malewithatail
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Location: Northern Rivers NSW
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 15, 2022 8:58:12 GMT 10
The weather here is also changed. Very wet, raining every day and the ground developing a green slime that is very slippery. The spuds planted in raised beds haven't drowned...yet ! Have found a farmer who has a truckload of untreated seed wheat and will be working for a day to get a few 100 kg of it for bread making.
You know you own an old tractor when.....your tractors are older than you are and run better !
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Tim Horton
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Post by Tim Horton on Apr 15, 2022 10:57:02 GMT 10
The bears here are out of hibernation now. In another month or so the tourists will start flocking into the National Forests and Parks around. About the worst thing to hit around here with the car is wild boar and of course bears. Good lord those things are like tanks. We do have elk in the parks though. --- --- Yes... Every spring it seems there is a headline about a car hitting a bear.. Cars are usually totaled... Elk, moose, like a horse are tall enough to come over the hood many times making for bad injuries and deaths..
A number of years ago now.. There was a newspaper headline that said.... "Rabbit Kills Moose" ...and the next line said... No.. It didn't choke on the rabbit.. Obviously a Volkswagen Rabbit hit a moose killing the animal and totaling the car.. No people hurt..
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 2, 2022 5:17:20 GMT 10
Happy May Day from here in my gardens. About 15 days beyond last average frost and temperatures have evened out to days in the 70's with night time lows consistently in the 50's. Right now we are averaging rain about twice a week. Halfway between spring equinox and summer solstice and the gardens are humming with activity. Weeds double in size overnight and the work right now is never done.
The blueberries are covered in blooms and looks to be another bumper crop. The bees are working those blooms hard right now too.
Sometime the beginning of this next week I hope to get cabbage and broccoli starts out in the beds once the present storms move through. These plants were started from seeds in compost and worm castings in milk jugs. No electricity at all. Also will plant some romaine starts and bok choy for stir fries.
Have a couple different patches of peas on different fence lines. Onions and garlic are looking good.
The gooseberry bushes are loaded too and just starting to get small berries swelling. Right now I have 3 different colors a green, pink and purple. Also a good crop of black currants are putting on.
Peach trees look to be loaded with small peaches and looks like I may have actually dodged the late frost bullet this year. I will still have to thin the peaches after June fruit drop but so far so good. The plums are also loaded this year.
I am experimenting with a new way of growing sweet potatoes this year. I struggle with shallow, sandy and rocky soils and cooler temperatures. This year I have made wire rings about 3 foot round and high filled with a combination of compost, worm castings and soil. I planted sweet potatoes in these. The rings are lined with large black plastic garbage bags to try to heat them up for those crops that like heat allowing me to plant them earlier.
A new crop for me this year are Juneberries also sometimes called Serviceberries. This is a native and I have 3 trees of them so far. Year 2 I have berries with bushes about 3 foot high. A great thing is that they seem to be a late bloomer that should stand a good chance of beating those late spring frosts that are so damaging to many crops. This may be a keeper. Also new this year looks like I will have my first crop of native Beach plums. Failures this year to date. Nanking cherries have lost their fruit to late frosts for the second year in a row. Row crops in ground are carrots, turnips, mustard greens, potatoes, beets and spring green onions. Also planted my first crop of kidney beans. Stay safe.....DD
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 13, 2022 22:19:15 GMT 10
Well I guess warmer temps are here to stay! High daytime temperature the last 2 days has been 80 f (26C). Averaging about two rains a week which is perfect. We have spent the last week applying compost as mulch around trees and shrubs. The ongoing job of the week is thinning peaches by hand on the peach trees. The fruit is way too thick and must be thinned to about 1 peach every 6 inches. This helps the fruit grow larger and also helps to keep the fruit from becoming too heavy for the limbs and breaking in the wind from the weight thus doing permanent damage to the trees. Getting in warm weather seeds such as okra, cucumbers and squash. Harvesting asparagus and greens.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 15, 2022 3:00:01 GMT 10
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Post by Stealth on May 17, 2022 20:39:13 GMT 10
As always, your garden gives a huge amount of inspiration DD! I've bought and put aside some lavender seeds for when we finally buy a place. I'm super keen to encourage lots of busy bees to the area and I'm also super keen to embrace my inner old lady with a cottage-core style burst of colour in the spring.
I'm a huge fan of purples so your flowers fit my vibe perfectly. I used to always think that flower gardens were pretty but pointless when I was younger. Now I have the pragmatism of BUT THE BEEEEEES! I have no doubt that in another 20 years it'll be ENTIRELY because they're pretty and why not have pretty things in the garden too?
It's been very wet here but surprisingly not that cold yet. I'm hoping that our last winter here will be less unbearable than usual. A couple of years ago we had a surprisingly mild winter and it was absolutely wonderful so I'm really hoping that we're going to get one last 'not so bad' winter before we move over to the other side of the country. Where blessedly, thrillingly, the lowest temperature is frequently 0c instead of the -1 to -4 average we get in the mornings here.
MAN I hate the cold.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 17, 2022 21:10:00 GMT 10
Man do I hear you about that cold! I am a southern girl born and bred. While I have endured snow drifts taller than I am however a fan of that warm weather also. I hope you get your mild winter. My inner old lady morphed into an outer old lady long ago. I want to have my flowers while I am alive to smell them and the purple matches my white hair. And vegetable gardens and such are great but with no pollinators you are kind of up the creek without a paddle. So I feed my own need for flowers and feed the pollinators at the same time and I do have lots of them. Same thing with bugs if you want to have the good bugs you have to have the habitat and some bad bugs to feed them. You can't kill all the bugs but simply have to find a tolerable level of sharing whether you like it or not. A garden is a living thing and I have bugs, bees, birds, snakes, toads, bats, lizards and lots of other critters. I mulch my gardens heavily which draws the toads which eat the slugs. The toads and voles draw the snakes which eat the toads. Fortunately they are mostly nonvenomous thus far. I have bird feeders and bird houses all over my property along with bat houses and I have few mosquitos. There is a lot to be said for working with nature. I just plant more than enough for everybody pretty well. Lol Like men with their toys the woman that dies with the most flowers wins. Or maybe yarn too Lavender is a good choice I also plant mint, anise hyssop, borage and perennial salvia for their bee attracting flowers. Many make great herbal teas also.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 19, 2022 1:27:13 GMT 10
Mid May Gardens 2022
Mid May in the garden is the peak time for my cool weather crops. Green peas varieties green arrow and little marvel were planted in March. Every year I try to plant around St. Patrick's Day which works out just about perfect. Direct seeded in cool soil they survive the frosts of March and April while enjoying the heavy rains normal in April. By the time May rolls around and the temperatures climb in the 80's they are blooming to beat the band. By the next week I should be picking peas. The cabbage in front of the peas is an heirloom variety called Little Jersey Wakefield. An heirloom variety dating back to the 1800's with small conical heads that are less inclined to split in my rainy climate. This spring crop is eaten fresh, some goes in the freezer and some is used for salads and slaws. I usually plant another crop in Juy which I then ferment for autumn Kraut. The purple flowers are chives not only edible but help bring the bees in. The onions in the foreground are Australian Brown.
Broccoli variety that I forget the name of several decades ago but still saving the seeds yearly. These broccoli and the cabbage were started by seeds in milk jugs on the back deck in late March and were moved to the garden several weeks ago. There were no warming mats used for germination nor any artificial light source of any kind used. Germinated in recycled milk jugs and then transplanted into disposable plastic drinking cups with holes burned into the bottom. Also of note is that there has been absolutely not one bit of commercial fertilizer of any sort on this garden. The native soil is topped off twice every year with homemade compost, worm castings, soybean meal, wood ashes and rabbit manure sometimes. I will not require fertilizer until maybe later in the season after another crop is planted. I do add minerals sometimes if the plants look deficient.
Turnip heirloom variety Purple Top of which I plant a small patch both spring and fall. Picked young they are used similar to potatoes but are earlier. The greens are also edible and are a southern US favorite cooked with onions and pork. I also can in jars the roots similar to potatoes. The roots are better in the fall because when hit by those early autumn frosts they become sweeter.
Heat tolerant romaine variety Jericho originating in Israel has been an excellent variety for my area. Open pollinated so I save seeds and with the heat tolerance I can grow this 7 months out of the year at my altitude. Even longer with the help of cold frames and garden fleece. I like to succession plant about every 3 weeks.
Spinach is another cool season crop that I have found I can throw out small patches of all over the property in little shady nooks and crannies under fruit trees and such and as long as we have plenty rain I can have fresh baby spinach most of the season.
And for that hand full of months that I do not have fresh greens I can mustard greens in jars for our green fix. Cooked down with bacon and onions they are a southern local delicacy. With fermented kraut, frozen cabbage and a dehydrated greens variety mix then crushed into a powder that I can hide in different dishes that way we get our green fix of vitamins and minerals year round. Other cool weather crops coming on are beets of which I can also save the greens from the thinnings and dehydrate with my greens mix. We also have carrots which I can, green onions to dehydrate or freeze and Irish potatoes. All of these are early spring cool weather crops for my area. Still in pots are my tomato, pepper plants and basil. Already planted in ground and not in beds are okra, squash, melons and sweet potatoes. Asparagus is still going strong and I freeze and dehydrate weekly. High today 83 and low tonight 68. UV index 11 with a 40% chance of rain. Rain thus far this week 2 inches.
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Post by Stealth on May 19, 2022 8:35:05 GMT 10
It's funny you mention purple hair. I've been saying for a LONG time (probably about ten years) that I can't wait for my hair to go white so I can dye it rainbow colours more easily 😆. It takes a lot of bleach to get the yellow tones out of it and frankly I'm lazy with upkeep so it's not something I'm terribly keen on doing at this stage. But once I don't have to bleach it anymore? RAINBOWS. ALL THE TIME.
Yep. I'm gonna be that old lady.
Our gardening is entirely on hold at this stage. We've got my brother in law viewing some properties for us in the next week and hopefully will have an offer in on a house shortly. It's an exciting but nerve-wracking time because it's our first purchase. But the best thing about it is google maps satellite view. I can plan garden beds and crops before we even know if we're going to get a place. That helps with the nerves considerably lol. Of course, that means learning about the soil quality and weather over there to figure out what to plant when. But looking at your pictures is definitely motivating!
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on May 19, 2022 22:29:10 GMT 10
It's funny you mention purple hair. I've been saying for a LONG time (probably about ten years) that I can't wait for my hair to go white so I can dye it rainbow colours more easily 😆. It takes a lot of bleach to get the yellow tones out of it and frankly I'm lazy with upkeep so it's not something I'm terribly keen on doing at this stage. But once I don't have to bleach it anymore? RAINBOWS. ALL THE TIME. Yep. I'm gonna be that old lady. Our gardening is entirely on hold at this stage. We've got my brother in law viewing some properties for us in the next week and hopefully will have an offer in on a house shortly. It's an exciting but nerve-wracking time because it's our first purchase. But the best thing about it is google maps satellite view. I can plan garden beds and crops before we even know if we're going to get a place. That helps with the nerves considerably lol. Of course, that means learning about the soil quality and weather over there to figure out what to plant when. But looking at your pictures is definitely motivating! Lol Stealth on the purple hair. Believe it or not I think I am the only woman on earth who has never bleached or dyed her hair in any way. Probably because it hangs to my butt and always has except when I lost it to chemo. Jeez I would have to take loans out to afford the hair dye. White it is and white it will stay. Born a blonde then grew to be a strawberry blonde/red head and then totally white by my late 40's. Love the rainbow idea though. Rock it girl! As far as moving to a new garden it can be difficult. I have done it several times and a tip if you can find a local gardener or even a garden club member that has gardened in the area you are moving to long term they can be a wealth of information. My husband says one thing that has been consistent wherever I garden is that when I pick a garden location it is always going to be the rockiest location on the property. Sensing a bit of hostility in that statement also. Lol
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on Jun 15, 2022 11:08:55 GMT 10
June 14, 2022 Summer is here and yesterday we saw our first 90 degree days (32C). The gardens continue to thrive due to good soil and mulch probably with very little insect problems thus far. We continue to have more than ample rain but are going into our dry season so time will tell. Lots of hay on the ground right now with the ranchers taking advantage of the warm temps and dry weather this week to cut hay. In our gardens the cool season crops such as peas are gone and have given way to summer crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, okra, squash and melons. We have about another 120 days of growing season left till first frost 2022 Right now we are picking carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli and onions. First plantings of shell beans are blooming with 2 successive plantings in the ground. We have already harvested peas, green spring onions, garlic, mustard, turnips and potatoes. Also harvesting asparagus and rhubarb.
Fruit on the property is plentiful right now. We are picking Rhubarb and gooseberries should be ready to pick within the week. Blueberry trees are loaded and the plums are starting to fall. Grapes hang from the fences and blackberries are putting on fruit on the fence lines as well. Elderberries are just now blooming but are also loaded with blossoms. With lots of berries on the way I cleaned some out of the freezer and canned them to make room for new crops.
Gooseberry Pie filling, blackberry pie filling, elderberry pie filling, elderberry jam, plum syrup, whole kernel corn, baby carrots, pickled beets.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Jun 15, 2022 11:20:18 GMT 10
You are amazing.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on Jul 8, 2022 7:16:24 GMT 10
07/07/2022 105 days until average first frost date. Temperatures are running in the mid to low 90's (f) right now at my elevation which is about 2000 ft. above sea level. Lower level temperatures are running much hotter. Rain has been scarce until the last several days and we are averaging about 1.5 inches daily for the last couple days which helps. Crops I am picking are cabbage, summer squash, cucumbers, and beans. Lots of tomatoes hanging but not much ripe yet. Also spent some time last week grinding, stuffing and smoking homemade sausage. Spending lots of time shelling and canning beans. At the end of the day I end up with beans in jars and more dried beans to go into mylar and buckets. Cabbage for the freezer, kraut and am going to dehydrate some. Putting squash in the freezer and also dehydrating some. Fruit wise I am picking the first of the blueberries and blackberries. They will go for another month and then the peaches and elderberries will ripen. I plant beans every 3 weeks so have 3 more plantings of beans to pick. Planted fall cabbage seedlings yesterday. Fall crops for us cabbage, lettuce, turnips, beets, broccoli and carrots. Winter storage crops of sweet potatoes and winter squash coming along nicely. Seeing a few Japanese beetles but far fewer than other years. Have an explosion of ground squirrels/chipmunks. Mr DD is enjoying setting off smoke bombs in the runs and taking them down. At times my back yard looks like a war zone. I guess a man has to have some fun!
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Post by SA Hunter on Jul 10, 2022 23:57:26 GMT 10
I think we need to organise an Ausprep Dirtdiva Tour 2023 to your place for a few weeks to just sit back and learn some of your skills.
Thankyou so much for sharing and inspiring us Aussies.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Jul 11, 2022 5:06:36 GMT 10
I have a better idea SA Hunter. We all chip in to pay for DD's airfare here, then get her on-site advice at each of our properties. That way we get expert advice for our individual circumstances and DD and the smoke bomb terror get a free holiday around Australia.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on Jul 11, 2022 6:38:54 GMT 10
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Tim Horton
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Post by Tim Horton on Jul 12, 2022 1:52:11 GMT 10
I have a better idea SA Hunter. We all chip in to pay for DD's airfare here --- --- WHAT an OPPORTUNITY that would be... Since getting to know many of you blokes as you can from the forum, down under would be the one place I would like to visit people face to face.. This way over and above all the many interesting site seeing places in the world, including North America, that are such a pain in the a$$ to get to and from..
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Jul 12, 2022 5:05:53 GMT 10
The network I was in did this for a French member of Aussurv years ago.
He flew to Sydney, where a local member collected him and he stayed with at his property for a week, then he came to the annual forum meet at my hunting property, which was a real eye opener for all of us ( I will shoot the goat laying down), then he stayed with a couple of members on the Gold Coast, then flew home. All it cost him was the air fare.
Be warned though, after meeting us crazies face to face he left the forum.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Jul 12, 2022 5:09:03 GMT 10
As an aside, I've been looking for Tattler reusable lids. $66US for 3 dozen lids, which is fine. An additional $66US to post to Australia ( even after a $15US discount) is outrageous.
My search continues.
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dirtdiva
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Post by dirtdiva on Jul 12, 2022 6:05:03 GMT 10
As an aside, I've been looking for Tattler reusable lids. $66US for 3 dozen lids, which is fine. An additional $66US to post to Australia ( even after a $15US discount) is outrageous. My search continues. Both Tattler and Harvest Guard are very small family owned companies. Same family father and son each have their own company. On the flip side shipping right now is awful even in the US. I ordered a replacement part the other day for Mr. DD's gas smoker. Part cost $25 US and was very small. Shipping cost $26 and it was just the state over. Sounds like a great business opportunity for an ambitious Aussie. You guys need an in country supplier or manufacturer of canning and food preservation supplies.
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