Info & News – Page 3 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

spring by any measure

2016/09/20 Danielle 0

I love spring. I know that in a month or two I’ll be longing for a cold night to cuddle up, but for now (while there are still some very cold nights up here) I’m loving the sunshine and the flowers and the (slightly) warmer weather. Almost all the stone fruit are starting to flower now, and the persimmon has put out a few green shoots. The wattles have put on a growth spurt, and most of them are now taller than me – only 2 years in from being planted as 30cm high seedlings. The open soon-to-be-pasture in […]

Chicken culling

2016/09/08 Danielle 0

A quick warning for anyone who is squicked by reading about killing animals – this post is about death. Specifically, the death of chickens (roosters). There are no graphic pics, however. One of the parts of keeping pet chickens that isn’t so often talked about is what to do with the extras. The hens who’ve stopped laying, the roosters which inevitably hatch from about half the eggs you or your broody mama chook incubate. If the birds are pets, you can simply keep hens who’ve passed their laying years – but most people don’t. Councils restrict the number of […]

Spring Planting

2016/08/21 Danielle 0

It’s been a busy weekend. As well as finishing off a literature review around implementing dehesa style agroforestry in Australia, for my uni course (once the paper is marked and returned, I’ll put it up here in the Resources section), I’ve planted 17 trees. The bare root trees from Heritage Fruit Trees arrived, so there’s been a lot of digging and planting happening. Five more apple trees for the orchard, five pears and two nashi pears planted in a new little pear grove, and another five stone fruit trees for Zone 1 behind the house. Zone 1 includes the […]

we have a little list..

2016/08/14 Danielle 0

Last weekend, the auto-waterers for the chicken coops went in. K spent most of Sunday digging and cutting sections of hose, attaching taps and connectors and the float-valve controlled water dishes to each of our coops. We have two up-cycled 200 L plastic olive barrels as the water reservoirs, which should only need refilling every couple’ve weeks even in summer. It’s a pretty big item to tick off the to-do list, because making sure the poultry have access to fresh water all day every day through summer is a real pain when using the standard pet-shop waterers (max size: 10 […]

the first tastes of spring

2016/08/04 Danielle 0

The wet, cold weather doesn’t feel like spring, but I have other clues to go by. The jacarandas may not be flowering yet, but the early peaches and apricots are, and the coral trees in the swan valley are covered in red flowers and hungry birds. My newly planted bare root Prunus mume trees are starting to flower too, so I’m hopeful that they’ll fruit in a couple’ve years and I’ll be able to make umeboshi and plum wine. Also covered in flowers already are my blueberry bushes. I may have to plant more of these – they’ve been […]