Around The Farm

Joining in with Farmama today for a look around the farm. Just a quick look around today as I have been busy packing.

Harvested food for our CSA

Pruning all the fruit trees

Washing the seedling pots and trays before using again

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow. I'm going to visit Ceres,a CSA farm and the CSA coordinator, and while I'm there I'll also get to see my daughters. I'll be taking the train. The journey takes 14 hrs. and I plan to knit,sew and read.My decision not to fly fits in with my desire to reduce my carbon footprint and to slow my life down.

Cheese Making and Other Things

We held a cheese making workshop here on Saturday. We call it 3 cheeses in 3 hours. It took a little longer than 3 hrs because of the cooler weather. We just couldn't maintain the temperature as well as we do in the warmer months.

We start with a colby cheese. That's  a hard cheese that is a bit milder and more to my taste than the farmhouse cheddar that Mark used to make. We buy all our cheese supplies such as the cultures and cheese wax from Green Living Australia They have a little booklet that guides you through some of the simpler cheeses. Mainly we make our cheeses and yoghurt when our cows are milking but they are dry at the moment so we tend to buy Biodynamic milk when it's on sale.
While the colby is sitting to allow the culture to do it;s thing we start on the Paneer. Paneer is an Indian style of cheese closely resembling a haloumi but it is not cultured. It is my favourite cheese and we have it with either spinach as in Palak paneer, with a tomato sort of sauce or in a vegie stack or even in fried rice or a stir fry. So versatile and great for us vegetarians as a protein source.

Once the whey has drained off the colby we then make a whey ricotta. I just used the one we made in spinach and ricotta triangles for lunch. It can also be used in sweet dishes such as cheesecake.Actually one of our participants on Saturday was an 11 yr old girl who plans to make a dish using her own ricotta for her audition on junior MasterChef!

Everyone went home feeling confident to make some cheese.

On Sunday we offered to have the 2 littlies while their mum and dad had some special time with the newest little one.They were coming to spend the night and stay for the whole day on Monday. Now Monday's around here are workdays so we needed to be able to keep the little ones safe while we worked alongside them in the garden.

There was a lovely little spot in the garden that I thought would be quite inviting to a 2yrold and his 4yr old sister.

Helping Pop

So with a bit of cutting here and a bit of lopping there and a bit of sand and mulch we came up with the perfect play area . Or at least they think so!

Warn out after a hard days work

Soil Degradation

Following on from my last post about soil degradation, I would like to offer some positiveness.
So what do we do here at Purple Pear?  One of Mark's sayings is "What ever the problem with the soil, the answer is, add organic matter."

Our farm is located on quite marginal land. It is very heavy clay with very poor drainage which gives us an acidic soil. We are continually adding organic matter, using paddock slashings, spoilt hay, weeds thrown in with the hens, and of course compost.

We have compost heaps scattered throughout the garden. You can't have too many compost heaps!

When we started the topsoil here was about 3cm. By slashing and applying biodynamic( BD) preparations we have managed to significantly improve the pasture.

The paths were dug out and the soil thrown onto the bed. Then manure was added.

In the mandala garden we raised the beds by digging out the paths and throwing that soil onto the beds. We added dry pulverised cow pats, BD preps, green manure crops, and then put the chooks on, and added paddock slashings. Over the past 5 years the soil has become  beautiful, rich and friable.

Green manure.

Mulch is added in with the chooks and when they are moved on the seedlings are planted

 Minerals are added in the form of rock dust which is a component of our compost, and is also a part of our homemade potting mix. So each time we plant a seedling a little bit of extra rockdust minerals is added.
It is important to us that we are able to show that it is possible to grow food successfully even on such marginal land as ours.

An Interesting Read

Most people these days know about climate change and some even know about peak oil, whether they believe in them or not! But not many people are aware that the biggest threat to our survival on this planet is the degradation of our soils. A really good article on this issue can be found here.

On My Mind

Resilience is on my mind today as I join in with Rhonda.

The string is passed around and a web is formed

Today Mark and I ran a workshop on Natural Pest Control and Companion Planting. In the hope that we can encourage people not to use pesticides, natural or otherwise, we always start this workshop with "the web of resilience exercise" as Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns  fame calls it. This exercise shows the relationship between the elements within a system, how very complex and resilient it is, but at the same time how fragile.
It's our way of showing the impact farmers/gardeners have on these systems_ it can be either a positive impact as in the case of permaculture systems or negative as in the case of conventional farming with the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Each person is given the name of an element within a system. After each person identifies their relationship to another element  e.g. a frog and a pond, and passes the string to that element, a web forms. Once the web is created we see what happens when this is disrupted eg in the case of a farmer using insecticides (chemical or not) and the insects start to die off, and the web starts to disintegrate.
We don't kill things here at Purple Pear but let a natural balance of pests and predators build up. In this way we do no harm.

Vintage Machine

Mark has been wanting to get back to finishing the geodesic dome. He's up to attaching a cover and gluing just didn't work, so he asked me if I would sew it. Now I'm willing to be as helpful as the next person but asking a sewer to use their machine for such hard yakka is a bit much!!! The solution was to drag out my mum's old singer and give it a go.

Singer Portable Electric Sewing Machine

Comes in it's own little black box with handle

My mum got this machine as a gift when she was 21, she is now 88. It has been sitting in my attic for probably 20yrs as, although a great machine it only does straight stitching.They just don't make them as strong as this anymore. So today it came down from the attic, it's been oiled and had a new needle.I've tested it on some of the plastic sheeting we will be using and it seems like it will handle it nicely. Fingers crossed! We won't have time to get to it until the weekend.

I did manage to get some more marmalade made today from some seville lemons procured from our citrus drive.They are much lighter and sweeter than the batch I made the other day.

I will pass a few jars onto the lady who gave me the oranges and some will be gifts and some will be put onto toast and eaten!

We have a workshop for the council tomorrow on Pest Management and Companion Planting.It has created quite a bit of interest in the media. We have had a radio interview and just this evening the paper rang for an interview over the phone. The journo seemed really surprised that you could grow food without using chemicals  or even,as in our case,not killing pests at all. They'll be sending a photographer along to the workshop tomorrow. The workshop is full so we're told.Let's hope that the message is truly getting out there.

Yarn Along (And it's A Girl)

This is my first time joining Ginny for Yarn Along, but first I must tell you that we are grandparents again. After the false alarm last Thursday Mark's daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. They have named her Leah. We went to the hospital to visit her but in our haste forgot the camera, but photos were taken so as soon as we get copies I will post them!

At the moment I am knitting a little vest for a little someone that I'll tell you about very soon. The yarn that I'm using is this one .It feels like homespun but it's not and thanks to Amanda who gave me some advice on which size needle to use, it looks like it may be the right size. The pattern for the vest came from a blog long ago and I'm sorry I can't remember which one. If any one recognises it and can tell me where it came from I would be very grateful so that I can acknowledge them for it.

The book is The Fourfold Path to Healing by Thomas S. Cowan. The book looks at wholistic health practices inspired by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner taught that the human has 4 bodies and we enjoy good health when these are in harmony. They are the physical body, the life force body,  the emotional body and the mental body.Each one reflects one aspect of our total being. The book looks at diet, meditation , movement and therapeutics.An interesting book !
This post was supposed to go yesterday but the photo just wouldn't download so here it is today just a little late

Busy Days

The day started with our interview with  ABC radio 1233 for those who are local enough  and would like to listen at 10 to 10 tomorrow morning. The interview went really well and Mark was able to give a pretty detailed description of how the mandalas work and a little bit about natural pest control and companion planting which is what the workshop on Friday is all about.

Then into Maitland with Bev the Bottle to deliver the bottles we collected on Sunday to Robyn Parker along with a letter explaining why putting a refund on bottles and cans would be better for the environment. She wasn't there but we must have impressed her staff because not long after we returned home we received a phone call from another Newspaper wanting to do a story. They had been given the info from Robyn's office! On Saturday we offer refunds for containers in the hope that children may pick up some litter and get their parents to bring them in to see us.

Next some marmalade to make. We have a citrus tree in our back yard but we don't know what type. The fruit is quite sour so I soaked some in water overnight along with 2 lemons.

Boiled it up this afternoon and added sugar and boiled again till it was set.

The jars went into the oven to sterilize them

And the marmalade was spooned into the hot jars and the lids placed on top

Mark couldn't wait to try it but did manage to wait until it had cooled.His verdict --delicious. Cost $1 a jar and that was using organic sugar.

Tomorrow we have a farm tour scheduled and they have requested lunch. We have made Vegie soup and sourdough bread and for dessert "drei eier schwer" -I hope I've spelt that correctly. The recipe was given to me by an Austrian friend and translates , so I am told, as 3 egg heavy. You weigh the eggs and then add equal weights of butter, sugar and plain flour. Cream butter and sugar, Separate eggs and add yolks to the  creamed butter and sugar. Beat in sifted flour ( add a little buttermilk or yoghurt if very stiff). Whisk egg whites and fold into mixture. Spread out into rectangular baking tray. Put slices of fruit ( apple, pear or plum) on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 180c for 40 mins. Delicious.

Cash for Containers

As usual for a Monday we picked and packed for our CSA .In coming weeks I'll feature various vegetables that we grow, but today I want to talk about what we did on Sunday.

Bev the Bottle

We were a part of a group campaigning to bring about legislation to have a refund on all beverage containers in NSW. With help from other Transition Towners and Bev the Bottle we cleaned up a local Ceanup Australia site and got our photos in the paper to make people aware of the campaign. South Australia has had this legislation for many many years and it has been proven to significantly reduce litter. The Northern Territory enacted it earlier this year and Victoria have just had it heard in parliament.
As the State Minister for the Environment is Robyn Parker, the Representative for Maitland we thought it would be a good idea to get the campaign started here. If you would like to support this please contact Robyn Parker and let her know your thoughts on it.

Bottles fished out of the water

Tomorrow, after an interview with the local ABC radio about our workshops we are running , we will deliver the containers to the Ministers offices.
Next week end we are going to offer a 10cent refund ( 10 bottle/can per person limit) on the first 1000 beverage containers bought into our local organic shop. We hope families might take the opportunity to collect local litter and let the kids find out how it can work. It's called "Random Acts of Refunds."

On My Mind

Joining in with Rhonda today for what's On My Mind

We had these two lttlies stay overnight while their mum (Mark's daughter) is in hospital having a baby.We wait today in eager anticipation .

Around the Farm

One routine we have around here occurs on or around the Full Moon when we feed our hens garlic. The hens love it and it helps to expel intestinal worms.

 We grow a lot of garlic and after the harvest in November we pick out any that's small or broken and put it in the food processor. I divide it up into 12 small recycled bags and freeze it - one a month for the next year.

 Each month I thaw a bag of garlic and add it to some bran mash

And the hens just gobble it up. It's also good for all those vitamins and minerals that are good for us especially around this time of year  to ward off winter colds.

And elsewhere around the market garden......

The garlic is growing nicely

More rows of garlic

A mixed bed of mainly brassicas

Cabbage. This variety is called Sugarloaf and grows really well here.

We've had a lot of rain.The beds are raised and so not affected by this water lying in the paths. In the background you can see one of our compost heaps. We have them scattered throughout the garden so that the compost is handy to us when we plant out a bed.

Flooding

We are experiencing strong winds and torrential rain with some flooding along the east coast.

What does a farmer bloke do when it's too wet to work?

Well this morning Mark made biscuits.He doesn't always use a recipe and things always work. Me? I need a recipe. These were cooked without a recipe and they were delicious.
The other thing he is working on at the moment is his blog. If you're interested in mandala gardens you might like to take a look here

Obtain a Yield

Usually we pick for our boxes on Mondays but as it was a long weekend we did the boxes today.We were off to a slow start trying to dodge the rain. Finally we managed to get it done without getting too wet. It's nice to see all the water lying around after such a hot and dry summer but it does make working in the garden difficult.

The ducks enjoying the full ponds

I found a little frog on the orange tree  while I was picking oranges for the boxes

Last nights dinner was home made pizza. Mark makes the base using sour dough. We added mushrooms, onion. capsicum from the garden and olives from our tree that we had previously preserved.

And tonight Mark was off to a meeting so we needed something quick and nutritious for dinner. I cooked Kitchari which is a rice and lentil dish to which I added whatever vegetables I had on hand.

Rainy Days

What to do on a rainy long weekend? Hmmm let's see.

First some pancakes for breakfast.

Plants some trees next

Take them from here where they are growing in abundance. These are Casuarina or She oaks which send up little suckers which are easily transplanted

And plant them here where we are trying to develop a windbreak. We like to plant on wet days to give them a good start.

Time for some crafting

A little cardigan for our grand daughter due in July

 A gift for someone special

A new top for me using fabric I bought from an Op shop. Still need some bias binding for the armholes. Some thing new for my upcoming trip to Melbourne.

Some wool. I think the dark wool will make a nice beanie for Mark!

 Some more Op Shop finds from during the past week

A little covered bowl to hold the soap at our outdoor sink

And now some left over rice for lunch.