July 29th, 2008 AndrewD
Checking my email this morning I had recieved an email from Woodbridge Fruit Trees, the place where I had ordered two of my apple trees from. Now the two ordered were
Hubbartston’s Nonesuch & Spartan
The email stated that they have run out of Hubbartston’s Nonesuch and as I had not placed a second pick they gave me an option of either a refund for that tree or a list of others. Now I had left my apple ordering quite late, but I was happy with my choices especially the Hubbartston’s
Here is the description: HUBBARTSTON’S NONESUCH | April – May |
The American apples of the early 1800’s still owed a lot to their European parents and Hubbartston’s has more of a character of a Ribston Pippin than a Red Delicious. It is a large and particularly dense and heavy apple with a rich sweet aromatic flavour. The skin is often bumpy and russetted, yellowish overlaid with red
and pink. It is an all-round apple for fresh eating, cooking and cider.
So a good allround fruit. Anyway the choices they gave me were not for me, I was going to give them a call, talk about the other trees and if nothing sounded OK, organise a refund. So this morning I gave them a call – introduced myself. The guy asked me to hold on. He then came back and said that I did get the last Hubbartston’s. My order came in the same time as someone elses (who also wanted a Hubbartson’s) but they had placed in a second choice if first was not available. Woohoo. So my apple trees should be here late this week. My other tree is a Spartan
SPARTAN | March – April |
This midseason Canadian apple is a cross between McIntosh and Newtown Pippin. It has a distinct purplish black skin which polishes beautifully. The flavour is very aromatic, with whiter-than-white crisp melting juicy flesh of highest quality. Great straight off the tree.
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July 28th, 2008 AndrewD
Recieved a gardening delivery last week, as I said in an earlier post I had sent of two orders, one to Diggers and one to Green Harvest at the same time. This week the Green Harvest order turned up. So from Green Harvest I had ordered
10 crowns of ‘Mary Washington’ asparagus
3 crowns of Ever Red rhubarb
1 kg Nicola potatoes
1 packet Butternut pumpkin seeds
1 packet Qld Blue pumpkin seeds
The delivery speed was great, approx 1 week from order to delivery in Yass. The packaging was a box with shredded office paper as packing.
Also in the box were seperate instructions for the potatoes, aspargus and rhubarb. All up excellent service. I do have to say that when Lee-Ann told me about the delivery I was jealous and wish I could have been there to open it.
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July 27th, 2008 AndrewD
The heaviest frosts of the year this past week, I missed most of them due to me being in Sydney, but Lee-Ann managed to snap this shot of Lynsey outside one morning next to the baby alpaca (yes I could have said cria). It was so heavy the frost itself came all the way up the deck.
So how have the veges faired. Well Ok, The broccoli and broadbeans all seem OK as do the garilc and onion. Some of the broad beans tips did go a bit black and a few of the stems fell over from the weight of the frost (most plants fell under the weight of the frost) but overall everything seems to be fine.
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July 20th, 2008 AndrewD
We picked up a couple of pear trees this week, one Beurre Bosc and Sensation Pear. So our orchard is slowly growing. This meant that I had better start planning what the orchard should look like.
So here is the first draft of what the orchard will look like.
Updated Aug 08
Citrus – well we will just have to wait and see what happens as Yass does have some heavy frosts and of course citrus and frost do not mix (see previous post). The two additional apple trees I have ordered from (http://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au). As far as the cherries, I have not decided which I want so they may have to wait until next year, the same with the mulberry. The plums I have decided on but the local nursery has run out.
What else happened this weekend? Not much Saturday planted the pears and what I had planned for Sunday has been postponed as it has rained all day. Oh well there is next weekend.
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July 19th, 2008 AndrewD
Need some citrus, need some help.
Yes I know we get cold winds and frost in Yass, but someone must have grown citrus in these sort of climates (or I hoe so). My idea is to find some citrus in September, plant them out and hopefully they will be strong enough to withstand the winter here. At night I will bag the trees to help keep the frost off. Also I am planning to place the citrus in the middle of the orchard so that hopefully they get a little protection from the apples and pears etc.
So I am looking for a lemon, orange, lime and mandarin. Any help/ideas greatly appreciated
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July 14th, 2008 AndrewD
I just placed my potato order from two different places, so lets see who gets here first and more importantly, who has the better quality of seed potatoes. This will be my first attempt at growing them. I figure I have two – three weeks to get the potato beds completed.
So where did I order them from? Diggers.com.au and Greenharvest.com.au and I ordered.
- Nicola
- King Edward
- Dutch Cream
Nothing too unusual, just some good all round potatoes for every occassion. Maybe next year I will have a bit more of a look at the more unusual ones.
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July 11th, 2008 AndrewD
One of the things about moving to a blank canvas (like our place in Yass), is that there is so much to learn, plan and physically do; We are still struggling with getting that balance right. Sometimes we just feel rushed and caught up in the moment.
Of course it does not help that I am leaving my family and travelling to Sydney each week for a few days – and it is so hard when, on the Monday and Friday I look outside and see there is so much to do, but I have to concentrate on my work (Yes I am lucky that I can work from home Monday and Friday – but it is still hard).
It has taken a while but I do have a plan for our one acre. The plan has existed (been forming) over the past few months in my mind. Well I think now that I have done it – it is not to scale but it is a start – a first draft.
1st Draft of the Zones – PDF
From here I have set up everything in 9 zones.
Zone 1: The house and living area,there is some “white space” around the house and this is lving area, the place where I will have the extend balcony, the BBQ’s and gatherings. But it will also be productive eg I plan a pergola on the northern side of the house with grape vines growing. Also there will be a garage out back with awnings but really we will not be placing any car down here (well maybe under an awning). In the garage there will be the bar/brew setup, library, entertainment area and workshop.
Zone 2: This will be the main production ares for vegetables the space is approx 30 metres x 6. This will be made up of a series of garden beds most raised by rock logs (see previous post for explanation of rock logs) as while we do have some top soil you barely have to scratch the surface before hitting clay. Of course a lot of focus is currently here trying to get all the beds in before spring.
Zone 3: The orchard is also of focus right at the moment as we are trying to plant what we can now. Hopefully this will have the added advantage of getting some roots established before summer. But also every year we wait is another year before that plant produces fruit. Generally we are getting 2-3 year old plants most in pots from out local nursery (but some will be bare root stock).
Zone 4: Driveways and swales and natve cover. What does all the mean – well I guess this is really a bit of a “hodge podge” of stuff. In this area I will design where the car bay is or maybe as petroil goes up that will be bike bay! But around that I want the area to be native and also food producing natives where possible.
Now there will also be a series of swales here to catch and direct water away from the house. I need these as the house is 30 metres from the front fence and the land slopes down so when it rains we have the water directed to us under the house, so they will a collect some water and and more importantly direct water around the house. On the swales we will have natives. The paths will be forest mulch.
Zone 5: This is simply where the olive trees are – three already planted, but I do have fence space I can use and if I extend the zone slightly I will have room for sugar maples – now that is a long term project (30-40 years)!
Zone 6: Animals, probably the scariest of all the projects at the moment. We were planning chickens and pigs (love my bacon) but after doing some reading I think goats are the way to go (milk, cheese, and meat), maybe I will think about pigs after everything else is established.
Zone 7: This is generally undecided land or where we are still formulating idas, but down the back I have planeted a few nut trees, one idea we are toying with is creating a ‘creek’ of some sort down the side of the block that will run into the pond (zone 8 )
Zone 8: This is our water feature… a largish pond. Maybe some food producing plants. we will just have to wait and see Also this is where I am thinking of having the bees.
Zone 9: Dispersment Area, this is where out Biolytic unit disperses its waste liquid. We are not allowed to have editable plants here so this will also become a native vegetation patch, so far I have a few gum trees, paperbark and bottle brush tube stock there.
So there it is – that’s the plan at the moment.
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July 7th, 2008 AndrewD
So picked up my canes on the weekend and created a new vege patch – or should that be a berry patch. So in this bed we have
1 x CHILCOTIN: A high yielding variety of raspberry that ripens mid-season over a four week period. Simultaneous cropping to Williamette. The berries are borne on long laterals that can grow very tall. Some canes may need to be thinned out at ground level.
1 x WILLIAMETTE: A very popular mid-season variety that can be harvested over a 3 to 4 week period. An average yield producer of large berries that can tend to darken once picked. This variety will begin to ripen around November/December.
2 x NOOTKA: A high yielding, mid-season variety of raspberry producing a medium sized berry. The fruit comes away from the bush readily, making harvesting easy. This variety has a high resistance to fruit rot.
2 x HERITAGE: A variety that has been specifically developed to bear an Autumn crop. It produces an attractive berry with good flavour.
And I also got 6 x SILVANBERRY: A vigorous, thorny plant producing heavy crops in December. The flavour resembles that of wild blackberries
The patch I made was not large enough for the 6 Silvanberry, so they will be planeted on the property fence next weekend.
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