10 Wednesday Sep 2014
Tags
Taking a kip.
With the last blast of winter, our small flock has had its first new birth. Both ewe and lamb are healthy, with the mother appropriately protective of her new charge, huffing and hoof-stomping whenever we wander too close and carefully keeping apart from the flock. Continue reading
27 Wednesday Aug 2014
Posted in livestock
The new flock of Wiltshire Horns, watched from afar by the alpacas.
Just as the last rays of sunlight slipped below the cliffs, Asher and I arrived at the block with the final trailer-load of livestock. It had been a massive day of zig-zagging across the southern Fleurieu, transporting our small flock of Wiltshire Horn sheep and alpacas from Hindmarsh Valley to the farm. Driving along Range Road in the late afternoon light, we did our best to not think of the wedge-tailed eagles picking over the lambs as some kind of omen. Continue reading
21 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in ecology, exploring, propagation, regeneration
Tags
drosera, ecology, plants, propagation, seeds, southwestern Fleurieu, sundew, winter
This is the first instalment in an occasional series celebrating different plants of the Fleurieu, particularly those that we spot or try to reintroduce to the farm. It’s also a way for us to map and share our research and discoveries as we observe the regeneration of our property.
During our recent winter tree-planting extravaganza, Sean, one of our dedicated tree-planters, discovered a patch of Scented sundews (Drosera whittakeri), in the damp, mossy undergrowth around the gullies. With its distinctive white flowers, once we’d spotted one cluster, we discovered more in similar damp pockets. Continue reading
19 Saturday Jul 2014
Posted in ecology, events, regeneration, trees
Tags
ecology, erosion, events, farm, kangaroos, planning, revegetation, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, waterways, winter, zones
The ‘before’ photo: 800 new plants in position. Stay tuned over the next 20 years for the ‘after’ shot.
Over the weekend of the 12-13 July, around 30 dedicated volunteers descended on TBC for our annual tree-planting fiesta. Over two days, we managed to plant some 800 locally indigenous plants in the two ‘wilderness zones’, kick-starting their transition back to pink- and red-gum woodland. The first area was planted outwards from the former Bee House (currently tree-planter snack dispensary and rain shelter) with around 600 plants selected to address the water-logging in the area and to revegetate in and around erosion gullies. The second area saw the planting of around 200 plants, radiating from the existing remnant redgums. Once again these plants were selected to address water-logging and erosion as well as provide shelter to adjacent paddocks. Over the following week, we dodged thunderstorms and icy squalls to add another 150 or so plants, with about 200ish to go! Continue reading
09 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in diy
Stile Design #1, the crossed tread option.
Fences are amazing things. They totally reshape the way you think about a landscape by cutting it into smaller, yet still expansive, rooms. They alter the movement patterns of humans and other animals and we’ve very quickly discovered the bits where, far from any gate, we’re regularly having to launch ourselves between strands of high-tensile barbed wire. With a bit of research, we came up with a couple of simple designs for stiles allowing easy pedestrian access at high-traffic points. Continue reading
02 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in diy, livestock, planning, propagation, trees
Tags
food, livestock, nursery, permaculture, planning, propagation, seeds, trees, winter
An English oak seedling (Quercus robur) reaches towards the winter sun.
Back in autumn, we gathered freshly fallen acorns from the base of a row of massive old English oaks (Quercus robur). Inspired by the dehesa agroforestry systems of Spain and Portugal, we’ve often pondered how a livestock-grazed oak plantation could work on the property. Acorns for pigs, and perhaps even human consumption, timber for the use of our great-great-grandchildren, and in the meantime, a carpet of fallen leaves offering organic matter for composting and mulch. So, with some bags of acorns and few containers of the topsoil and leaf litter from around the parent oaks, we set to propagating them.
We mixed the leaf litter and gathered topsoil in with our potting medium, hoping to inoculate our own medium with beneficial fungi, and then planted the acorns. We planted some close to the surface, and others about an acorn-width deep. After about eight weeks of being kept damp and left in the late autumn-early winter sun, they began sending their first shoots upwards, red furry things with a cluster of jagged leaves at the top. The depth of the acorn doesn’t seem to have had any bearing on their readiness to propagate. Once they’ve all emerged and are about 8-10 cm tall, we’ll carefully thin them, planting out excess strong specimens to their own pots until we have one decent plant per pot.
Grow little seedling, grow!
29 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in art & craft, trees
Tags
art, design, erosion, farm, history, logo, revegetation, southwestern Fleurieu
After a year and a half, we’ve finally got to developing a visual identity for the farm. While our working name for the farm, “Trees, Bees and Cheese”, is more conceptual than place-based, we wanted the logo to reflect some of the distinctiveness of the farm’s landscape.
Yep, there is wind and rain, but there’s also the symphonic light that rolls across the hills and the late afternoon haze that reduces the sequence of valleys into golden layers of theatre scenery. There are the rolling, low clouds that we ache for in late summer and autumn, then look forward to farewelling by late winter. These tumbling clouds also reference the nearby sea. The lone tree and falling rain suggest how the landscape has been reshaped over the last 180ish years through clearing and subsequent erosion, but also remind us of the resources available in restoration when we harvest rainwater and gather seed. Perhaps in the future we might be able to add some more trees to the logo to reflect the changing reality of the property!
We also have a black-and-white option, particularly good for stencilling farmy things. We’d love to hear what you reckon, and if you have any ideas for tweaks or adjustments!
26 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in diy, propagation, trees
Tags
food, nursery, permaculture, propagation, seeds, trees, winter
The take-away container propagation method. Place cleaned seed on a damp cloth, replace lid, and leave in a warm place.
The feijoa (Acca sellowiana, aka. Feijoa sellowiana) is one of those underrated suburban fruit trees that is often (perhaps unwittingly) grown around Adelaide backyards and little eaten. The varieties I’ve come across most often have offered grey-green torpedoes with a sharp, pineapple tang and a somewhat gritty texture. In the height of feijoa season, we were given a paper bag full of a variety I’d not encountered before. The skin was thin enough to bite a chunk out of and the flesh silky(ish) and smooth. Continue reading
23 Monday Jun 2014
Tags
design, farm, hack, nursery, propagation, recycling, reuse, revegetation, trees
Our passion for growing trees has in many ways outstripped our capacity to grow them, and so our growing space has become overrun with foam containers balancing precariously on the edges of hard rubbish chairs, bricks and scraps of wood. Some months ago, we claimed some old school tables from a local school’s throw-out pile, and thought they might be good for more growing space. Predictably, the manufactured timber tops very quickly fattened in the moisture, buckled and then started getting slimy.
28 Monday Apr 2014
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In her book Farms with a Future (Chelsea Green, 2012), American small farm consultant, sometime-homesteader and former family rancher Rebecca Thistlethwaite offers a brisk, yet detailed, guide to building and running a sustainable farm business. Writing on a range of essential topics including marketing, land access, finance and business planning, equipment, soil and water management, record-keeping and human resources her writing is concise and targeted, supported by her own experiences together with a selection of excellent case studies describing how the principles outlined are expressed in the real world. Each chapter offers a discussion of key issues and strategies for sustainable farms, a case study and summary of short, sharp “Take Home Messages” drawn from the text. While it is necessarily written for a North American audience, and some US-focussed sections on regulation or financing can be skipped over, there is still much here to inspire Australian readers. Continue reading
Yarnauwi Farm 