The Not-So-Quiet Winter

If you believe the gardening books, winter is supposedly a quiet time in the garden. A time for rest and reflection, maybe planning ahead for the following year. Are they kidding??!!! I have been busier than ever this winter working in our garden.

I posted about building our veggie patch a few months ago after we moved here. I am pleased to say that although it was a fairly rushed job, with me desperate to get something (anything!) into the ground before winter hit, it has done extremely well and has fed us many greens over the colder months.

 Plenty of kale, spinach, silverbeet, rocket and lettuce through the winter

Following that, in the past 2 months I have :-

• Planted a row of 6 bare-rooted rose bushes, outside our main front window (as a bit of a privacy screen from passing bushwalkers and locals walking their dogs!)

I have since made this into a long strip of 'rose bed', with mulch to keep out competing grass



• Planted a hedge- row of  5 hazelnut trees I bought 2 years ago. see here   for the original post. Somehow they have miraculously survived living in large pots (thank you) and hopefully will thrive now they are in the ground.

• Planted over 500 flowering Spring bulbs throughout the front, back and side gardens, and in pots which can be moved around to suit our window view when they flower. Some of the daffodils are just starting to flower now. I also planted tulips, freesias, jonquils, muscari, anemones, ranunculi, ixias, snowflakes, dutch iris, chincherinchee.... so many more!

• Established a small garlic patch of both Australian Purple and White bulbs (around 30 plants) and a separate potato patch (around 30 seed potatoes) including Sebago, Nicola, Desiree and Ruby Lou.

• Planted 2 varieties of blueberry bushes -Northland and Anna- in the back garden. The area I chose to plant them in is a sunny spot but has pine trees hanging over the fence from the property behind- this means the soil here is naturally acidic which blueberries love, and the pine needles that fall create a natural acidic mulch. Ideal conditions for them, less work for me!

• Planted a variety of dormant berry canes- thornless blackberry, boysenberry, and 13 raspberry canes. All are against fences where they can be tied up when they start to grow (hopefully profusely!)

• Started transforming the side garden into a mini orchard (we call it the side garden, its the equivalent of a normal front garden but our house is long and sideways on a corner block). In there we have planted 3 apple trees- (Granny Smith, Red Fuji and Gala), 1 nectarine and 1 peach (all dwarf varieties) along with rhubarb and the raspberries. I am thinking of buying a double-grafted pear as well, if I can make a space! The garden was already quite full with deciduous trees and a few other random trees, including a huge cypress which is beautiful but creates a lot of shade Luckily this is a sunny North facing garden so the fruit trees should do well. Our daughter has claimed the Gala as her tree, and our son has always loved Granny Smith apples and wanted his own tree since he was 3, so it was a happy day when he got to plant it :-)

This corner was not even visible when we moved in- covered in overhanging trees
• Oh and of course not forgetting our feathered friends! We put up a brushwood fence along the back boundary to hide the tangled mess of ivy and other weeds in the property behind us (after lopping off several huge pine tree limbs that were overhanging our garden). We then built the chook pen similar to the first one we made. Chicken wire and star pickets, old gate, A-frame inside for shelter, sleeping and nest boxes. It is approx 25 m2 so plenty of room to scratch around in.

Our hens were so happy they immediately started laying again! After our egg-less winter, the very next day 3 of our 5 hens had laid! And they haven't stopped since. we are now getting over 20 a week from the 5 chooks which is great.

It is exciting to see my vision coming into reality, although I can be a little impatient at times (!) and the vision is a pretty fluid one, and often morphs into other ideas.
Our ultimate aim is not to be self-sufficient here, but to provide as much as we can for ourselves of fresh, healthy food, whilst enjoying our garden and also living in a practical and beautiful space.

Achievable?

Watch this space.

:-)

Chestnuts for breakfast...lunch....dinner....

What a fabulous day out we had yesterday! A trip to Kookootonga Chestnut Farm in Mt Irvine organised by the blue mountains fruit and nut tree network made for a great family outing. The drive there is beautiful in itself, through the upper mountains villages, across the Darling Causeway, through Bell and Mt Wilson, which I think always looks gorgeous in Autumn.

One of the first trees

There were chestnuts aplenty, less trees than I imagined but far more nuts than I ever imagined could come from each tree! The owner took our small group up over the hill to his 'best' tree which was enough to keep us happily picking for an hour or so, each filling our buckets and still leaving some behind! It was so enjoyable gathering the nuts under the cool shade of the huge tree as it was unusually warm yesterday.

Tough gloves essential (oops and sensible footwear too!)

A trio of treasure inside the prickly casing

The farm also has a good supply of walnut trees, and although these aren't quite due for harvest yet, our children managed to find a 'secret' tree (much to their delight!) where they were the sole collectors of a good kilo of walnuts already fallen to the ground. Apart from the occasional running-off episodes, they really enjoyed the day too.

Miss 4 filling bucket no.1

Bucket no.2

I found discovering the chestnuts in the dewy grass and peeling them from their prickly covers really addictive (!) and therefore when it came to weighing and paying, we ended up buying far more than we needed, but it was well worth it for the experience.

This cheeky fellow joined us too

To wrap it up, the group had organised a roasting in the grounds near the farmhouse, and we all got to taste hot chestnuts roasted on the BBQ, which was a first for us.

Our nutty bounty at home!

Since returning yesterday we have tried them microwaved and oven baked, and I also picked up a range of recipe cards at the farm with lots of yummy ideas. Just as well - we have a LOT to use!

:-)

Sticks in Pots!

Well, they may look like sticks at the moment....

I wrote a little while ago about buying hazelnut trees as part of my overall plan to one have a fruit and nut tree orchard when we build our next home (sounds mightily impressive but really talking about a handful of apple trees, couple of citrus and few others)

I collected them from Blackheath Community Market on the weekend. They come as bare-root stock ready to plant, but as we don't live on our building land and haven't planned out where exactly the trees will go, I had to put them into pots for the time being. (Hopefully this will only be for a year maximum). They all have loads of buds so I will looking forward to watching them develop!

So, the stick family are .... Butler, Ennis, Halls Giant and Willamette. No, I haven't gone completely insane and named them, they are the varieties which will hopefully cross pollinate each other and give us lots of hazelnuts over a long season.

I may have to wait 2 years before gathering a feast, but it certainly beats walnuts, they can take 10- 25 years before bearing any nuts!

Feeling a little NUTTY ?

Oh, I am excited!!!

Today at Blackheath Community market I put my order in for some HAZELNUT trees, which are being distributed as part of the Hazelnut Tree Project, a community bulk-buy scheme organised by the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute. (Have a look at their great website here HERE )

Hazelnuts are particularly suited to our climate here in the mountains, and are an excellent food source. You can read more about them and how to grow them at Hazelnut Nursery Propagators , who just happen to be right here in the mountains!

They are wind pollinated, (so don't depend on a healthy local population of bees) and you do need a minimum of 2 trees so they can cross-pollinate. We have ordered 4, which I understand will be different varieties to maximise the yield and the length of the growing season, as some are early and some late season producers.

They are a decent size tree, bare-root stock, and at just $15 per tree, a great investment!

It is a little early for us to buy them, as our land still sits empty waiting for our dream home, but you know what? In a couple of years we will have a fantastic food forest growing there complete with fruit and nut trees!

In the meantime we can either try to pick the best spot for our future orchard or plant the hazelnuts out into large pots while we wait ....

I'm just happy to be moving further towards our dream ........

:-)