My Compost Makers

I am thinking of putting my 4 chooks onto my payroll. I feel they need to be reimbursed for all the hard work they do for me everyday!! They are doing such an important job  - turning all our household organic waste into the most glorious rich compost.  Tirelessly, happily, energetically, and never complaining.

We have a great system working in harmony with nature. People that have visited me are amazed at how simple and effective this way of making compost is. So here is how we do it.

Each morning after I have collected the eggs, I shake out the chicken pooh from the hay in the nest boxes into a bucket - and it is astonishing how much pooh 4 chooks can produce overnight! Luckily the pooh drops off easily and I put the 'poohless' hay back in the nest boxes to repeat the same thing the next day. A little bit of hay gets discarded each day, but this adds great dry matter to the compost. 

The chook manure is then dropped into my first compost bin where I put fresh grass clippings, non invasive weeds, leaves, small twigs, mussel and oyster shells and all our organic household waste. I also feed leftovers and greens to them in this 1st compost bin. As soon as I drop anything into this bin, the 4 of them are into it with gusto.  Pecking at any tasty morsel, devouring their washed and dried eggshells, finding live protein from turning over and scratching up everything else. Every day I rake this from side to side and end to end to keep it turned over and composting. 

HERE is the link to a short video showing the girls working this bin!!  

After about 2 weeks, I take the frame off the 1st stage and rake the contents into another fenced off area using some scraps of timber as my framework. 

The chooks continue to scratch through this, and I continue to rake this from side to side and end to end each day. 

I put the original square timber frame back where it was and start the process again. 

I don't add anything new to the compost in stage 2  and in another 2-4 weeks of turning it over and the chooks working it, I can then rake it all up and use it on my garden. 

It is such a simple and efficient way to make compost, and I would never go back to using the compost bins that I used to where I ended up getting a wet, soggy, and cluggy mess. 

I have also started a worm farm in a 10L paint bucket and that is growing nicely so will make a bigger house for them soon, and the vermiculite and worm wees will add a lovely extra to my garden along with the compost my beautiful chooks make!!

So my chooks lay me 4 eggs every day, they make the most amazing compost, they supply me with wonderful manure, and give me and my family a lot of pleasure to watch and be with them, and our little dog really thinks they are playing with her when they chase her up and down the run.

Living in an urban area, I am very aware of the potential to attract vermin with my chooks and compost making so I have a humane trap I purchased from the Moehau Environment Group, positioned beside the chook run. So far I have not caught anything - and I am not sure if I am happy or disappointed about this!

If you have any questions about this process of making compost this way - please ask on this blog. Happy to answer what I can.

Happy composting everyone!!

Jo

 

Learning from Others

When I started to develop my food forest garden back in April this year, I only had a small amount of knowledge - and knew nothing about Permaculture. 

Since then, I have started doing the free online permaculture course, and I watch youtube videos where I have several favourite people that I follow, and love to watch when they upload new videos. I have learnt a huge amount from seeing what others do, 

Up until today I have only been able to gain knowledge from reading and watching videos online.

But today I spent an amazing afternoon visiting a fellow 'Permie' living only just over an hour away from me.

Wow- I was like a pig in mud. I couldn't get enough of looking, listening and absorbing everything my lovely new friend Annie was showing and telling me.  Time became irrelevant, even though I had planned to have left by 2.30 - 3.00pm, we were only part way through her amazing food forests, subtropical garden, orchard, plant nursery, and numerous other food growing areas spread out around the property so I was a tad late getting away. 

I have been inspired.

I have been motivated.

I have been empowered.         

I have been blessed with her enormous generosity.

To be able to see this garden in reality has just made me realise what an incredibly exciting journey I am on, and also makes me feel very proud at what I have achieved by myself in only a few months.

Thank you Annie for your generosity of time, knowledge, plants and other bits and pieces that have made their way home in my car. 

Back to reality this evening though in my small urban food forest garden  - a day's absence obviously gave the blackbirds that now inhabit the garden the chance to scratch away to their heart's content. I came home to many plants unearthed, dried, and not looking too happy. Part of one of my hugelkultur beds is now partially flattened with all the beautiful rich compost spread out everywhere.

I read somewhere recently that the blackbirds will chose the richest and best soil to scratch up as they know that is where the worms and grubs will be. This is proving to be so right. 

I also realised how dry things have got from the winds we have had, and lack of rain, and after replanting several plants ( though not too hopeful that I can save them ), I got the sprinkler out and gave half of the garden a good soaking, and will do the other half in the morning. 

Another super interesting thing I learned this week was that when your fruit trees blossom from the bottom up - it is going to be a good season of fruit as the tree has reached into the soil for all the nutrients it needs. If the blossom starts from the top and opens down, then it means the tree is reaching for the light and energy from above, and there won't be such a good crop of fruit.

I am keen to check this out with the few fruit trees that I have. Have any of you heard of this?

My only  plum tree (at this stage) which is going to be a surprise as to what variety it is because I purchased it in a sale and it was not labeled, has had its first buds of blossom open. The blossoms are at the base of all the branches near the trunk - so let's see if it will have a good crop.  My other trees are not in blossom yet - a waiting game for me who is so impatient. 

 

I have been doing a lot of chop and drop to start building up the humus in the soil. I don't have a lot of my own green matter to use yet, but am so fortunate that friends and family bring me their prunings and garden tidy-up bits and pieces. I have managed to make lovely fairy rings of the chopped up greens around all of my fruit trees, and it gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction chopping it all up and laying it around.  I just can't wait until I am in the situation where I will be able to use all my own garden produce to create beautiful soil. 

Bees are starting to work with several of my herbs and flowers out in full bloom, and I love to hear the happy buzzing while working outside.

 

I lifted my leaf cutter bee cocoons out of the fridge this week where they have been in a forced 'winter', and I have put them out in their little house on the fence. I am hoping that they are all viable cocoons and in a few weeks will see evidence of these darling solitary bees flitting around my garden. These beautiful little bees don't sting and make the most exquisite cocoons made out of petals and leaves that they cut out in perfect circles. Mind blowing really to think what they can do.  These are a great bee to have to show your children as they can get really close to see them without the fear of getting stung. They only fly about 300 m away from their nest so will become your own resident bees in your garden. Rose petals are their favourite thing to make their circles from so if you see perfect wee circles in your petals and leaves of plants - then this is the leaf cutter bee.

We are so lucky today to have the internet at our fingertips to learn from and see things in action.

I can only imagine what things would be like for me if I had started this journey 20 years ago. Frequent visits to the local library, finding people involved with this type of gardening, and a mighty lot of trial and error. 

I have to admit though I am still a lover of a 'real' magazine and book. I prefer to read something that is tangible vs an online read. 

I subscribe to a couple of magazines and also have purchased a few books which have become my bibles. 

Here are my favs!!

 

Learning from others and being able to see things in reality are probably our best learning tools, and I am so grateful for Annie to have opened my eyes even wider today and filled my brain with a heap more knowledge!

Happy gardening everyone - and as one of the Permaculture principles teaches us - 

MAKE A SOLUTION OUT OF A PROBLEM !!!

Priorities

I think this blog is really about priorities.

If something is important to you - do it. What does it matter if other people may not agree.

When I decided to start this food forest on my small section - I just went for it. 

I didn't tell anyone of my plans - I just did it because I really wanted to do it. I looked at the grass and thought how ridiculous to spend so much time each week mowing when I could be growing food!

In the past when I had wanted to create a food forest - every obstacle came to mind. My lack of knowledge, the lack of manpower, my conceived idea that you had to have acres of land, and the uncertainty of what neighbours and friends would say. 

In permaculture you learn to create a solution out of every problem you come up against - in the garden and life.

So because of my desire and passion to make a success of this venture, I have managed to let go of a lot of old habits, beliefs, routines, and ideas that I once had.

I have loads of seeds germinating in the lounge.

I have mushrooms sprouting on one end of the bench, carrots pickling on the other, free range eggs strategically placed by date in an egg carton near the stove for ease of using, and sourdough bread rising and cooling.

My laptop has taken up residence on one end of the dinning room table with note paper and pen where I am constantly writing down information that I learn online from watching other peoples videos and doing my free permaculture course online. 

My husband has got his model making equipment down the other end of the table, and he can stop and start when he likes which means he doesn't have to pack up and re setup every time he wants to do some work on his models. There is still plenty of room for us to eat our meals at the table, so it is working.

I have books and magazines on the coffee table and couch that I can just pick up and digest bits as, and when I want to.

The garage as well as being set up as a play room for the grand-children, now has a trestle table up and adapted as my seed sowing area. 

Sourdough Bread cooling

Carrots pickling

Mushrooms sprouting - these are so good!!

My husband's CanCar model v8 engine in progress ( check out his website www.sandyscancars.com)

Seeds sown and sprouting 

Potatoes chitting

Lemon slices dehydrating

I think age brings on changes to attitudes and habits. 

I am 60 now. 

Ancient!! - but I always remember my dear late mother saying to me in her late 80's that she still felt the same inside as when she did in her 20's. I can now appreciate so much what she meant. 

In the past I would NEVER let my house look like this. It was kept pretty tidy with things put away 'incase one gets visitors'. 

My attitude now is - So what?  This is my house ( and my husbands ) and if other people don't like what they see - well that is their problem. It is clean and safe. This is what matters to me. 

During lockdown I got 5 cubic meters of wood-chip mulch delivered to start my gardens.

I shovelled this into my wheelbarrow and pushed it to the back of the section. I moved the entire pile on my own and took me the best part of 2 days. The day after I was totally stuffed and I sure felt the muscles I had used! I don't think I did much that day - but got immense pleasure to look out and see the product of my hard work. 

The diminishing pile of mulch

I got another load of mulch delivered a few weeks after the first one and got my kids in to help. It was all done in half a day and I hardly shovelled at all. Thank you daughters and son - in laws!!

Way to go!

I am sure all my neighbours were wondering where all this was going as you can't see our back yard due to 6 foot timber fences all around lol I will be so happy to take them on an escorted tour come spring and summer.

I am learning to go with what I feel is right and true to my heart.

It feels good what I am doing.

I am satisfied. 

I am happy, and will be even happier when I can look out to all my hard work producing wonderful healthy food for us, and our extended families and friend's tables.

I look back on photos from before I began my journey to now and it makes me realise how far I have actually come - and will continue to look back with pleasure and pride that I took the plunge and went with my heart not my head.

So my philosophy on life - if it feels right, and if it feels good, then do it.

'Tis Winter

It only seems like yesterday that we were crying out for rain to nourish and water our parched earth. Now we have rain and it seems like it has rained for weeks! 

When I planted out the majority of my new plants over the last month or so, I was blessed with the rain coming. I have not had to water my plants in once, the rain has taken care of that. 

Mother nature does a way better job than I could ever do with the hose and for that I am truely thankful. 

A little bit about where I live in Coromandel.

-  it is 5m above sea level

-  has a warm and temperate climate with significant rainfall -  1850 mm | 72.8 inch per year, with rain even during the driest months (usually lol) 

- has an average annual temperature of 15.2 °C | 59.4 °F. 

We have a pretty awesome climate here and the food forest should do really well. 

Last week we had our first frost.  Well, we call it a frost, but pretty light compared to most other places south of here. This wee sprinkling of Jack Frost hasn't seemed to damage any of my young plants, and of course my berries and currants will love the cooler temperatures. My avocado tree is only young, and luckily I covered it with some garden mesh I had in the shed and that seems to have done the trick. 

Because I am developing the food forest on our small urban section -  I can look out at the new area from many windows and doors inside our house and I long to see green. 

At the moment it is just predominantly bare branches and sticks poking up out of the ground. I want to look out and see a beautiful lush, green, tropical paradise.  

With these thoughts of wanting more - I went out this morning and started to actually look at what was before me.

I saw buds on some fruit trees swelling and starting to show life - a few wee leaves erupting on my currant bushes, vege plants growing - how did I not see all this?? 

I have been looking but not seeing!

I was determined to get outside, so I took some photos during a drizzly, cold  and bleak day. 

Beautiful Calendula Flowers

My Prolific Parsley

Plum tree buds bursting into life

Alpine Strawberries

Roman Chamomile

Rhubarb

Vietnamese Mint 

Nasturtium

Russian Kale

Asparagus, Lettuce, Spring Onions, Broadbeans

Celery, Beetroot, Chillis

Broccoli, Russian Kale, Beetroot, Garlic

Garlic, Carrots ( the rest of the carrots were dug up by blackbirds!! )

Dwarf Comfrey

Thyme - just coming into flower

Currant leaves emerging

I know I am impatient! I love to daydream about how my plants will look a few years on - mature, producing, feeding us and the birds and bees who choose to visit. 

Gardening is all about watching and learning. It is about gaining knowledge from many sources and to sift out what you want and put it to practice.

I have been in contact with a couple of like minded permaculture people and it is so awesome to be able to discuss what you are doing, and listen to things that have worked for them and not worked.

Life and gardening are about making mistakes - to learn from them, and devise ways to create a solution out of a problem.

I wonder what my next solution will be???

My days.

Since I started developing my food forest in April this year,  I have felt so much peace and happiness in looking at what is transforming - and also thinking about what it is going to be like in spring - summer - next summer - in 5 years time.......

Each day I spend so much time just walking around the mulched area, pulling the ever growing Kikuyu grass shoots out, and just admiring and loving all the plants that I have planted. 

If I had started this garden in the spring - I would be seeing things happening now but I am glad it is winter - it will give the plants a wee rest in the ground before they burst into fast growth and life. 

It also teaches me patience which I lack at times.

My mind is always thinking about what I can do next - 

what will the garden look like when it is all growing?

Have I planted too many plants - or perhaps not enough?

Have I got enough diversification? 

If I was a bee - would I like what is growing?

If I was a bird - is there good food and shelter and possibly a nesting place?

If I was a pesky bug - is there food available that isn't going to ruin a crop that is wanted for human food?

Is this area going to feed us and our extended families?

And on it goes. 

With this blog I want to share with you images and thoughts of my daily life that have been with me since I started on this Journey in April.

As well as obviously wanting to grow food for us to eat, to feed the birds and insect life is just as important. I have dotted flowering plants throughout and they are starting to come into flower now. So beautiful to watch the bees feeding on these when food sources are scarce. These plants will grow harmoniously with the other food plants creating companions and diversions for the insect life.

I have learnt so much about Nitrogen fixing plants which I knew nothing about prior to this journey. One of my favourite new plants is the Tagasaste. A fabulous nitrogen fixing shrub and a favourite food for the Kereru ( Native Wood Pigeon). We have so many Kereru around Coromandel, but none in my garden. This will change in a couple of years I am sure. I have planted several Tagasaste around the garden now, and being a very fast growing shrub I am looking forward to seeing them develop.

Broad beans are also known to be a good nitrogen fixer. As a child I couldn't stand them, and have resisted growing them until now. I have planted a few and I am determined to get over my aversion to them.  I have seen some pretty tasty looking recipes using the young beans - certainly not like the huge dry beans that my mother used to boil and serve up to us. And of course when I have harvested the beans, the plants will be chopped off and dropped manuring the soil for the next crop of plants to go in. 

When I decided to start a food forest, one of the big things to me was to have chooks again. As well as

getting the beautiful eggs, the work they do in the ecosystem is so important. There is something infinitely exciting to look in your chook house and find your first egg !! 

The little brown oval beauty that beams out of the nest and hits you right in the heart. 

Yesterday after checking constantly for the last 3 weeks there was an egg in the nest box. 

I squealed. 

Actually I yelled! 

I was so happy and excited, and my smile was as wide as it could get!

Chooks are tireless workers. The manuring of the soil, the constant turning over of plant matter on the ground, and eating unwanted bugs and grubs never ceases to amaze me.  

I just love these birds. They all have individual personalities and are great company when I am outside.  They have their own yard but I will let them forage around the food forest when my seedlings are more mature and can stand a bit of pecking. I have let them out once to see what would happen, and of all the area available to them, they went straight to the hugelkultur mound and started pecking the brassica's!! Murphy's Law haha.

My blogs are a diary. A place for me to write freely about what I am doing. 

My mistakes - my successes and if along the way a reader gets a spark from what I have written I feel this is a bonus and worth every word! 

I would love to think I have given you a spark - a desire to follow your dream and make the world a better place. 

Learn to love what you don't like.....

Sometimes in life you just have to suck it up and love what you don't like.

I grew up believing that dandelions were a pesky weed.

I grew up believing that Mason Bees were nasty bad insects that would sting you if you went near them.

I grew up believing that Mynah birds were a horrible bullying bird and my mother used to tell me they stole food from all the other birds making them go hungry. 

I grew up believing that Brassicas and Carrots were temperamental, hard veges to grow.

I thought onions and garlic were only for the 'rich' families - it wasn't until I was an adult that I found out my mother just hated them so we never had them.

These beliefs and memories stay with you, and it is hard to break the thought pattern that has been with you for decades. 

Knowledge and listening to others have led me to the real facts, and now I look at so many things in the past that I would have shied away from and see the good in them, that they are not difficult or bad and how they fit into the web of life.

My garden is getting hammered at the moment from blackbirds. 

I have planted out my first Hugelkulture bed with many seedlings and the black birds are going there and digging it up searching for bugs and grubs.

I have an entire new mindset now. In the past I would have looked at ways of deterring these birds - scarring them away - but realise now they are so beneficial as they are great pest catchers - I just don't want them attacking this area in the garden right now. 

I went to the beach a few days ago and brought back a heap of big branches planning to use them as support frames for plants, but have used these to prop against the hugelkultur mound along with a lot of small branches that I had trimmed off a bush where the black birds are digging. 

It appears to be working. 

No new holes to date. 

I walk around my garden so many times a day. I am continually pulling out the Kikuyu sprouts that have poked their heads up to get light, and I am always accompanied by my little Piwakawaka friend. Yesterday I also had a little sparrow sitting on the fence watching me. So cute!! 

Kikuyu may become another plant like Oxalis (which thankfully I don't have) that I will have to learn to love and garden with, instead of against. I am hoping that when my plants have got well established and there are thick layers in the forest, the Kikuyu may struggle and become a weak plant and decide to leave - or if not totally leave, it will be there but un noticed and not invasive. Time will tell. 

There were 5 species of birds all in my developing garden area when I looked out yesterday.  The little Piwakawaka, Sparrows, Blackbirds, Mynahs and Waxeyes. 

I am loving the Mynah birds. They are full of character and personality. 

They are not horrible nasty birds that I grew up believing.  They fit perfectly into the food chain and have definitely got their pecking order sorted! I love watching how all the birds feed together outside. 

The chooks are the boss, then come the Mynahs and the Sparrows.  The Blackbirds look out for worms and other grubs that may surface with all the birds on the ground, and the Piwakawaka flits about getting any insects these birds disturb. 

What a perfect system.

Having my chook run in the corner beside my new garden has certainly attracted many of these birds in.  It is great to share the excess scraps that we feed the chooks to all the other birds. This will help keep unwanted rodents away as there is nothing left at the end of each feed. 

I never noticed all these birds before in my garden at one time. 

Perhaps they all were there but I was looking out seeing with my eyes closed. 

My 4 Hy-Line Girls

On the first day of Level 2 Lockdown I was off in the car to collect 4 young 13 week old brown Hy-line pullets. I had ordered them just before lockdown but had to wait several weeks until I could safely pick them up. 

It was a 2 1/2 hour journey one way to get them and I was wondering how they would travel. I needn't have worried as they just settled in the box and hardly made a peep all the way home. 

I was hoping I wouldn't have any stops on the way as 4 chooks in a box in a car could get quite hot! I was so careful not to speed as I didn't want to be pulled up and have to explain that I had 4 chooks on board. 

This made me remember of a funny thing that happened to me a while ago driving to Hamilton. I was going along at the speed limit when a Pukeko on the side of the road suddenly flew up towards my car. All I could see was it going up and over but I didn't see it land on the other side of the road. I thought it had got caught in the roof rack on my car. I couldn't really stop as the road was quite windy, and traffic was on my tail, but a couple of km's on there was a stop go and I had to stop. When I was stopped beside the lollipop lady I wound down my window and said "excuse me, but is there a Pukeko on my roof? "  She gave me the strangest look as if I was crazy and nervously glanced up towards the top of my car. "Ahh no, there isn't. Should there be?"  I realised how stupid this must have sounded so explained what had happened. She looked so relieved, then it was a green go for me so I drove off. I had a good chuckle thinking back on how this must have sounded! 

I have really missed not having beautiful fresh eggs since moving up to Coromandel, and you are allowed to have up to 6 chooks here in town, so it didn't take much convincing that I needed to get some chooks again. 

To me, chickens are an integral part of the food chain in a Forest Garden / Permaculture situation. They not only produce those glorious golden yoked, out of this world tasting eggs, but they help keep the bugs and weeds you don't want in your garden down, and at the same time leave behind rich beneficial manure. 

A win win all round! 

I was really lucky that my daughter and son in law didn't need their dog kennel anymore as their dog had become a right soft house dog, and they brought the kennel round here for the chook house and run. A quick purchase on Trademe got me 12 meters of chicken fencing which I managed to use as 2 boundaries of a run, and I used our existing boundary fence for 2 sides making a good big area for the girls to scratch around in. 

My husband Sandy made 2 awesome nest boxes and a perch that fits neatly inside the house. The roof of the kennel lifts up, so will be super easy to collect the eggs each day.

My eldest grand daughter is just so in love with the chooks, and checks everyday she comes inside the chook house incase there is an egg. I have decided that when the first egg is laid, I will leave it and get her to visit me, and let her 'find' it herself. How exciting that will be! 

The pullets came from a big poultry farm in Eureka near Hamilton and had been housed in wire cages.

It was amazing to watch them walking on the ground for the first time - tip toeing over grass and not really knowing what to do. They were pecking at everything they came across - like a baby putting everything in their mouths. I watched them for hours. 

Within a few days, they were totally behaving like normal chooks and are now enjoying any food scraps that is thrown their way and scratching and digging on the ground. 

We have a little Shih Tzu dog and I was wondering how things were going to go when she saw these 2 legged feathered things running around her yard. 

For the initial greeting, I locked the chooks up in the small run where it was totally dog proof.  She was quite interested in them, but wanted their droppings more than them! 

Gross!!!!

I let the girls out into their run, and then let the dog in with them with me to supervise.

Dog smelt chook. Chook poked/explored/pecked nicely dog. 

Dog smells chooks bum, chook nibbled dogs fur. 

Dog crouches down and yaps to play.  Chook looks at dog wondering what to do.

Dog yaps again.  Chook pecks dog nose. 

Dog backs off. 

Dog yaps again and pounces to play. Chook stands still and pecks dogs nose.

Dog gets bored. 

Dog wanders off and starts eating the poop off the grass again. 

Gross !!!!

Phew. That didn't draw blood anywhere. 

What a relief. 

I tend to feed my chooks on supermarket pellets. They are easy for me to get, and with only 4 chooks, a 10kg bag will last a long time. 

I had over 40 chooks on a previous property lifestyle block we owned a few years back and they went through so much food it was crazy - and with not great return of eggs!!

I have got a good amount of silver beet growing, and they are enjoying this. I pick a couple of leaves a day for them and from initially not knowing what to do with it, they are now pecking it and eating it with enjoyment. My last lot of chooks really loved Comfrey, so I have a lot planted around the garden so with a bit of luck they will like it too.

I am hoping that they will be laying in a few weeks time - after winter solstice on the 21st the days will begin to get longer again and egg production will be in a natural rhythm. They are 17 weeks old now, so a perfect age and time to come up to their point of lay. 

That first egg is going to be the best tasting egg ever!!!!

I can't imagine having this garden with no chooks now, and they are going to give me and many others a lot of pleasure to watch, listen and learn from them.

My belief is that a garden isn't really a garden until you have chooks......