Lush Life

Days get swallowed up in the never ending procession of things to do. The new chooks (Tiplet, Lauren and Claire) enjoyed their new pen, from both inside and out. After having to go and catch them twice I worked out they were climbing up the stays for the fence posts so I spent some time blocking their escape using old oven racks we had in the shack.


It was a warm day today. Lovely and warm. It felt like the first day of spring, too impatient to wait the last week, vigorously shaking off winter early, ready to go. The new chooks had no shade, spending the hottest part of the day in their night house so I went and cut up the old tank on the hill behind Sue and Rob’s to use as a shelter in the pen. Everything feels like it’s just starting to grow, just starting to explode into lush life.

We planted the potatoes in the afternoon. The soil has been top dressed with compost and cow poo in the last week and is moist and rich. We dug deep trenches and covered them in a few inches of soil, then horse poo, a little lime and then mulched with old straw in case we get any more frosts and also to keep the soil open and the worms happy. Finally we put a little blood and bone on the straw so it doesn’t draw the nitrogen it needs to break down from the soil. I’m hoping that by the time the potatoes have poked through and need covering again the whole lot will have broken down into yummy goodness.


Late in the afternoon I turned in the green manures in the Root Crop bed and the Good Companions bed. The Good Companions include things like sweetcorn and cucurbits – pumpkins, zucchinis and cucumbers. We won’t add anything more to the Root Crop bed to stop the carrots from forking, but the Good Companions will get both compost and manure, fed heavily, then covered and left to break down for a while before they are planted. There is a lot to do. Emma reminded me that it’s important to enjoy the journey and it is good advice.

We have bats in the walls out the back. Well, in the doors. We kept the old cow doors when doing up the Dairy but only as a façade, boarding up behind them and nailing them shut. Last night Em and I saw little microbats swooping out of the cracks at dusk, emerging from the tiny void in the back. Tonight I shone my torch in and could see tiny little toes and wing hooks in the gap in the top.


“I’m grateful that we seen the bat and there was bats in the wall.”
(Confused? Look)

Half a Gazillion

Not unlike a conjunction of planets everything aligned today spectacularly. It was the first time Emma has been home for Noah’s second day of preschool, the day that Sue and Rob take him in for. They arrived early, took him away and brought him home around four in the afternoon. How wonderful. We had a peaceful lunch together facing each other across the table, smiling and dreaming of full time school next year.


I had such a productive, pleasant day today getting little jobs done, feeling so content that nothing was able to put a dent in my mood. The rain was beautiful, inevitable. I gave my compost heap its first turn, the steaming chemistry already underway, transferring it across to the next bay, inverting and excavating. It is always so interesting to see each layer slowly break down and become incorporated into one living heap over the weeks with each turning. I turn it every three days for three weeks and then assess how it’s going. Along the way I sometimes add more water if it is too dry or nitrogen if it isn’t breaking down sufficiently. The nitrogen in this heap is cow poo. Sloppy and stinky.


In the afternoon I finished off two more architraves, the ones I worked on yesterday, nailing them up in position. They fitted really well, all except the one I made half an inch too short but I cut a tiny triangle of scrap and glued it in. A bit of putty and no-one will ever know. I went a-visiting later, looking at a new job restoring a leadlight window, picking up some timber to replace some rotten handrails, and installing a cupboard door. The hinges they’ve got won’t work but I have half a gazillion good quality European hinges that I salvaged from an old kitchen that was being thrown out at a friends house back in Freo – thanks Joe. Re-use, recycle.

The best part of my day was yet to come. Walking back home from Sue and Rob’s I met a friend on their way home from seeing Em. She’s been meaning to pick up some tile adhesive for at least three visits now and she’d forgotten again so she turned the car around and I rode on the bullbar on the front of the car. Hanging on to the timber she had strapped to the roof, nothing in front of me, the wind in my face. Relaxed, happy, exhilarated. Yeeeeehaaaar!

“I’m grateful that I went to preschool and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

Worm juice

Our garden has seven beds in it, set up for crop rotation. Today I weeded the potato bed which had peas, beans and brassicas in it last year, and will have carrots, parsnips and beetroot in it next year. The soil is rich and moist from the weeds that were protecting it. Worms abound. To weed it and leave it bare feels like I’m killing it. We are planning to plant potatoes soon and I’m going to add compost, manure and some lime, then cover it with mulch and give it time to break down, breed some life. The soil will also be inoculated with worm juice, made from steeping worm castings in water, not the black liquid that collects in the bottom of plastic worm farms. The worms have a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria, both sowing and feeding on the microbes that also break down the organic matter and the still water is too anaerobic for the oxygen loving bacteria. More and more I think that good farming depends on good bacteria farming.

The castings are soaked, suspended in a drum of water with added carbon and nitrogen to allow the bacteria to colonise the water. Oxygen is also required so I will either have to stir vigorously for about an hour or get an aquarium pump. I’m planning to do trials, side by side in the veggie garden, testing whether I get better crops and improved resistance to disease with regular sprays of the worm juice. A test plot in the paddock is next.


I used the shredder today to break up the lemongrass we took out so I could add it to the final layers of the compost. I don’t feel great about using the shredder, using petrol to make compost. I’m not sure I’ll do it again, even though it works well for uncomposty material like lemongrass. The shredder is Sue and Rob's who have had it for years, Rob always maintaining it - sharpening the cutter, replacing the bearings.

I will have to add some more poo in the top layer. I’m really liking the soupy poo I'm experimenting with. Besides stinking it also makes a thick sauce that soaks right in to all the layers, making great conditions for the bacteria to feed and multiply, heating it up and transforming it.


We all worked in the garden today, getting things done, one job flowing on to the next, surprised to find later that we had gotten burnt. The garden needed some work. We neglected it last year in the push to get into the Dairy and then it was suddenly full of rampant kikuyu. We’ve spent months mustering up the energy to weed it, mulch the paths, reclaim it. Spring is almost here and we’re getting it ready to explode.

“I’m grateful that we all worked in the garden and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)