Gallifrey Forest Farm

Plausible marketing options – initial thoughts

2015/06/30 Danielle 0

I’ve been thinking about agriculture – well, for some time now, actually. Thus the currently-in-progress Masters of Sustainable Agriculture. But I’ve been thinking of it in our specific context for the last few weeks. I would like our farm to be more or less self sufficient. I don’t mean in the homesteading survivalist sense, although producing as much of our own food as we can would be cool and is one of the goals. I mean in the overall part of the local economy sense, that the things we produce can either be sold directly or used by us to […]

hot chocolate: Theobroma cacao

2015/06/23 Danielle 0

The middle of winter is stormy, wet and grey. More so than it has been for the last few years, which is making me regret the fact that my water tanks aren’t in place yet to catch some of the rain – but at least the swales are catching it. The whole property is green, and the soil is starting to look like something living in a lot of places, dark and crumbly and full of mycelium. We have clover sprouting and fungi springing up all over the place, and a few of the lupins from last year must have […]

All the animals

2015/06/12 Danielle 0

When I was little I wanted a house of my own, and a dog and a cat. I didn’t realise then that goats and cows and alpacas and chickens and so forth were an option. Now I do. We’re working on the house part. And we already have three cats, who are the most adorable purr-faces ever, as well as four chickens, and three quail (it used to be four quail, but one of the quail died a couple’ve months ago for no apparent reason). And I do still want a dog. I also want some more chickens, some guinea […]

Winter is here

2015/06/02 Danielle 0

It’s been just over a month since my last post, in spite of my best intentions. In my defence, in that time I’ve been recovering from a broken arm and a nasty cough. At the same time. Yes. Not that it has anything much to do with permaculture, except in that it’s surprisingly hard to do anything (eating with a spoon I felt like an uncoordinated 5 year old – so much work to avoid just smearing porridge on my face!) when your dominant arm is unusable, the broken arm was a result of a rollerblading accident. I caught a […]

plant profile: moringa, horseradish tree

2015/04/23 Danielle 0

Moringa (Moringa oleifera), also known as drumstick tree or horseradish tree, is a pretty, graceful tree which produces edible seed pods (eat them when they’re green and tender, after cooking like snow peas) and edible leaves and flowers (eat raw or cooked as a green vegetable). There’s a tree growing over the fence of a back yard near my old house in North Perth, and I can confirm that both the flowers and leaves are very good raw, with a slightly nutty, broccoli flavour and a hint of mustard-like spiciness. They’re also very moreish. I’ve tried them in a quiche, […]