Gallifrey Forest Farm

Roses and Ghost Berries

2012/08/09 Danielle 0

I know this isn’t really exciting unless you’re a massive plant nerd, but I grew roses from seed! I have baby rose seedlings, sprouted from some seeds I collected at my very first permablitz from the prunings of some heritage roses. I have no idea what varieties they were, so my babies are of unknown parentage, and I’ll probably have a long while to wait until I see the first flowers, but even so – how cool is that? Roses. From seeds. From rosehips. There are people out there who don’t know that roses even produce seeds; one of my […]

Warre Beehives

2012/07/29 kai 0

Something D and I have wanted to do since purchasing our land is to have an Apiary (a beehive for the uninitiated). D did a beekeeping course a while ago and I’ve always thought they were damn cute and I love honey. So we decided we would get a beehive and put one on the property. We did a bit of reasearch on the various kinds of beehives there are. There is the classic Langstroth beehive, which is the standard box beehive you see everywhere. There are top bar hives, these look like a log on their side cut in […]

More trees

2012/06/26 Danielle 0

It’s tough, resisting the desire to plant all the fruit trees as soon as possible. We’ve planted a few, but only the tough species which can take our WA summers without too much coddling. Figs, pomegranates, honey locusts, natal plums, a mulberry. Dates and carob will go in soon, and possibly a quince and a few olives. To make up for that patience, though, we are going a bit crazy planting support species. Mostly that means wattles and a few black locusts, Persian silk trees, and pepper trees. But it also includes oaks. Oak trees aren’t the first “support” tree […]

Plant Profile: Roselle

2012/06/21 Danielle 0

Roselle, better known in Australia as Rosella (like the parrot, but less feathery) is an annual (or sometimes biennual), fast growing shrub in the hibiscus family. Like most hibiscus and mallows, it has edible leaves and flower petals, but Roselle is most famous for its edible calyx. The calyx, stems and leaves are acid and closely resemble the cranberry (Vaccinium spp.) in flavor. The calyx is used to make jams and sauces, and dried for tea. The tender young leaves may be cooked and eaten as a substitute for spinach, though somewhat spicier in flavour. Young roselle shoots, leaves and […]

Badger Badger Badger Badger…

2012/06/18 kai 2

…Mushroom Mushroom! D and I have been experimenting with exciting things that can be grown in an apartment setting. This months experiment has been Oyster mushrooms. We got a starter kit from a nice gentleman at the Manning Road farmers market. We brought them home and lovingly spritzed them with water and kept them humid and moist and indeed there has been success. As you can see above they grew quite prodigiously and provided us with enough for a large oyster omelet and quite a few left over. At his recommendation we kept the base after picking and kept it […]