Simo's Block

Faye · **Posted:** Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:48 pm

Glad to see that you got a good result form those potatoes Simo! Your pics look great :thumb:

Simo · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 10:03 am

Put a fence around my newest (been working on them for about 2 years) wicking beds which are finally finished. The rabbits have been destroying my corn :swing:

will keep the chooks out too.

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The brown pile in the background is another truck load of manure I had delivered from the saleyards in Muchea. :joy:

Burnsy · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:37 am

Looking good, I see why you have a rabbit problem............the dogs are to lazy to help out

It looks a lot drier than I would have expected already out there.

Faye · **Posted:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:36 pm

Ah yes fencing to protect the veges from chooks, pigs and rabbits is a very good idea. A good investment I'd say. Looks good Simo.

Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 11:53 am

Same bed of corn from a different angle one month later, bed in the forground has just been top dressed with composted cow and sheep manure from the saleyards. Trees are white sapote grown from seed two or three years ago, man they grow fast. Trees down hill are part of the citrus orchard, a few days later I picked up 5 cubic meters of free mulch from our local council and it is now fully mulched an looks a treat but I fogot to take a photo :bash:

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This chestnut also grown from seed at the same time.

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And this mulberry which was grown from a 15cm cutting, also very fast growing.

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Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 12:03 pm

And this Honey Gold Mango, which was grown from seed as I was told they fruit true to the adult as they are a naturally occuring variety that produce a polyembronic seed, I got four trees from the same seed. I will have to wait and see if the fruit is Honey Gold or not, pretty long experiment but I don't plan on dying any time soon.

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And some veggie patch shots

Faye · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 12:23 pm

I do love a good looking vege patch. I don't suppose that you have to put anything down to make your paths as you have natural gravel. I am tossing up on what to put down between my raised beds. Thinking about mulch, but couldn't see a snake if it wanted to hide, blue metal might be good, just labour intensive. Perhaps I should just start with weedmat.

Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:03 pm

Last week I also constructed some of the raised tree boxes in the chicken run for my dwarf stone fruit trees. The idea is that the chicken wire stops the parrots destroying all the fruit and the chickens can clean up any dropped fruit to help control fruit fly. The top of the boxes will be caged in chicken wre so that the chooks can't dig up the roots of the trees.

The bush in the photo is a wormwood grown from cutting which surrounds the enterance to the chook house so the chooks have to brush passed to get in and out to help control fleas and the chooks can eat it if the feel the need to self worm.

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Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:08 pm

Faye wrote:

I do love a good looking vege patch. I don't suppose that you have to put anything down to make your paths as you have natural gravel. I am tossing up on what to put down between my raised beds. Thinking about mulch, but couldn't see a snake if it wanted to hide, blue metal might be good, just labour intensive. Perhaps I should just start with weedmat.

Course wood chips or saw dust over the weed mat would be soft on the feet and wouldn't give the snakes any where to hide. I actually had to buy the gravel as ground is more of a load with a bit of pea gravel in it and it would be a pain to ge the gravel ot of the dirt, I put the veggie patch on a area of heavy clay because I knew nothing else would grow well there.

Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:25 pm

Found these little fellas when I dug into the composing manure pile :joy:

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gazza · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:27 pm

Decomposed granite is pretty good for pathways etc, it compacts down a treat!

Simo · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:49 pm

Also a good source of trace nutrients for the garden

iammr.bill · **Posted:** Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:04 am

Simo wrote:

...
The bush in the photo is a wormwood grown from cutting which surrounds the enterance to the chook house so the chooks have to brush passed to get in and out to help control fleas and the chooks can eat it if the feel the need to self worm...

That's an interesting idea. Have you had good luck with this trick?

Simo · **Posted:** Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:09 am

Well, it is hard to tell, traditionally Australian farmhouse chicken coops always contained a wormwood but I am not sure if there is actually any documeted evidence that it works. They definately don't have stick fast fleas but I don't know it this is due to the wormwood or the concrete floors under their roost which breaks the flea breeding cycle. At to worms I have been told that chickens will only eat the wormwood when the need a worming and I have noticed that in the two years the wormwood was growing in the chicken run they have only eaten it once and when they did the really had a go at it nearly stripping it bare. This tells me that they can and do eat it but prefer not to.

Make up your own mind :dunno:

I am happy to keep it just for traditions sake.

arbe · **Posted:** Sat Nov 17, 2012 5:17 pm

You have a great place Simo. I have learned a lot from your thread and will be emulating much of it on my place when I get there.

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Simo's Block

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