New Bedroom

We finished the new bedroom a month ago, but finally here's a photo. Note the old chest of drawers that used to be in Robert's and my bedroom when we were kids - I've given it its 100-year service with a new coat of varnish.

Front Step Railings!

Yes, they're finally up, though not painted yet:

Also of course spring is well underway now and the first thing to go in is the potatoes:

Like the rest of the garden they are grown by the no-dig method, which means the seed potatoes just go on top of the first layer of mulch then more layers are put on over the next few months as the potatoes develop.

Autumn Harvest All In

Thanks to the regular summer rain and the efficacy of the vege enclosure (Fort Veg) we had a good crop this year:

Caravanning with Joyce

A month or so ago we bought an old 1970's caravan and named her Joyce. I took a couple of weeks off work and Lesley and I went off to the South Coast for 9 days. Eden via Canberra, Cooma and Bombala, then up the coast to Batemans Bay then home via Braidwood then straight across back-roads from Bungendore to Murrumbateman and Yass The numbers indicate where the nights were spent:

It rained quite a bit at Eden and Joyce began to leak, so we bought her a tarp, which did the job. We were stuck there for 3 nights due to mechanical (alternator) problems. On the middle day of the tour we set off with problems solved and found an amazing waterfront site in Regatta Point Caravan Park on Wallaga Lake north of Bermagui:

Alpacas Shorn

Actually this happened in January.

Dropbox

I've started using an amazing new technology on the main photo site called Dropbox. It's a program you install on your computer that creates a folder in "My Documents" that is automatically mirrored on the web so that you don't have to bother uploading anything. It can be used to store your own stuff privately, or you can put stuff in the public folder to be viewable by anyone. So I've put all the photos for the website into the public folder and re-coded the site so that your browser gets the images from my folder on the www.dropbox.com site. It comes with over 2gb of storage, which is enough for about a hundred years of adding to the site at the present rate, as compared to 100mb, which I've already used about a tenth of. The site is still at the same address, ryepark.triorbit.com but that doesn't mean the photos have to be there - your browser gets images from wherever the web page tells it to.

Let me know if you want to know more about how to use Dropbox...

Fort Vedge Complete

We tried shade-cloth over the tunnel throughout summer and winter and found that in both cases it improved plant growth (less harsh sun in summer, less heat-loss and lighter frosts in winter) so we've made the roof out of low blockage (30%) shade-cloth.


Meanwhile Lesley has been forging ahead with the front garden:


And you can see why the Buddleia is called the "Butterfly Bush":


Also, I've updated a few pages on the main photo site:
1 - the old "Vegie Tunnel" page is now called "Fort Vedge"
2 - I've added a "Cluckingham Palace" page
3 - I've updated the "Tanks" page

Companion Planting/ Sheet composting/ No-Dig

I put the 3 concepts in the title because they go together. They are permacultural ideas that seek to reproduce the way plants live in nature. Nature adds material on the top of the soil and lets it rot down in. Nature mingles different species in the same space so they complement each other with their differing needs. This avoids the need for crop rotation and for leaving beds fallow, which nature doesn't do.


In the picture there are pumpkins on the right and potatoes on the left, which don't like to be beside each other. Beside the pumpkins is new corn, which combines well with pumpkins. Between the corn and the potatoes I've put beans, which like both corn and potatoes. They all should be happy.

Notice the paper shreddings (I get from work) beneath the half-rotted compost. I mix the new compost in a heap and cover it for a few days to heat up and kill weed-seeds before spreading it on the garden.