Dealing with black spot fungus in pawpaw / papaya
Last year we reluctantly pulled out the last of our pawpaw trees. This was because we were not able to keep the black spot fungus under control sufficiently to be able to harvest fruit of a quality we...
View ArticlePruning Dragon Fruit
I have to admit that I have not found good information anywhere on how to prune Dragon Fruit. What I am going to tell you here is a result of my own “trial and error” approach over several years. It...
View ArticleCity farms and small producers at threat from trade agreements
Last night I was reading something about the Australian Government’s new trade agreement with China and thinking about the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement that the Abbott government has been...
View ArticleWicking pot maintenance and a recycling experiment
Over the last few weeks I’ve been gradually doing some “maintenance” on the wicking pots. They have been a bit neglected since we started getting good rainfall at the end of last summer. I had a lot...
View ArticleCoal Seam Gas and the Gatton Star Poll on Mining in the LVR
WOW! This is the score at 9.30pm on 13 November. Three days ago, when I wrote the last post and pointed readers to the poll the ‘No’ vote was 84%. Well done people. If you know of anyone who might...
View ArticleThe Coal Seam Gas Meeting in Grantham on Sunday 9 Nov.
We went to the Lock the Gate / LVRC /LVRC Ratepayers meeting on coal seam gas at Grantham yesterday. A very well organised event, with a large turnout from the community and some very good speakers...
View ArticleGrowing Dragon Fruit from cuttings and looking after your growing plant
This post is a work-in-progress compilation of material on growing this delicious and low maintenance fruit. I will edit it from time to time as I come across more/better material. [Sunday night Oct...
View ArticleTurning the compost heap for the first time
Back in late August I described the process of putting together an 18-day compost heap. That heap was made on August 26. When I measured the temperature on August 30 it was just over 50 degC. I...
View ArticleIt must be Spring
Native bee (Tetragonula carbonaria) on a Radish flower. Note the full pollen sacks on its hind legs. These radishes have taken ages to actually get to the flowering stage (with bulbs now the size of...
View ArticleStarting a batch of 18-day (more or less) compost
I just spent a morning putting together a batch of compost. Four hours of solid work, from getting the green waste that is the basis if this batch to capping it off with a fluffy cap of straw. The...
View ArticleA tour of the vege garden
In this post I’m going to give you an overview of the food garden areas, with a few “before & after” progress shots – starting with this shot of our first garden (it’s roughly where the porch is...
View ArticleA refreshingly different approach to food forests
I’ve just been reading a post by Tom at Sustainable Veg with the intriguing title: A Forest Garden Without the Forest. It first caught my eye because of my scepticism about permaculture “food forests”...
View ArticleLee Reich: unusual fruits, soil organisms, compost tea, moon planting and a...
Just a quick one to alert you to a very interesting new podcast on the Northwest Edible Life blog featuring an interview with Lee Reich. Lee Reich: soil scientist, horticultural scientist, author [link...
View ArticleMadeira Vine – a permaculture food plant, or a rampant and destructive invasive?
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you will know that I’m very concerned about the encouragement of the use of invasive or potentially invasive species in permaculture (you can see where I’ve...
View ArticleIs it possible to grow vegetables using no-till farming?
At various workshops and meetings I’ve often heard statements along the lines of “no-till approaches are all very well for broadacre cropping (e.g. grain crops), but no one uses them for vegetables” –...
View ArticleImported Weeds and Invasive Exotic Plant Species
The use of “weedy” species, together with the use of non-local species of unknown weediness, incites very heated debate in permaculture circles, inspiring a lot of name-calling and pseduo-science. My...
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