Benifits of moving house, chook house that is

Here’s a quick couple of photos that show the benefit of a moveable chook pen. The first shot is of the day the pen went onto one of the new wicker beds. The bed had been planted with a green manure crop, which had probably been left a little too long, due to pen construction delays. This was a month ago. The chooks always love moving day.  They run around and investigate every little spot. They look for opportunities where they can get under the greenery, making a instant nesting spot and will often lay an egg in here if left to it. They also get really excited when they find bugs, and in this garden there was also some wheat that had gone to seed. In all plenty of things to take their interest. So much so that for the first day or so, they are hesitant at first to leave it and wander around the yard instead. This is their second wicker bed to work over, but prior to the wicking beds they used to do the same thing with my normal garden beds. The change to wicker beds meant a new pen with some design changes to accommodate the bed construction. We are hoping that some of the design shortcomings we had with the old pen might be overcome with this newer version.

The photo below was taken a couple of days ago. All signs of plant life, caterpillars, and grasshoppers gone. The chooks eat whatever is edible, and the rest gets scratched to pieces and worked into the garden bed. I’ll give them some sugar cane mulch and lucerne over the next week or so until they are again moved on, this too will get worked through the soil. As this is happening, the soil is also getting a great dose of chook manure.

The bed will be left for a few weeks before it is then planted up. In all it makes for really easy garden preparation.

Going Bananas

I was so excited yesterday to look up from the bottom of the garden and see I have another banana about to flower. For those who don't know the joys of growing your own bananas yet, the flower is the start of what will become your bunch of bananas. Last year, almost a year after planting two suckers that a friend had given me, I had my first two bunches of home grown bananas. The tricky thing is that like the small hand of bananas you buy and leave on the bench to ripen, the whole lot ripen all at once and I'd estimate that one of my bunches last year would have had in excess of 40 bananas on it. Thats a lot of bananas to deal with at once.

You can see the flower 'bud' in the centre of the image.

After picking the bunch, I've discovered then ripen quite quickly if I hang them inside off of the rafter in the lounge. (Just a note here, be careful for the sap, it stains, hence the newspaper on the floor). It also makes them easier to access. Fresh and newly ripe they are delicious to just walk past, grab one and snack on it, even my chooks like them (although it's interesting to note that they wouldn't touch a store bought one). The rest I chopped up and froze in tupperware containers thinking I'd use them in smoothies or even get motivated enough to do a banana cake. I felt that those two would be plenty to keep my happy, until I discovered banana icecream that is.



My grandaughter helping herself to one off a ripened bunch earlier this year.

 Those first two banana trees produced their own suckers. Most of the websites and blogs I googled suggested that you remove all suckers but one, so you are left with the leader (the first big one) and a follower which is the one that will replace it when you cut down the original after it delivers what will be it's first and only bunch.  This is so that the bananas put their efforts into producing fruit rather than growing the developing suckers. I have to admit, that laziness meant I've got more suckers than I should have and a few months back I got hubby to dig some out and we've established another two spots in the garden with their own two banana plants growing. These ones are coming along nicely, but it will be a year before I'll see them fruiting.



In the centre you can see one of the birds which visit the flowers daily. This photo was taken in early October so it's taken almost 2 months to form the fruit from this time.

 So last years two 'followers' became the leaders and were doing well, have flowered and now have set fruit, so it was a real shock to see that one of the 'followers' is also now beginning to flower.



Bananas growing on the bunch.


Then delight turned to panic last night as I was working late in the garden and saw not just one bat, but two land in my banana tree! Both flew off again, but now I'll have to watch very closely for the first signs of ripening on the bunches that are hanging there ready to make my move before the bats do. If  anyone has any suggestions on how I can deter the bats from my bananas please let me know.

The bananas bekonning to bats in the late day. How do they even know they are there?

Summer heats here

Today was another smouldering hot summer day. This has been the third day in a row, with the temperatures in the high 30’s. The new wicker bed is holding up well, and now that we’ve put shade cloth over the top it should lose even less moisture and give the plants additional protection. I’ve planted the bed with peanuts that I’ve grown from last seasons harvest, some bell peppers that I’d struck from seeds when the original plants had started to die back, some climbing beans, a mixture of Blue Lake, Scarlet Runner, and a new type who’s name now eludes me. In addition to this we’ve added a couple of advanced zucchini and mini cucumbers yesterday that I’d bought as seedlings.

The potted flowers have suffered with the heat. I’ve been deadheading the cornflowers and the petunias are coming to the end. But today they played host to what seemed like hundreds of butterflies that chose today to take to the skies. Years ago we saw a swarm (I don’t think that’s the right term, but the only way I can explain the sheer numbers) of butterflies while bushwalking on Hamilton Island. Someone at the time told me they often hatch on the islands and fly across to the mainland. I wondered today when I saw these ones everywhere whether they had hatched on one of the local bay islands and made their way here.


Butterfly on the crucifix orchid.

The petunias taken two weeks ago before the heat really hit.

Finally got one sitting still on the Brunsfelia (commonly known as Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow)

The chooks have now been on the second wicker bed for approximately a week. They’ve already flattened most of the green manure crop that was planted in it, much faster than they dug over the first bed. Hubby has done some modifications today to the pen, adding some additional piping into the door frame to help block the gaps around the door further, making it harder now for any snakes to get in.

With the heat of summer comes the inevitable bush fires and the smoke from these provided a spectacular backdrop to tonights sunset.


Others watched the sunset too.