Growing local

January 2010 Blog Posts (7)

Midsummer Munchings

The December storms and subsequent fiiling of the rainwater tank, brought hope to my heat-stressed, thirsty backyard. But I shouldn't complain, as we've never run out of veges for the wok.

Corn has been a good staple. The first dozen were in a shady spot, yielded small cobs.I planted the second block in full sun and was really successful, with each plant producing 2 and a few, 3 cobs. The first cobs were all large and full, the second, small but sweet.… Continue

Added by Addy on January 25, 2010 at 12:30 — 9 Comments

RIP J-Lo.....

So I told Paul he had to kill J-Lo, but that I'd be there with him when he did it, for support. Well, that didn't last long at all. We locked the dogs on the deck and took J-Lo down to the garage in a box and when Paul took her out, I burst out crying like a complete twat. Not crying-crying. No, full on, gasping for air crying. Loser. Went inside and out to the back deck. Paul tells me he has tried to snap her neck, but she just said "tweet" and was ok again after he tried to snap her neck.… Continue

Added by Lotte on January 24, 2010 at 20:00 — 5 Comments

Chook dramas etc.

So I reckon I have 3 cockerels and 3 hens. Of the 3 hens, one is probably going to die (J-Lo) and the other currently has a blocked crop! Last night was a big lot of drama, trying to force feed the chicken some olive oil, and massage the crop. Poor thing. No, poor me! I'm frightened of the critters (not big on flapping wings and poo etc) so I held it in a towel and even touched it's head. I'm not having such a great run, am I?

Now, onto the suspected cockerels. One of them is quite… Continue

Added by Lotte on January 22, 2010 at 13:32 — 3 Comments

Midnight Persimmon Party

Following the first blog, here is the almost-final chapter.

These whatever-they-are variety of seedless Persimmons ripen almost all at once. They look green on the tree, one or two fall off minus their calyx which sits forlornly on the branch. That is the cue to pick the lot. Seceteurs or similar are needed, the very short stem is quite tough.

They sat in their styrene box on… Continue

Added by Elaine de Saxe on January 20, 2010 at 23:00 — 11 Comments

What a ramble!

Figured I should get around to this sooner rather than later as I'm fairly slack.

3.5 weeks ago we bought 6 baby Light Sussex chickens from the same breeder where Donna got hers from. They're all still alive, which seems to me like quite a miracle! One of the chickens has a large, distended bottom which doesn't seem to be getting worse, but looks a little frightening. I will try and post some photos tonight to show what I mean. We call that one J-Lo. Poor J-Lo.

We've been… Continue

Added by Lotte on January 20, 2010 at 13:24 — 18 Comments

End of beginning of summer ~

We’ve had a warm spring this year, and December being the first month of summer has been very hot for the first part, and very hot and humid for most if not all of the whole holiday period.

A recently planted bamboo, and a couple of established and newly planted plants in the cucurbitaceae family have succumbed to the heat early in December. One of those 2am storm flooded the ground the coop was sitting on and the crippled chook who slept downstairs was rescued from stomach deep… Continue

Added by Florence on January 12, 2010 at 10:18 — 3 Comments

Persimmons

Just picked a few kilos of green Persimmons. This is a non-astringent seedless variety the name of which I have forgotten.

The tree is espaliered, one metre each side of the post, with wires about 500mm apart - not enough room horizontally and the wires are too far apart. The other trees which were espaliered at the same time (about 6 years ago) did not take kindly to that treatment. The Black Genoa fig, the tropical Peach, the Shahtoot Mulberry were more enthusiastic growers than… Continue

Added by Elaine de Saxe on January 11, 2010 at 13:30 — 5 Comments