to choko or no go?

Listening to a little jazz by the fire with a glass of vino, and the feel of dry sandpaper hands after a good day in the garden. Last week we had a family shin dig for Dad's 70th. Mike and Mandy drove down from the Nimbin Hinterland, bringing with them some lovely bohemian pumpkins, bell chillies and choko's a plenty. One of the choko's had sprouted a shoot with some leaves, so this week we decided to be frivolous and plant it by our front fence, despite chilling choko stories taking over peoples gardens and destroying their lives.

Surely they cant be that bad... right? Well I guess we are about to find out. If they are as rambunctious as rumoured, hopefully we will not be condemned and outcast by our neighbourhood. The kids and I chomped on one this evening, and we were all pleasantly surprised at their mild flavor and apple like crunch. Perhaps its the name....choko... if they were titled with something more exotic, like Brazilian bongo fruit, or the forbidden bobacko fruit of desire, perhaps they would not suffer such an unfair stigma.

With the successful planting of the community orchard in our nearby nature strip, we have been in the mood for planting a few more things in our own garden. this afternoon we purchased two Kiwi fruit vines (male and female), and some more rosemary for the front garden.

we also set about building a chook tractor, slash, possum force field, using chook wire and some conduit. We aim to finish it this weekend and hope to introduce the chooks to it by day, then use it to cover seedlings by night to ward off our "big fat eat everything and make your garden a barren wasteland" possums.

We too successfully grew sweet potatoes last season.. they are a very rewarding veg to grow. they are a great crop. no diseases, fast growing and easy on the eye. the heart shaped leaves are also edible.   this year we had less success, as we did not have them covered and the possums ate the leaves off every stem. consequently we are considering a walk in enclosure to cover the garden beds.

Very interested in the talk about Aquaponics. We are very keen to give it a try also. Maggie, please let us know how the course on fish (and fungi) goes. Sounds very exciting. Wouldn't it be great to hold a fishing and bbq party in your own backyard!

Enjoy the garden.

How To Grow Sweet Potatoes And Farmstay News

Maggie asked me about sweet potatoes. These are photos I took last Spring, but as we are currently harvesting the last of our sweet potatoes, I felt a bit nostalgic for spring...so will tell you a little bit about them.
Supermarket sweetpotatoes rarely sprout...I suspect they are sprayed with something . I bought my sweet potatoes from our local organic shop 'Organic Feast'(great shop!!) in Maitland.
I cut them up into pieces and placed them in the soil.

 There was little effort to it all. Although I did find at the end of season, the bigger pieces were the ones that did the best. I guess the plant had more to use as nutrients.

I used all sorts of pieces (orange, white and purple). I discovered the orange ones did the best and supplied the most produce. The purple were more slow growing and the white ones did not seem to like my climate at all. So, in a temperate climate, I would suggest the orange kumera to begin with.

It was so exciting seeing them all sprout.

And this is what we have been eating for the past few weeks. I haven't been near the grocery shop for 3 weeks now, these are just delicious!!

Of course , you can't grow them now...too cold. All the plants have just been zapped by frost. But the little tubers left in the soil untouched will shoot again in spring. So it is a great plant that you have to do little work for, and it just keeps providing -you must find a permanent designated area for it though.

In other news we are listening to builders hammer and drill as the new bathrooms go in the farmstay rooms. I can't get near the perpetual garden with all these utes parked up along the house. Still, it is a good sound, the sound of progress  .

I have both fires going today and am looking out on a very dry landscape, as the frost has burnt off the last of the kikiyu grass . There has been some rain today , and fingers crossed we will get some winter grasses coming through soon. ...just need a bit more rain. I have planted clover around my orchard to create a natural mulch and am attempting to never run out of broccoli (as it always seems to be the one thing that I have to dash to the supermarket to buy) by planting 17 plants and more to come.Also, as I snuggle up in front of the fire, I have created the farmstay blog :
http://thelittleblackcowblog.blogspot.com/  ....so feel free to visit whenever you like and tell alllllllllllllllllllll your friend  as well!
Can't wait to hear more about what has been happening in your garden Maggie.

Living In the Present ..... Living In The Future ....All At The Same Time.

 Whilst I said our challenge was building a tourist establishment by Christmas...the real challenge is making sure that everything is home made and self sufficient by the time our first guests arrive. We want to create a place with very few store bought goods and most things provided by the farm.
We often can go almost a week without shopping with our vegetable garden at the moment and most of our groceries consist of fruit , flour , sugar and eggs.But we do get tired sometimes and then out come the bought biscuits , etc . It is okay to do that too , because true self suffiency can be exhausting if you over do  it and it should always be fun.
For our farmstay guests , though we aim for a weekend of everything out of our oven or our garden for the time they are here. Just to get in touch with the idea of self suffiency and try it for themselves.
This weekend we bought a tangello tree, a blood orange tree , a navello orange tree and a emperor mandarine tree . We planted them in the back yard which is at the top of a hill. Our soil is good but the house area is over a rock and gravel shelf , so you can get caught with planting trees when the roots hit a rock shelf and go, 'hey there is no more dirt here!' and the tree up and dies.Every planting is a risk in the citrus area as no matter how deep you dig you wonder if there is a giant rock just under the tree. But it is okay to take risks, that is what life is all about. My back is sore though from pulling all these big rocks out  !
At the same time , it is best to follow permaculture principles where everything is planted centrally and you can keep an eye on your crops. Our garden is near the clothes line because it means you are visually connecting with the plants at least once a day. Although, sadly the clothes don't always get hung out on time if you are like me and get distracted by dropping the basket in the middle of the yard so that you can weed or plant!
We also considered planting an orchard down near the creek as that would make more sense waterwise and soil wise . We thought about our visitors though would be  mainly from urban areas, so decided to create something that will go in a backyard instead.Hopefully all we do would be doable in some way in a suburban backyard.

The citrus orchard now consists of eight trees, all of different types to stagger fruiting periods. They do well on this side of the yard and appreciate the gravelly texture of the soil to a point because it allows good drainage.
This is also where we have our chicken tractor . Chicken the rooster(scaredy cat rooster ) and his four wives create a new garden bed for me in the citrus area every 4-6 weeks . This is working well for crops that don't do well in my raised beds.I also let them out on afternoons when I am working in the yard ...in no way can they be trusted on their own though.

 Our lemon tree is full of fruit at the moment due to all this lovely rain.This Eureka lemon wasn't fruiting well previously until I realised that it simply wasn't getting enough water.

This was a lime tree and I have been telling everyone it is a lime tree. It is now a lemon tree....it used to be a lime tree but the graft got away on me and I didn't notice the other part died. I actually needed a lemon tree that fruits at a different time to the Eureka , so mistakes can often work out well.
Never be afraid of mistakes in the garden.

 Our raised beds are going well. There is nothing like the Autumn flush to get such lush growth.
It also fools gardeners into thinking they can get away with a summer crop going (which is why I planted corn last weekend just as an experiement ...crazy I know).

 The passionfruit vine and the sweetpotato vines are going well and it is prime time for picking our sweetpotatoes.
Every gardener has one thing they grow really really well for some reason. For us it seems to be sweet potato.
We went to Tocal field day on the weekend and bought some heritage Italian seeds. Planted Kale yesterday and some red lettuce which will look gorgeous in winter salads.

And lastly this half dead area here is the place for the perpetual farmstay garden.Oh dear, it doesn't look so good ! It doesn't look like much now,but it will . One thing about gardening is the promise for the future. You cannot not be sad when you look at a bare patch of soil like this and wonder' what work of art can I create with this?'

The perpetual garden is a garden purely for the farmstay guests. It is a place where each guest gives a future guest a gift by planting a punnet of lettuces , or kale or snow peas so that the following family can enjoy them. We will provide the seedlings , but for the guests it is a way of getting them to understand that growing your own food is about living in the present by holding the soil in your hands and enjoying the moment , and the  future at the same time ..knowing that planting corn now might result in a fun family barbecue with corn on the cob in a few months time.There will be a guest book for families to write in and each family will write what they planted . They will also be able to check online how their plants went when the farmstay blog starts.

Hopefully when I post next there will be some progress on the perpetual garden. There may also be a spa bath in the main farmstay bedroom fingers crossed!