2 Dec 2017
So just as I am sitting down to write this it occurred to me that I have swayed off track on the farming front for a few weeks or more. What I mean is I haven't updated you all on how the organic processes have been progressing here....and there have been so many, so here goes.
Last Saturday when I picked up the crazy Russian hitchhiker (hello Maxim Vlasov) I omitted to explain where I was going and what I had been upto...nothing illegal I promise. Well I had answered an add on that fabulous FB market place for some large 4.5 litre demijohns, and was merrily on my way home from collecting them. SOOOOO , the point. Ok I have now perfected the WCA recipe for the orchard spraying, which is nothing to say for what its doing for the trees. With a steady supply of recycled egg shells I can now create a 16 litre application of WCA every fortnight. Thus no more industrial chemical purchased for that spray. And its 100% organic. "Boom-boom kerrr-ching".
Next job on list was to get some more Organic Liquid Fertiliser started. This required a large quantity of weeds, some IMO3, buckets of water and a willing volunteer to collect those nasty little weeds. But here's the point... the humble weed is more useful than we give it credit for. Of course pull them out if you can, but please don't use any herbicides on them. The reason?? Simple resistance. Mother nature is much too smart, and those weed seeds will just adapt and reproduce their next generation to withstand the herbicides. That's kind of why companies are still manufacturing new strains to deal with them. And how those companies keep making a profit....ok I'll stop that rant. But seriously folks anyone can make this product - you just got to be a bit patient, mother nature surely is. (if anyone wants to learn how to make this liquid organic fertiliser - message me).
(A small side point here - ROUND UP aka Glyphosate...it works, but not forever as weed seeds will grow back. But this chemical kills from roots up, so it will also kill everything else in soil it contacts - including tree roots and microbes...then leach and runoff into water table...into rivers...onto ocean....need I say more? The best way to deal with a weed - pull it out before it flowers).
And mother nature has provided us with 5 new baby chicks too, (but I bought these ones from stock feed outlet). Beautiful balls of creamy gold fluff. Now royal residents in their own simple nursery cage, with an adopted broody hen, with the other ladies of the manor diligently following their master John Wayne around the farm. Reminds me of teenage girls fighting over the 'back seat beau' on school bus.
Biological predators are another way I will try to turn this farm around to become organic. So last night I went out into orchard, to attach 240 little white cards to trees. These cards were impregnated with the eggs of the Trichogramma cryptpphlebiae wasp, a natural predator to the Macadamia Nut Borer, from a commercial insectary and delivered earlier in week. I drove around boundary of each orchard placing the cards into the canopy of trees, to create a perimeter defence of wasps. These predators will emerge from eggs and seek out any Nut Borers, laying eggs into their eggs, and effectively killing them. There will be more deliveries over the next 3 weeks, which will go inside this boundary perimeter, thus flooding orchards with wasp eggs. Timing of this application is crucial too, as the Nut Borer will emerge from late December, so the wasp must become established first. I'll try to get some footage of these wasps in action.
A whole day spent clearing out the main workshop shed, always a good job done when housework is completed. The difference here is the workshop is full of heavy machinery needing moving around to get underneath. Vacuuming the house will never compare. Luckily I have use of a large hydraulic lifter to do just that. And the workshop is now a hive of organic chemistry activity, with bubbling buckets - a witches brew heaven. Photos to follow.
Then came the big day - yesterday. A 25 tonne delivery of organic compost. Quite an event, especially when the 20 tonne truck with trailer got stuck and couldn't get off the farm....But this random female farmer came to the rescue with a large Lamborghini tractor, and pulled him out.
Now that's a video you have got to see.....
So just as I am sitting down to write this it occurred to me that I have swayed off track on the farming front for a few weeks or more. What I mean is I haven't updated you all on how the organic processes have been progressing here....and there have been so many, so here goes.
Last Saturday when I picked up the crazy Russian hitchhiker (hello Maxim Vlasov) I omitted to explain where I was going and what I had been upto...nothing illegal I promise. Well I had answered an add on that fabulous FB market place for some large 4.5 litre demijohns, and was merrily on my way home from collecting them. SOOOOO , the point. Ok I have now perfected the WCA recipe for the orchard spraying, which is nothing to say for what its doing for the trees. With a steady supply of recycled egg shells I can now create a 16 litre application of WCA every fortnight. Thus no more industrial chemical purchased for that spray. And its 100% organic. "Boom-boom kerrr-ching".
Next job on list was to get some more Organic Liquid Fertiliser started. This required a large quantity of weeds, some IMO3, buckets of water and a willing volunteer to collect those nasty little weeds. But here's the point... the humble weed is more useful than we give it credit for. Of course pull them out if you can, but please don't use any herbicides on them. The reason?? Simple resistance. Mother nature is much too smart, and those weed seeds will just adapt and reproduce their next generation to withstand the herbicides. That's kind of why companies are still manufacturing new strains to deal with them. And how those companies keep making a profit....ok I'll stop that rant. But seriously folks anyone can make this product - you just got to be a bit patient, mother nature surely is. (if anyone wants to learn how to make this liquid organic fertiliser - message me).
(A small side point here - ROUND UP aka Glyphosate...it works, but not forever as weed seeds will grow back. But this chemical kills from roots up, so it will also kill everything else in soil it contacts - including tree roots and microbes...then leach and runoff into water table...into rivers...onto ocean....need I say more? The best way to deal with a weed - pull it out before it flowers).
And mother nature has provided us with 5 new baby chicks too, (but I bought these ones from stock feed outlet). Beautiful balls of creamy gold fluff. Now royal residents in their own simple nursery cage, with an adopted broody hen, with the other ladies of the manor diligently following their master John Wayne around the farm. Reminds me of teenage girls fighting over the 'back seat beau' on school bus.
Biological predators are another way I will try to turn this farm around to become organic. So last night I went out into orchard, to attach 240 little white cards to trees. These cards were impregnated with the eggs of the Trichogramma cryptpphlebiae wasp, a natural predator to the Macadamia Nut Borer, from a commercial insectary and delivered earlier in week. I drove around boundary of each orchard placing the cards into the canopy of trees, to create a perimeter defence of wasps. These predators will emerge from eggs and seek out any Nut Borers, laying eggs into their eggs, and effectively killing them. There will be more deliveries over the next 3 weeks, which will go inside this boundary perimeter, thus flooding orchards with wasp eggs. Timing of this application is crucial too, as the Nut Borer will emerge from late December, so the wasp must become established first. I'll try to get some footage of these wasps in action.
A whole day spent clearing out the main workshop shed, always a good job done when housework is completed. The difference here is the workshop is full of heavy machinery needing moving around to get underneath. Vacuuming the house will never compare. Luckily I have use of a large hydraulic lifter to do just that. And the workshop is now a hive of organic chemistry activity, with bubbling buckets - a witches brew heaven. Photos to follow.
Then came the big day - yesterday. A 25 tonne delivery of organic compost. Quite an event, especially when the 20 tonne truck with trailer got stuck and couldn't get off the farm....But this random female farmer came to the rescue with a large Lamborghini tractor, and pulled him out.
Now that's a video you have got to see.....
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