27.11.2010 BIG WET

2nd Anniversary weekend

Yes it's 2 years since we started the project. Happy anniversary to us! To celebrate we finally got to the bottom of the waterfall, the highest in Sth Eastern Gippsland!

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Shitake mushrooms

A quick how to on Shitake:

Shitake spore in Beechwood dowels

Dowels are inserted into drill holes in Oak logs

Hot cheese wax covers the holes

Ready to be stacked

 

Stacked logs rest under rainforest shade for 1 year until mushroom fruiting

and the lovely rainforest provides more than enough mulch for all our gardening needs

Mid winter

Mid winter gardening and tree mulching. We also put shitake mushroom spore into oak logs yesterday. In a years time hopefully fresh organic shitake mushrooms!! 

brrr!!!

Sean's SubTropical fruits and adventures with Mulch

It's nearly June, still late Autumn weather with cool frosts starting to develop, and lovely sunny days. Will Winter actually arrive?, is it climate change or just a late arrival?

Anyway a visit to our near neighbour Sean's sub-tropical Strzelecki orchard on the weekend put me in no doubt that the future others envisage will be warmer! and most of them fruit too!

Back on the farm, plans are hatching for another shed and mulching of trees' continues:

The gentle art of scavenging! this from only 2 nights selective hard rubbish collecting around Melbourne.
Each week brings plenty more great stuff like windows, a fish tank and an antique ceiling fan. It's going to be a fancy shed!

No not a rotary hoe, but a weeks work from a family of Lyrebirds!

and if there is any mulch or wood they also take to that with a vengeance

The garden is taking shape despite the Lyrebirds efforts

Mulch is available in bulk and for free - bracken and wattle cuttings

Citrus with its winter mulch in place

and what a lovely patch of mushrooms

Autumn

Lots of yummy local foods and weeding these last few weeks. Mixes of sunny days and rainy nights continue. Tree planting time is almost upon us, and winter veges are in the freshly dug garden beds.

From this...

To this....weed control success?

Trial of windbreak and weed mats, awaiting gale force winds!

Burning off across the valley

American Ginseng in berry

Poisonous but beautiful

Lemon verbena, grows rapidly!

Hyssop, a delightful flower

Upper 'dam', we are hoping to regenerate this via dam liner for water birds

New fancy compost design, so easy with bales

Autumn Foods of the farm:

Basil, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and delicious field and pine mushrooms