permaculture

Shaping the dome

Bec asked how we made the polypipe bend in a circle. The answer is -- with great difficulty. When we built the original dome with its 3 concentric circles I remember that my daughter was helping me with the smallest circle. We each held one end of the pipe, and tried to bring the ends together to form the circle. As we got close, so the pressure was too great, and the pipe sprang back, knocking my daughter over. Bruce eventually managed to connect the two ends with a piece of wood.

When we had the huge winds that wrecked the original dome, the pipe did indeed buckle, and even though we straightened it out, it never looked the same. The geodesic dome that we built as a replacement is much better, in that the pipe doesn't have to bend so much. In addition, there are a lot more joins, so the structure is more stable, and the top is flatter, so it's easier to arrange a tarpaulin over the top in such a way that the chooks are well protected.

Grass seed

After months of dry weather, we've finally had some rain, so the grass is growing well on new grass path. Madeleine asked what grass seed we'd recommend - we're using Hortico Lawn Seed, and it seems to work well.

We've had a delightful German WWOOFER staying with us for 10 days. He has mulched the edge guild in both mandalas with wood chips from our property (we had professional tree fellers in to cut down a large pine tree that was growing too close to the electricity line).

New path

The path in Mandala 1 has always been a problem. When I first set up the permaculture garden, I followed Linda Woodrow's book to the letter, so I dug out a path and filled it with sawdust. Only months later a windstorm arrived that destroyed both the original chook dome and the path. Most of the sawdust was picked up by the wind and distributed either over the garden beds or into the pond in the middle circle. Bruce then had the bright idea of constructing a bark path, using the bark from the pine logs we cut for firewood. This turned out to be highly labour intensive, and the first job for our WOOFERs was to weed the bark path. Meanwhile, in Mandala 2, we simply left the grass to grow in the paths, and that's been much easier to maintain - we just mow it regularly. 

Last month Bruce finally admitted defeat and decided to swap the bark path in Mandala 1 for a grass one. Our French WWOOFER, Aud, did a great job of clearing the path of bark and weeds, then sowing it with grass seed. Now we have the first green shoots appearing. Here are some photos of the newly cleared path, with our fantastic crop of sunflowers (all self sown) in the background.

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Blooming edge strip

This summer has been wet and miserable, and things that normally do well in my garden, such as tomatoes and capsicums, haven't thrived. However, we do have masses of zucchini, basil and parsley (which we have been turning into delicious soup), and an excess of potatoes. Also, the edge strip in mandala 2 is looking very pretty, with lots of different flowers in bloom.

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The thai basil, which I grow in the pond in mandala 2, is also thriving.

 

Berries

We've had a fantastic berry harvest this year, thanks to all the rain (last year all we got were a few late raspberries). Because we have so many different types of berry - blackberries, blueberries, loganberries, jostaberries, raspberries, strawberries, silvanberries and tayberries - they produce over a long period. Here are some growing around Mandala 2, and some I picked last week.

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Spring produce

With all the rain we've had, and now a few weeks of sun, the garden is looking fabulous. Here is the middle circle of mandala 2 (with a view of our recent renovations - a new verandah and double glazed windows). There are lots of strawberries tucked in among the natives in this circle, and this year they've been very productive. 

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The herbs have also done well this spring. Here is the thyme that's growing in the edge guild of mandala 1, with the berry fence and a hedge of native shrubs in the background.

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Delicious asparagus

Thanks to the fabulous rain, we've got a great asparagus crop this spring. In mandala 1, it hasn't done so well, because of the ever-encroaching wattles (which are overshadowing the mandala) and the weeds that are spreading from the circle that adjoins that part of the edge guild. However, in mandala 2, the asparagus is really thriving. It's in a good position, with plenty of sun; also, being in the edge guild at the bottom of the mandala, it gets lots of nutrients washed down from the circles.

We've been eating the asparagus in salads and quiches. A few years ago someone passed on the wonderful tip that you can use buckwheat in place of pastry for a quiche. You simply take the dish you're going to cook the quiche in, butter the base and sides thoroughly, then sprinkle in the buckwheat, which sticks to the butter. You then pour the quiche mixture over the top of it. It makes a lovely crunchy base, and is very tasty.

 

Turning birds into wine

The garden has been somewhat neglected over recent months (as has this blog) thanks to a combination of bad weather, lack of time and lack of motivation. However, now that spring is here, and our dam is full, I'm ready to get stuck into it again. Luckily, we have two German WWOOFERs coming to stay this week, so they can help with some of the weeding and tidying up.  

We had lots of broody hens last summer, so had far too many birds. We've gradually been knocking off the roosters (we processed the last one today), and have given about 20 hens to the neighbours, who run a vineyard and B&B (so need lots of eggs). We traded the hens for wine - here is Bruce, illustrating the exchange rate, which is one bottle of wine per bird. 

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Paths

Ash asked whether we use a thick layer of newspaper on the paths to avoid losing soil nitrogen when the sawdust breaks down. In fact, we haven't used sawdust for a while. When we first set up the dome system, I followed The Permaculture Home Garden like a recipe book, and spent ages digging out the paths and filling them with sawdust (which we got free from the Queanbeyan saw mill). However, when the fierce wind came that trashed the original dome, it picked up all the sawdust and dumped most of it in the pond.

Since then, I've tried different approaches. Mandala 1 has a path made of bark (from our pine trees), laid on newspaper. It looks okay, but takes a lot of maintenance (weeding the path and debarking pine logs are 2 jobs we save for visiting WWOOFERs!). Mandala 2 has a grass path, which looks fine and is easy to maintain - I just mow it once a month and throw the grass clippings into the dome.

Monster broccoli

The recent combination of rain and warm weather has meant that things are growing at an amazing rate  - Bruce took a photo of this enormous head of broccoli:

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Unfortunately the mild weather means that we haven't had enough frost to kill off the cabbage white caterpillars, so we have to soak the broccoli in salty water to detach the bugs before we cook it.

It was so wet last weekend that I didn't get out in the garden, although it looked beautiful in the mist:

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So I stayed indoors and did this jigsaw instead:

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