Joey JoJo Herbo Permo

farming and gardening adventures and misadventures from ground zero down under.

Friday 28 August 2015

G'day,

Unfortunately, for various reasons this blog is something I cannot commit to anymore, but please follow our facebook and instagram pages: Eagles Deep

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Planting willows for coppicing (for fire kindling) on the swale back-cut

'Phosical' (catchy abbreviation for phosphorus silica and calcium)

This is an internal combustion (lasting about 24 hours) of burnt, crushed bone (calcium and phosphorus) and rice husks (silica). One the process is complete it becomes water soluble and is then used as a foliar spray with the compost tea and bio-fertilizer.

Our first completed batch of bio-fertilzer

This is an anaerobic fermentation process (much like making sauerkraut or beer) that takes about 2 months. It is with the intention of replicating what happens in a cow's stomach. The wide compliment of minerals (found in the added granite dust, basalt dust, powdered seaweed, rock phosphate and wood ash. Along with cow manure, raw milk, molasses, yeast and water) added to this 200lt drum become more plant available due to the microbial activity of the fermentation.

The first batch of compost tea from our custom built 200lt brewer

We take a small amount of high quality compost (consisting of a high diversity of predominatly aerobic organisms) and add it to highly oxygenated water along with foods for the organisms (such as kelp, fish emulsion, molasses, humic acid). Then, in a period of 24 hours, these benficial soil organisms multiply rapidly. So hundreds of thousands become thousands of millions, therefore the solution ends up as highly beneficial inoculant for soils growing productive plants.

orchard of heritage plums, apples, pears (and possibly pecans next year)

The trees have been planted on 'keyline geometry'. This was a spontanous experiment to see if there would be an even spread of rain across the landscape of the orchard after we had deep ripped.

annual crops on the terrace

View of the progress

I usually walk the dogs here in the morning to get a good view of problems and oppurtunities.

Swale connected to the second dam (just in the trees)

Finished (with the exception of the lime-render) chook coop

Doubling up as garden tool area

Resting area (Zone 0)

The 'civilizedness' of the interior has come a long way.

Bantam tractoring?

The peking buff bantams are proving not to be the keenest foragers. They're not so keen on getting their 'flares' dirty

Full swale

It was pretty awesome to finally see the swales hold water. Further back is the repaired dam wall and the spillway being relocated just next to the big rock (spillways on dam walls are rarely, if ever a good idea)

Chicken tractoring

The area with the mulch on top was where the chooks were previously fenced. After they adequately weeded and fertilized the ground, the chooks have been moved along and barley has been sown (We're experimenting with growing and harvesting different grains)

Polytunnel construction

The outside is trenched to secure the cover. The floor is covered with cardboard followed by gravel, the a weed-mat. The structure is made from star pickets and PVC pipe.

The Veggie garden after 3 and half months (view from the back door of the shed)

The latest recruits

Adon working on the australorps' 'traktor'

The rhode island reds' caravan coop fenced off in a field of sunflowers.

Boy are they happy here.

Coming from England, I never thought I'd miss cloudy days, but here I find them pretty beautiful

Hundreds of trees in the nursery

Varieties include honey locust, black locust, oaks, tagasaste, alders, wattles to name but a few.

Adon, Drew and I building up the soil on the herb mound with weeds, manure and mulch

Pockets of this land have huge populations of very small tree frogs

The beginnings of a food forest near the shed and the dam.

The level trench is a swale which catches the grey water from the shower

10 week old pekin buff bantams

Summer harvest of heirloom (un-corporate-frankenstein) tomatoes

Our humble, yet hardy road vechile

Our unregistered farm yute

Actively aerated compost tea brewing

This one is done from worm castings, creating a more bacterial-dominated brew, which is preferred for annual crops. A tea made from a fungally-dominated compost is more beneficial for perennials and trees. This project is a work in progress.

Zach next to his newly built jetty

Me taking a long time to create new garden beds on contour

(I just found that they might be destroyed once the new earthworks are finished)

Stainless steel 27,000 litre water tank

View from the kitchen (my domain!)

Interior design

This third of the shed has been walled off, inserted with 2 floors, stairs, windows, sliding doors, insulation, corking, and has jusr recently been painted white.

Patron-sita (left) Princess Diana (right)

Fattah, Racel and I next to completed pile of Aerated thermal compost

This pile is designed to be significantly high in bacterial and fungal micro-organisims, which are then multiplied by the thousands when a compost tea is made from it.

Finished shade house with overhead irrigation

Radishes; our first food harvest

Skeleton of the shade house

The solar power room

Dave walling of the concreted part of the shed

The Kitten and the Kestrel

Our new kitten squaring up to a baby kestrel that Zach saved

Backdoor view

The bath tub is the worm farm, the cage contains the compost, and the old caravan is, with any luck, gonna be a chicken coop

Dan constructing the 'pocket-rocket'

Water rat

Poor bloody thing went into my yabby trap for some tasty crustaceans, then probably drowned shortly after. I put him in my compost and within 4 days the body and disintegrated/incinerated.

The earthworks begin, starting with ripping out the shed

First thing I did when we got there.

Swale dug off the house dam

Irrigation trench from the top dam, to the shed

Designated Veggie garden area, on our property

Pete (an awesome character that we met at the PRI) in his chicken 'traktor' of rescued battery hens

These girls were so used to being picked up, that they would squat, ready to be picked up, as you went to grab them.

David Holmgren's tour of Melliodora

The co-founder of Permaculture's small, but beautiful property in Hepburn springs.

David Holmgren's passive solar house

In this fairly cool part of Victoria this design provides the 'central heating' needed in colder times

A-frame chicken tractor at taranaki farm

After the cattle get moved into a different paddock, on come the chooks. They eat all the maggots in the cow pies, reducing the population of flies and bring more fertility to the pasture with their manure

Catching My First Yabby of eating size, Southern cross p.i

The diggers club, mornington peninsula

An heirloom seed shop, garden and organic cafe, mainly cooking the garden harvest.

Carl's 250 acre (150 acres are bush) property... hopefully

Jerusalem artichoke harvest, Southern Cross P.I

How these were able to grow in such thick, grey, heavy clay soil I do not know

Last of the potato harvest. Southern cross P.I

Food forest in a temperate climate. Southern Cross P.I

This is designed to imitate a 7 layer natural forest system:‘Canopy layer’ consisting of the original mature fruit trees. ‘Low-tree layer’ of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing root stocks. ‘Shrub layer’ of fruit bushes such as currants and berries. ‘Herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables and herbs. ‘Ground cover layer’ of edible plants that spread horizontally. ‘Rhizosphere’ or ‘underground’ dimension of plants grown for their roots and tubers. ‘Vertical layer’ of vines and climbers. The most obvious results are that it's very little maintenance once established, highly productive, and, from personal experience, lovely to be in amongst.

My first kill of a land animal for food; a rooster low in the pecking order. Southern Cross P.I

Catching him was a lot more harrowing than killing him. To me at least, it felt like he knew he was being grabbed for the kill. He did however make a delicious chicken pie... not him personally.

Harvesting, what seemed like, endless amounts of parsnips in a square metre of garden bed

First Fish

My first attempt at fishing was fruitless, but a week later I caught 3 silver perch in 15 minutes (in a different dam). They didn't taste too bad either.

Southern Cross Permaculture Institute.

I attempted a slightly rushed skull and crossbones cake for Sean's (Rick & Naomi's youngest son) 11th birthday. I now share my Mum's pain

Gippsland's answer to the everglades

Carl's selected property

Main Crop, Zaytuna Farm

Zaytuna Farm

Nadia's (Geoff's wife from Jordan) family making the daily flatbread

Solar power teacher Chris Darker (love the irony) giving a demo of an off-grid energy system

Geoff (the main teacher) making a tonic from various herbs from around the property

Chicken Tractor, Main Crop

Main Dam, Main House

Main House, Veg Garden

This could be easily done in an urban environment

Animal Pens (rabbits chickens, ducks, pigeon), Main House

View From the main house, Zaytuna Farm

Main Crop, Zaytuna Farm

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About Me

Joe's blog: I've started this blog to share progress made with my friend Carl and I's idea to establish a small sustainable farm, applying permaculture principles. Please feel free to make any comments, or please feel free to cast pearls of horticultural / agricultural/ infrastructural/ permacultural wisdom before swine ('swine' here meaning sorry, if through my inexperience and ignorance I do not take full heed to the wisdom given... please give it anyway, then at least you can say "I told you so").

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