Gallifrey Forest Farm

plant profile: pomegranate

2016/04/15 Danielle 0

Pomegranates are a traditional Mediterranean fruit, along with olives, grapes, figs, plums, dates, and apples (yes, plums and apples are traditional Mediterranean fruit). It’s an attractive, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree, growing to be 6 – 10 m tall, with glossy green leaves and brightly coloured flowers which can be quite showy in some varieties. The fruit are quite large, between an orange and a grapefruit in size, and coloured pink to orange when ripe. There are multiple cultivars with slightly different fruit characteristics. The seeds of the fruit are surrounded by individual ‘bubbles’ of red or pink, juicy pulp. […]

Seed Season

2016/04/10 Danielle 1

A week ago, I planted a selection of tree seeds – five different species of wattle (Acacia spp.), poinciana (Delonix regia), jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) and honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos). Today I noticed that some of them (notably the wattles and poinciana) are germinating already. In spite of torrential rain, the tiny, delicate seedling heads are poking up through the soil, seed cases still covering their baby seed leaves. I’m so pleased 🙂 I know it’s silly, but I love seeing baby plants emerge, especially baby trees. It also means I did pick the right time of year to plant them, […]

eating meat

2016/04/03 Danielle 1

In WA, it’s legal to kill animals for meat, providing you own the animal, and no part of the carcass (including waste, bones and offal) leaves your property. And assuming that your local council hasn’t restricted slaughter of animals in your area via local by-laws, of course – many do. You can’t legally sell the meat, though. You can eat it, or feed it to friends, family, or employees, but not to paying guests (i.e. restaurant or bed & breakfast guests). If you want to sell meat (raw or cooked), the animal providing it must be killed in a […]

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, […]

plant profile: honey locust

2016/03/23 Danielle 0

I’ve just ordered another selection of wattle seeds, to germinate and plant out. These are all varieties with edible seeds, so they’re a pretty good multi-purpose plant. The idea is to plant about half of them in our Zone 5, along with holm oaks, cork oaks, stone pines, and a variety of other semi-wild food plants and bee forage plant species – the other half will go in the pasture/woodland area as shade trees. This pasture area is going to include a series of paddocks through which our poultry and the hypothetical future goats (and maybe cow!) will be rotated. There will […]