Finishing touches

Huge tidy up in the backyard and reorganising. I'm really happy with the finished layout
Finished chicken run, but before I cut a hole in the coop I want to try and grow greenery in there for them to eat. I also need to protect raspberry canes from Neddie as he tries to chase and dig to get to the chooks. In summer I will grow passionfruit over the cage.

Is it fox proof? I hate having to use live bait to find out :(

I ran out of wire and also this shadecloth has been secured so I can easily undo it, so I can get in to empty out duck water etc...

Carabiner to hold down shadecloth.

Experimenting with using free wood shavings on the garden paths

Oops different coloured wood shavings, too tired to care tonight. I'll work something out later on.

In case the tags fall off the fruit trees I numbered them and named below.

1. All in one Almond - Late January
2. Lapins Cherry - Late December
3. Moorpark Apricot - Early January
4. 'd' Agen' Prune - Late February
5. Millicent Peach - Mid February
6. Fairlane Nectarine - Early March
7. Granny Smith Apple - Late April
8. Richer Red Delicious Apple - Mid March
9. Golden Delicious Apple

Fruit trees and much much more...

Asparagus and extra raspberry cane bed before
Raspberry bed before

12 Raspberry canes (Variety Willamette ) planted

Fruit trees soaking overnight

Fruit tree spacing measured out, 2m from front fence and 3m from side fence and between each tree

Lucy and Hilda's new hiding spot...

Asparagus crowns (10+) planted and spare raspberry canes

Fruit tree holes dug ready...

Fruit trees planted, this is before pruning

FRUIT TREE SELF-PORTRAITS (pruned)
Almond

Cherry

Apricot

Prune

Peach

Nectarine

Granny Smith Apple

Red Delicious Apple

Golden Delicious Apple

Making room for the lemon tree

Hmmm maybe cheap spades aren't any good

Lemon tree

Strawberry runners planted out (thanks Bel :)) and mulched with the sawdust that the fruit trees came in.

Halfway through making the fox proof chook/duck run. Picked up 10 x 1m dog pen sides for $40, perfect. Still got to put shadecloth and wire over the top and cut a hole in the coop.

Can you fit 9 fruit trees in a Getz?

That's the question we were asking as I was picking out my fruit trees...

Well yes you can!

Waiting now for me to plant, need to research spacing and pruning...

Fruit trees at the bargain price of $22.95 each:

Richer Red Delicious Apple - Mid March
Granny Smith Apple - Late April
Golden delicious Apple (these three apple tree are pollinators for each other) - Mid March
All in one Almond - Late January
Fairlane Nectarine - Early March
'd' Agen' Prune - Late February
Millicent Peach - Mid February
Moorpark Apricot - Early January
Lapins Cherry - Late December

Veggie Beds and Free Range Chooks

Starting the veggie garden edging with bricksCompleted veggie garden beds and just in the nick of time, before the rain started

Beautiful horse manure delivered, it's a couple of years old so almost just like compost/soil

Horse manure spread over veggie beds

Green Manure

Green Manure freshly mown with catcher off. Not as much mulch as I expected

Lucy and Hilda free ranging for the first time (wings clipped by my brother), they absolutely loved the oats.

$8 Compost Bin

I saw the idea of a wire compost bin in a Permaculture book, although they used cardboard around the inside of the bin. I have used 4 metres of wire mesh (@$2 pm) fastened together with zip ties at the overlap. I'm thinking I can always cover with black plastic if it doesn't get hot enough. At $8 it is a cheap experiment and if it does work I will create a second bin to use, whilst the first one is converting to compost.



The bin has a lot of dried leaf litter, but not a lot of green, may try to do weeding tomorrow to fix that...