Ma Poe dun laid an EGG!!

Total Eggs: 2

Gardening by way of the moon

As the moon has been such an important part of my life -I chart my menstruation and fertility cycle by the moon, I cleanse my crystals by the moon, I track my mood shifts and energy cycles by the moon, and I recovered from a pretty bad reaction to synthetic hormonal medication, under advice from my Naturopath by sleeping exposed to moonlight. (Another story for another time) And of course the moon being the inspiration for the title of this blog.  Well, it goes without saying that in my foray into the gardening and self sufficiency realm, I would chose to plant and garden by the moon.

The weekend before last was a fallow time in as far as the cycles associated with the moon go with the moon being in an earth sign -A time to till the earth and prepare garden beds - mulching, digging, turning and airing the soil.

So, thats what we did. We put in a garden bed out in the backyard, made from besser bricks we scrounged from my dad. The bed measures about 2m across by just over 4 meters long and 20cm deep. All up, in soil, mulch and manure, (baring in mind the bricks were free) it cost $46.87 to make.

We have root grubs in our yard, nasty little grubs that look like lawn grubs that come up under your plants and eat the roots out from under them! So we laid down weed mat before we built the garden bed. I am hoping that the weed mat will also prevent some of the soil acidity leaching upwards into the soil as our backyard is covered by about 50 years worth of composted pine needles which make the ground acidic - hence why we went with raised garden beds to begin with.

To fill the bed, we layered sugarcane mulch, then a layer of stable manure, then a layer of organic soil we bought from a landscape yard.

Each of the little brick sections that form the garden border, I filled with dirt and planted them up with Nasturtium seeds - which have edible flowers as well as Calendula which has medicinal properties - both of which will attract bees and other pollinating insects to the garden.

I had planned on sewing my vegetable seeds straight into the bed, once they germinate, I will lay down another thick layer of straw to compost and insulate as well as keep the soil moist. WELL, that WAS the plan.

Right up until I got home tonight. A Full Moon. An awesome Full Moon for planting root crops -my Rhubarb (which is grown from a rhizome) my Comfrey (ditto) carrots, garlic, ginger, Galangal (a Thai gingery kind of plant) etc.

Probably the best Full moon of the year in so far as root crop planting goes, as not only is the moon full, but it is in its descending phase as well as in an earth sign constellation. (This = 3 phase awesomeness to Moon phase gardeners)

So off down the yard I trotted and THIS is what I found.

What is wrong with this picture you ask? Well as of this morning, all that straw was on the BOTTOM of the garden bed. And all that dirt in the middle was evenly distributed and level, ready for planting!

The culprit? This sly bugger. Well, not him specifically, he's just an example of his kind I found here for those of you unfamiliar with a Bush Turkey. The same bush Turkey that's been teaching my chooks bad habits and recruiting them to his sordid little harem has turned my garden inside out and back to front and upside down!

I did manage to plant up my Rhubarb and Galangal at least as I was planning on planting them in pots anyway as they need a deeper root base than my garden currently allows. (I will be planting up an old upcycled bath tub for my deeper rooted plants, hopefully next weekend)

On a positive note, look at these babies...they're a kind of chilli/pepper/capsicum, I am not entirely sure which kind (If anyone knows, please do tell!) I got the plant from a guy at the markets for $1. I have eaten what (I hope) are the same kinds of chilli and they're luscious blistered in the oven -they have a sweet creamy flavour -kind of like a capsicum, but not as...CAPSICUM....as capsicum. Anyway, ignore the rotten one, I must have missed his ripeness while he was hiding under the leaves -He's too far gone now, so I'll let him rot down into the pot, hopefully he'll resurrect himself in another plant.

These little babies are a heritage variety of tomato...I can't quite remember the variety -I have Black Russians flowering as well, but they're yet to fruit.

Then my mushy farm has started to throw little balls of fungally goodness - we're keeping them in the old car port out the back of the house (that we don't use) and they to like the dark and spooky conditions. 

The ones at the front are your standard button type variety - cost $1 a bag! 

The box at the back is a commercial variety, this box cost $20 They're swiss browns. I've been told Swiss browns don't produce overly well in QLD, preferring cooler climes, but check out this mumma!

I think in a few weeks time we'll be up to our ears in mushrooms.

I am glad that the turkey decided to blitz our garden while the only things in it were flower seeds in the borders -which were essentially untouched. At least we know we've got to fence it off before I plant the bulk of my seeds in the bed..... another job for the weekend! I've got a fortnight to get it done before the next optimum moon phase for above ground crops.

Bye bye ma Poe.

You were just too much of a free spirit.
Running off with that gypsy of a bush turkey to join his little harem.

You just don't see the danger crossing the yard with the big dog.
Or the main roads.
And no matter how many holes in the fence I plugged up, you always found another.
Then you didnt come home for two days.

Until this morning.

You came home whisteling and clucking about the yard, blissfully unaware that I was lurking in the shadows waiting. With a box. A box to put you in. You've been in a box before. It broke my heart to shut that lid on you, and to put you in the car. To separate you from your flock sisters.

But now you've gone to a better place. (not 'that' better place)
You've gone to live with my brother and his family, and their chooks.
I know his chooks are different to you (he has Australorps) but you'll have free reign in their run and coop. You won't have to conform, you'll have the run of the place.

You'll be safe. I know you'll be happy.

Our first Harvest

A salad of perennial lettuce, rocket, endive, spinach, sage, mint and parsley. 

All planted from seed and raised in pots. *Nim in the back ground on the 'roosting trunk'*

Little Nugget!!

The girls have been off the lay from when we got them, being stressed from entering a new alien world outside the factory farm, as well as it being winter, but just one week after settling in to their new homes, we got this little nugget....

Poe (the boss) was the first to lay an egg, after much fretting about the yard trying to figure out where the appropriate place was. Realising why she was upset, I locked her in the coop while she sorted herself out.

We've left it in the box for the time being, hopefully it will encourage the others to lay in the same place.

The girls are also learning anew how to scratch and forage.

And dust bathe!

 

Nim hangs out most of the day with Jaxon Black Dog. She wants as little to do with the other chickens as they want with her, and that suits her well enough for now.

bok bok CHICKEN!!!

Towards our goal of reaching self sufficiency in our (rented) city home, the weekend before last, we adopted 3 x battery hens.

Meet Nim, Poe and Mai.

I found a locally run project to rescue x-battery hens that are bound for the slaughter yard. The hens are typically around 18 months old, and whilst they still have a number of years left in them of laying, they’re beyond their laying peak and are no longer ‘commercially viable layers’. They are a little manky looking at the moment, they've not been treated well - including some serious de-beaking. These girls have been in vet care for 2 months before I even got them, so I hate to think of the condition they would have been in to begin with.

They slept in a box in the bathroom for the first few nights, and free ranged all day over the weekend while my husband and brother in law set about making a coup for them. They’ll continue to free range all day to their hearts content, and roost in their coops to keep them safe from cats at night. I think all up with materials, the coop cost us about $80 to make.

Nim, deciding that the new coup would do very well thank you very much,– with electric saws, and sanders going, she very calmly refused to move. She has paint speckles all over her now where she sat with me while we painted the coup.

Nim has been a special case, none of the chickens like her –she had to be kept separated at the adoption centre because they made her stand in a corner all day. Thinking that with just the 3 chickens and a new environment, she might find her niche in the pecking order, I happily took her home. I was wrong. They still don’t like her. Funny thing is, she doesn't seem to be interested in ‘hanging out’ with the other chickens anyway! I have to make sure she gets her share of feed, and they appear to be slowly accepting her, at least to the point of not making her stand in a corner all day anyway. She’s a beautiful chicken, we have high hopes for them all. We may possibly add another 3 chooks to the flock, one at a time of heritage breeds in the future.

You can see clearly the debeaking here on Nim - they chop off the top beak. Eventually the bottom should wear down to make it even, in the interim, we just need to be careful with what we feed them. They don't recognise anything non granulated as being edible at the moment anyway.

I am not a fan of poop on the verandah, but all in all, I love the new additions to our garden and home. They certainly make the yard more complete. I can't wait for them to settle in properly and start learning how to be chooks.