Info & News – Page 6 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

June 3: mushroom cultivation

2016/06/03 Danielle 0

Last weekend, we attended a mushroom cultivation workshop run by Urban Kulture in Whitegum Valley. We came away with a wealth of knowledge (and a very informative handout, with all the instructions on it), as well as loads of innoculated mushroom kits, ready to grow us some amazing medicinal and edible mushrooms. I really recommend the workshop – it was great fun, very informative, and we learned a lot. We made up kits for king oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) and turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) on sawdust, reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) on shredded paper and pearl oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus, pearl strain) on […]

June 2: Seed Planting

2016/06/02 Danielle 0

Winter is here. Cold nights (and cold days, too, at the moment!), rain and wet, black soil. Every night there’s the smell of woodsmoke from wood-burning heaters in the neighbourhood, and the deciduous trees are all in the last stages of losing their leaves. The sweetgums are glorious, red and purple and gold. Everything is settling in for a good winter’s hibernation. Perfect time to plant tree seeds. I’ve had some stone pine (Pinus pinea) seeds and cork oak (Quercus suber) acorns in the fridge for a couple’ve months, getting the chill they need to start germinating. They’re going […]

Perth Storm 2016

2016/05/22 Danielle 0

In case anyone was concerned, we made it through the storm with no damage. To be honest, the storm was less impressive than the many wild weather warnings led us to expect, although I think it was worse in some places than it was for us. None of the trees blew down, feel down, or really suffered any harm beyond a few leaves being blown off. Some of the big eucalypts lost a few small branches, but nothing significant. We had a LOT of rain, and the swales all filled up; a few overflowed a little, but that’s why […]

Crying Wolf

2016/05/12 Danielle 0

It was inevitable. We’ve had our first losses to a fox or foxes. This morning, early, I heard the guinea fowl making a racket outside, including the one elusive one (which we are still unable to catch in order to pen her with the rest) squawking and scolding near the house. They’re irritatingly noisy birds at the best of times, and they take fright and scold at anything and everything. Pot plants are particularly scary. So I thought, the kangaroos are going through the woods, or the parrots have gone to investigate or something. Or the lone loose […]

The local farm shop

2016/03/30 Danielle 0

Local may be overstating it slightly, but still. We recently visited our closest and most convenient farm shop. Like real grown-up farmers. For those who may not know, a farm shop is a retailer which specialises in equipment and supplies for farms and farmers. It’s a little like the love-child of a Bunnings style hardware store and the rural bakery/deli that inevitably exists in every small town. They carry everything from reticulation pipes & connectors to worming medications for animals to pasture seed. Which is what we were there for. This winter is not the time for goats, […]