June 29th, 2008 AndrewD
Yes we planted some of out long term trees, nuts. So we picked up our order of three plants, all bare root stock.
- Chestnut De Coppi Marone
- Almond Self-Polinating
- Walnut – Wilson Wonder Seedling
We should be seeing some nuts in approx 10 years (hopefully some almonds a few years earlier). Now the walnuts I have set fruit better if they have a second tree to cross pollinate with but as these trees do grow quite large I will need to think about it. The walnut approx 6 m across and chestnuts approx 10-12 metres across.
Also picked up a second peach tree Blackburn Elberta as the first peach we picked up (JH Hale peach also called The Million Dollar peach) is one of the few peaches that need to be cross pollinated to fruit. I guess we will be making lots of peach jam 
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June 29th, 2008 AndrewD
The latest cute animal pics. Micky and Pixie seem to be settling down well.
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June 23rd, 2008 AndrewD
Well our family has grown by one – we have our beautiful little Swedish Valhund called Micky. Here are a few photos to show her off to the world. She was 8 weeks old when we took these photos. If you are not sure what a Swedish Valhun is visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Vallhund
And always the girl
There have been some issues with Skitzy (13 yr old cat) and Pixie (6 month old kitten). But they seem to be working themselves out. Pixie and Micky tease and chase each other around, they will both grow up together so that will be OK. Skitzy has been a bit more of an issue – he has just been put out, first by the kitten and now by the puppy. So we have made the main bedroom his and the other animals are not allowed in there. This week he has managed to be in the same room with the other two, but if they come close he will give them a swipe.
Also we passed a wind farm just before Blaney – They looked pretty amazing (and it was windy and cold there).
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June 15th, 2008 AndrewD
Last week I took the first vege bed that we built and extended it. The first one was fairly square and probably too wide. So as we had some more rock logs I thought we would take the opportunity to remove the side wall and extend. As you can see it is still wide at the top, but that is where I have planted another 5 broad beans, so once they come out I will narrow it. This bed is going to become the herb bed – just sorting out now what to go in.
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June 9th, 2008 AndrewD
A few weeks ago I mentioned how I bought Lee-Ann a rose (rose in a bag) as she wanted a rose garden. So this weekend I knocked up the first one, we will see how that goes and maybe build some more. The position for the garden is right outside our dining room window facing north – as you will see in the photo it is right on the hard clay as well, so it was to be a raised bed.
Looking around what we had, some pieces of paneling, probably not enough but next to the fence some left over wood from the house. A single row of these thou would not make for a very high raised bed, so I would need to join two of them. And then make a frame for the garden bed itself.
The size I decide would be 3×1 and it should hold 5 rose bushes comfortably. I would join two pieces together by nails, hammering the nail half way in the first one, cutting the head of the nail off with some pliers and then ‘hammering’ the top plank in.
The wood with the nail half in
Taking the head off
Nail with the head removed
Now the rose bed put together
The garden bed being filled up
Completed rose bed – there is now some mulch on to and we plan to get two more roses
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June 9th, 2008 AndrewD
I spent two weeks in Sydney, you see I normally return to Yass on the Thursday nite, but there were a few bike things I had to do last weekend for one the of the groups I am still a member of (BikeSydney – http://bikesydney.org) and I wanted to make it to at least one Sydney Swans game at the SCG (turned out to be the last Sunday game for the year at the SCG). Lee-Ann came down for the weekend and the inlaws stayed with the kids.
I’ll just say I drank far to much beer for two weeks. I need a couple of weeks detox.
Anyway all has now returned to normal and I returned on the Thursday nite train to Goulburn, Lee-Ann and the kids met me at the station and we had some chinese for dinner.
So whats happened, there are now 37 garlic – woohoo, now as long as they last till harvest. Some of the onions of sprouted. Broad beans seems to be going on OK. I have never grown broad beans before so not sure what to expect. Is 8 plants enough? I have planted a second lot of 5 plants (approx 4 weeks behind).
The other news being that we ate our first home grown broccoli and how fantastic it was, I waited until 30 minutes before we needed it so It was the freshest possible, and just steamed it with some butter. It was a side to a casserole I made.
The cauliflower is also coming up nicely (you can see it hidden behind the leaves) – I say we will be eating some in a week. We are doing grub patrol, as we have some green grubs on the plants. And every time we see one it gets the under the boot treatment.
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