Danielle – Page 28 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

probiotics

2012/12/19 Danielle 3

Just over a week ago, I went to a workshop on fermented foods at Perth City Farm, run by the awesome Bonnie Wykman (of PeaceTree Permaculture). The workshop was a great overview of fermented and cultured foods, from yoghurt and kefir through to sourdough, ginger beer, and mead, as well as the history and some of the health benefits of eating active (probiotic, i.e. containing live microorganisms) cultured foods. Bonnie also gave us all samples of her sourdough starter, kefir culture, and water kefir culture. And then a friend of mine gave me some of her kefir grains as well, […]

bee update

2012/11/28 Danielle 0

Sadly, one of our two bee hives didn’t survive. In our wisdom as new bee parents, anxious to make sure our hives were safe and comfortable, we decided that we shouldn’t open up the flower-pot hive and cut the comb out to transfer the bees to their proper home until the weather was a bit better. We got them to the property late at night, and the next day was unseasonably chilly, grey and rainy. So we left them in their flower pot, inside the plastic crate we used to transport them. The lid was open enough to allow for […]

earthbags, potatoes & bees

2012/11/07 Danielle 0

Our mandala vegetable garden, with its earthbag & hessiancrete raised beds, has been in the works for some time. We laid out the locations of the beds back in August, and built the first raised bed (of a total of 6) as a demonstration model. On Sunday, we ran a workshop/permablitz to build the rest of the earthbag garden beds. In spite of weather reports predicting “scattered thunderstorms” (weird weather in November) we headed up armed with polypropylene bags, shovels, barbed wire, and enthusiasm. We did get rained on, twice torrentially and a few times lightly, but there was […]

basically, all the animals

2012/10/17 Danielle 0

I’ve been looking at different breeds and varieties of livestock, planning which ones we’ll get eventually. It started small, looking at cat breeds (I know, not really livestock, but I’ve wanted a kitten since I was six years old, and it’s pretty exciting that I can finally get one when we move into the new house. Once it’s built). Then, after a lengthy sidetrack into cat genetics, which is absolutely fascinating, I started looking at chickens. And ducks. And geese. Perhaps an alpaca, or even a llama. And fish, of course, in an aquaponics system. And goats. And turkeys. And […]

A failure of marketing

2012/10/05 Danielle 0

In a dry(ish) climate like ours, water is life. Where there is water, plants grow and animals (and people) thrive. This is fairly obvious to anyone who’s experienced our baking hot summers. Gallifrey isn’t on mains water, so even if we wanted to use the output of the dams and the desalination plants, we can’t. The water in the deep aquifer is fully allocated for agriculture in the area, so we aren’t allowed to sink a deep bore or well. We are allowed to sink a shallow bore, and according to our neighbours the water isn’t saline, but drinking water […]