All Blog Posts (1,113)

You are looking at  three versions of home grown and made flour from the tiny city farm. Hulled,  part-hulled and unfilled.  I'll cook three muffins for taste comparison. I used Madagascar beans to make it. I'm also going to try with pigeon peas. This is a big part of my self sufficient jigsaw filled in.  …

Hullo team!

It's happening! I've organised my friendly local treeloppers to come this week and raze the vast majority of the garden and trees from our front garden area to begin it's transformation into the start of my Zone 1. I plan to spread the mulch from the trees removed over the space and layer it with cardboard and newspaper from our move, and let it soak in for a month or so.

As a result, I was thinking of having a working bee in June for anyone who is interested to…

April is always the best time outback. The transition is palpable and you get more opportunities to spend time relating to the dirt because  the days are no longer so darn hot.

I'm in the process of reducing my veg garden size -- that is the plots for annuals -- by engineering some efficiency changes via group and intense plantings. I'm also culling my plantings by staggering them more.

I have expanded the chook pen yet again, which now encompasses the Vetiver nursery. That's…

these were found in 6 month old compost while trying to add it to garden beds --- choko for size comparison... 

Plant Choko | Grow a Choko Vine - it is so easy! - Bing video

HillTop Farm: Aquaponics and Solar Dehydrator - YouTube

350+ Rare Sub-Tropical Fruit Trees: Backyard Orchard Tour…

Hi Guys, 

Well what a month: torrential rain with 34 degree days -> aka "summer" vs 19 degree days and really cool -> Aka Autumn/Winter.   I know this is pretty much par for the course in April but seriously!! Where did these last few days of heat come from?

I have had a very busy time up at the farm.  We went up over easter and lucky we did as it was raining and we realised the van was leaking!  So I came back home for two days and was up there again Tuesday…

anyone grow cucamelons and dig the tubers out for next seasons growth- just reading about doing it - but we never seem to have trouble getting them to grow if left in the ground ... any ideas ?

You know how it is...

You do one thing and that suggests another in way of flow on. What with the change in the weather and my collection of seedlings I've been out back making things happen.

Maybe I'll add some photos tomorrow when it is daylight...but my garden is a sea of fluro bamboo stakes like these shown right.

I've…

part two of three parts of Hill top farm - our name for our 5 acres features tomorrow morning 9 30am as a virtual tour ( part one was June last year and available on youtube ) if anyone is interested in viewing  ... some really informative videos available for backyard gardeners of all sizes and even a market gardener 

hi everyone - have had a sabbatical from garden groups for a year or so - Life was just too hectic - will try to post some photos of what Col has been up to - solar drier made from a recycled bar fridge,works well when the sun shines ,made dried banans ,pineapples, papaya, jerky  salt and vinegar cucmbers and dragonfruit ... 250 slot aquaponics set up - still perfecting growth, green leafies prosper - indoor garden wall that includes ;lots of herbs , cheese press made for cheese making ,…

Hi everyone

Little update - been making soap from scraps, apple cider vinegar from scraps, leaving the veg patch to fallow over the summer, had some volunteers and abandoned veg come through, cosmos and zinnias gone while, many weeds up the block, pressure canning adventures (so far applesauce, tomatoes and chickpeas), mulching, chopping down old gross banna groves and staining my pants, making dog biscuits, watching my native trees grow bigger, looking after the chooks :) …

Hi all, welcome to march in my garden,

I have been inspired by Andy's shed wars to keep a log of everything that we eat that is coming out of the garden.  My goal is to do 1 month but i've already done my first week and want to share what we are eating.  The tally stands at 19 eggs, 400g Trombonccino/zucchini,  400g eggplant, 110g chilli, 300g Tomato, 200g figs, 1.6kg Banana, 1.2 kg paw paw, 350g Asparagus, 200g beans, 300g cucumber, 100g spring onion, 200g lemonade, 20g…

One of my chooks died a couple of days ago. It happens.

So I had to bury her deep so that the dogs didn't dig her up.

See! the chickens round the gate

For their morning portion wait;

Fill the basket from the store,

Let us open wide the door;

Throw out crumbs…

Doug, when we were at Dianne's place, you had some small fruits which you said came from a tree which was fairly hard to come by. They tasted quite good, and I took a few seeds home. Do you remember what that fruit tree was called? I'm putting in the seeds and would like to label them as something other than 'that-nice-fruit-that-Doug-brought-to-Dianne's'.

I've become a bit more serious about plotting the food that I grow and harvest here on the block.  Mostly, because of the Youtube shedwars contest I am in... it's actually just an excuse to share gardening tips for beginners but it also forces me to track my produce by weight.  

I've decided I will do this for 12 months and maybe even more, even though the contest stops in April.  You see, I've realised:

1. I produce much more than I…

Wow, where do I begin!

Sid's garden is enormous!  5 acres of beautiful land with the backbones to do so much.  It was once a goat milking farm apparently and has a massive red barn in really good repair with two massive water tanks down the back of what I would guess is approximately 3 acres of cleared grass land.  The remaining 2 acres is where the house and gardens are.  She and her husband will have a lot of work to do to bring her vision to life but I couldn't imagine a more…

There was a bit of chat a while ago about drying Dragon Fruit, so I am going to dry some of the 40-odd Dragon Fruit that are ripening all at once on my vine. I plan to just use my oven, since I don't have a dehydrator, and I suspect air drying with the humidity as it is won't be too successful. Has anyone got any tips or pointers about what I should and shouldn't do?

Hi guys,

Well I’ve had a very productive weekend in my garden and feel wonderfully peaceful.  Because the rain has been so frequent for me, this summer has not seen the devestation that it normally experiences in summer because I can’t keep up with the watering.  Just look at this as an example.  I have tomatoes, cucamelon, chillis, capsicum,…