned since we’ve let the chickens out into the regular run. Mamma is still a bit crazy (a broody chook can have the devil in her, I tell you!), but the little chickens are exploring the world at large. There have been some requests for pictures, so I shall endeavour to insert chicken and chook hotel pics here. 

My Dad was a powerhouse, and all I can say is that he’s crazy and generous and despite my best efforts, I could never keep up with him. He did the bulk of the garden bed preparation and also did a good stint on the fireweed. He’s my ultimate working buddy. Never flags.

Sido was a joy to have on the farm. Generous with her knowledge and her energy, she really helped me to sort out the gardens, as is evidenced in the last few posts. 

Greggie is one of a favorite people. He comes equipped with all the recipes in the world, scissors to transform the rattiest farmgrrl into a stylee queen who turns heads in downtown Dunoon, and never lets you into the kitchen. Heaven!

Kathy, Julie, Darcy, we love having your presence around the farm. It’s lovely to be able to offer friends and family a retreat where they can recoup flagging energies. We look forward to more of our distant friends and family coming to visit.

Watch this space for pics of pet projects

xx