trees – Page 2 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

summer

2016/12/14 Danielle 2

No matter how much I like the longer days (getting home when it’s still light!) and warmer weather, I also dread summer a little. While the long, hot, dry days and the coastal breezes may be perfect for a holiday or a day at the beach, they’re not so good for growing anything. The dry summer season is as harsh in its own way as the cold winter of the temperate areas of the northern hemisphere. The theory is that our forest orchard will be reasonably self-sufficient once established, requiring minimal irrigation or care. That theory has a downside though […]

Olives for integrated livestock-orchards

2016/11/14 Danielle 0

I’ve been doing an awful lot of research, recently, into integrated agroforestry and pastured livestock farming systems. Specifically the system of pasture and productive woodland common to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) which is commonly called dehesa, or montado in Portugal. Although the traditional dehesa forests are primarily made up of cork oak (Quercus suber) and holm oak (Quercus ilex), the system could work with any number of tree species. It’s basically a Mediterranean silvopasture system, with scattered tree cover (using trees which produce some sort of commercially valuable product) with pasture and animals grazing underneath. Traditional dehesa […]

mozzarella, asparagus, and pomegranates

2016/11/06 Danielle 0

It’s been a busy couple’ve weeks. Summer is here with a vengeance; we had our first 37 degree (Celcius) day yesterday, although it’s back to a more pleasant temperature today. I have my first sunburn of the summer, because I’m a very silly cat and failed to put sunscreen on before heading out to the Asparagus Masterclass at Edgecombe Bros in the Swan Valley on Friday. Brilliant class, in spite of the sunburn. We started with a brief history of the winery and the local area, and some morning tea. Then all 16 of us tromped over to one […]

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 […]

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 […]