Blissful Winter's Day [ braamekraal/ ]
What a beautiful day! Perfect warm sunshine after a couple of weeks of cold and dreary -- shorts 'n' T-shirt weather.Just the right sort of day for starting to clear up the Wintering beds and begin preparing for Spring. Things have gotten pretty wild, what with me being otherwise occupied in Babylon earning Monkeys. Kikuyu grass has crept into several of the beds... weeds mulching all the empty spaces that now -- some of them at least -- needing to be cleared.
Planted another length of salad-mix -- direct sown, mixed, looseleaf Lettuces in three rows, interspersed with a row each of Rocket and Red Mustard. The combination works perfectly; once the plants are all up to a harvestable (but still baby) size, I can just snip a swathe across the bed for a supper's salad, and get the perfect mix of leaves that we love best.
A "length" of bed perhaps needs some explanation. All of my deep beds are 1m wide by 11m long. 1m of the length is taken by plantings of insect-attracting herbs at each end of the bed, leaving me with 10m2 to work with. (Close enough to 100sq.ft. for the metrically-challenged.) Very convenient if I ever get around to keeping yield records1. The "length" to which I refer -- the usual "unit of planting" for many things like salading, Beets, Swiss Chard, Carrots -- is the length of my rake handle -- about 1.5m. It is a pretty convenient length for successive sowings. I lay the rake down along the bed and draw a drill with the hoe. The width of the rake-head gives me a guide for spacing rows... works perfectly for me.
Next month starts the busy season -- seed plantings... I really must get around to checking the seed stocks, but I'm pretty sure that I've got everything we'll want. I do need to get some new strains of Jalapenos and Serrano peppers in, but apart from that, I should be able to plant entirely from my own seed-saving. A small but critical step in our goal of self-sufficiency.
All-in-all a great day! It was just so nice to be out in the garden instead of stuck behind a monitor.
[1] i.e. Bloody unlikely!
Bee Gone [ braamekraal/ ]
Our Bee adventure didn't last long. The very next day the swarm was off.We saw the swarm milling about, on the verge of absconding, and managed to bring them down again by spraying water into the air with a hose. This time they settled on a downright upright branch in the Very Thorny Lemon Tree, so it wasn't easy to shake them off into a box this time. After clearing away some interfering branches, and with the help of a soft brush, We managed to get them back into the nuc-hive -- a small hive that only carries five frames.
Clearly something was wrong, because the next day they escaped yet again, this time for good.
On my trip to Cape Town last week I made time to stop in at the Honey Bee Foundation -- a slightly nutty Belgian gentleman who has made it his mission to teach The Art to new Beekeepers, and incidentally runs a Bee Supply shop. He was most helpful!
Evidently my mistake was in using all fully-waxed frames in the nuc-box. I should have left a couple of empty frames in the middle to give the Bees space to cluster and keep warm. Actually the middle frames should not be totally empty, but need a small strip of wax along the top of the frame to guide the Bees into building mostly worker-bee cells and not too many drone cells.
In retrospect I also strongly suspect that the swarm was too small -- it really was a tiny swarm. Reading Adrian's Bee catching adventure has made me realise just how small our swarm was!
Having now been bitten (stung?) by the bug, I now very badly want to get a couple of swarms! So: catch-boxes are out, well beyond reach of the Honey Badgers, correctly framed, cleaned of all wax-moth, ants, spiders and dead leaves, sterilised with a blast from the trusty blowtorch.
Here's hoping...Technorati Tags: bees, apiculture, self-sufficiency
Bee Happy [ braamekraal/ ]
We've just captured our first swarm of Bees!A couple of hours ago, Dale noticed a swarm forming around the Thorn Tree near the house, and called me to come and have a look. As we watched, they moved over to a Lavender Bush growing at the corner of the patio. Half an hour or so later, they had all disappeared. Or so we all thought.
Just what prompted me to look closer, I'm not sure. There they were, in a clump the size of a Melon, clustered around a few of the Lavender branches, no more than 20cm off the ground.
We flew into action: Dale off to find a cardboard shoebox, me to grab an empty beehive and place it on a bench off the ground. Couldn't find a piece of board for a ramp; used one of the beehive inner-lids.
Shake!
About two-thirds of the bees fell into the shoebox. Lots of bees buzzing around, but it was pretty clear to me -- dressed in my ultra-protective shorts and T-shirt! -- that this was a confused buzzing rather than an angry buzzing. How the hell would I know a thing like that? I've never yet had the privilege of keeping bees in reality, though I've wanted to for some years, now.
Gently shook the bees onto the ramp leading up to the beehive. In theory they should have started walking up the ramp into the darkness of the hive, but instead, just lots of aimless milling about. Gave them 10 or 15 minutes to calm down, and, sure enough, there under the Lavender, was a somewhat-reduced clump of Bees. Obviously we missed the Queen the first time around. Lopped of a couple of interfering branches and tried again. BUZZZZZZZ... lots of Bees in the shoebox again... Dale standing by to whip off the lid of the hive... Unceremoniously DUMPed the whole lot of them directly into the hive, and ("careful, don't squash the Bees!") quickly slide the lid back on.
Almost instantly, all the bees buzzing about outside the hive started barreling into the hive as fast as they could find the entrance. All but a couple of dozen standing on the landing platform outside the hive entrance, looking for all the world like Jumbo Jets revving their engines to the max at the start of a very short runway, clinging on for dear life, as their wings fanned fresh air into the hive. Clearly we got the Queen on our second attempt.
Half an hour later, they seem to have settled into the hive quite happily, humming away contentedly. OB the PhD thinks we've specially arranged a box of Mexican Food Doggie Treats for her -- she loves to eat bees. I guess that they taste like Chillis in a Sweet Syrup -- very yummy! It will be easier for her once I can move them a little further away from the house, but in the meantime she's filled with Insatiable Curiosity about the humming noise coming from the box.
Great fun. Great excitement. And nobody got a stung. I guess I'd better read that Bee book again pretty quickly!
Sunset [ braamekraal/ ]
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Everything I Learned About Tethering Goats I Got From A Blog Comment [ braamekraal/ ]
Stuart and Gabrielle write a lovely post on their blog about their beginning adventures with goats. I was particularly interested as we've also been thinking about acquiring a couple of goats, and I know too little about them. I left a small comment on their blog, asking them to follow-up, and mentioning some of my own musings on Matters Goaty.With no warning, all of my questions were answered1 in depth, breadth and heighth, to a degree unexpected on a blog's comments, by Val Grainger (who has immediately been added to my reading-list!) Stuff worthy of an entire article in its own right.
If there's anything you want to know about keeping goats on a tether, go and read it there -- there's no point in me regurgitating it here; I could only detract from Val's exposition.
But, to (briefly) address some of the gotchas mention by Val, in thinking about tethering, I have only ever considered a running tether to make sure that the animal have a sufficiently large area to roam. The other possible solution for confining them is an electric fence -- a solution that has worked well for me with horses and cows. For goats, though, I will have to get better poles for supporting the electric fence...
Technorati Tags: self-sufficiency, goats, tethering
[1] Well... all my questions about Goat Tethering, anyway.
Animal Farm [ braamekraal/ ]
Small apology to the shade of George OrwellStonehead hits the nail on the head with his characteristic pragmatism, asking "Should you keep chickens?" and trying to inject a note of realism into what look set to become a new fashion wave in the UK.
We've seen too many people, over the years, acquiring various animals simply as Wandering Lawn Ornaments. Sometimes in appalling ignorance of the animals' needs, and with predictably disastrous consequences.
One neighbour acquired a small calf: The idea of a cow wandering about the place, peacefully mowing the lawn, painted a pastoral watercolour in his city-habituated imagination... The calf was very young, and still needed milk supplements. A few days later it was dead from starvation.
Another neighbour has a partner who "loves animals" and can't help herself acquiring ever more. Fortunately she is quite clued-up on their care and keeping, but cannot bring herself to control the inevitable population-bomb, nor will she allow anyone else to do it for her, being too distressed by the thoughts of somebody eating her beloved animals. So they have several-dozen Guinea Fowl (which happily escape into the wild when their numbers become too great,) 3 or 4 horses, unknown numbers of ducks, geese and chickens, two goats, a couple of dogs, and one vastly-overweight Pig. All simply as "pets". The feed bill each month is staggering. And he is kept pretty busy building and maintaining animal housing and enclosures. Oh! In fairness, they do milk the goats and eat some eggs.
All this is apropos, as I am thinking of acquiring some more animals to help around here.
I have in mind a couple of goats to help manage the rank, weedy grass-bramble-and-alien-tree infestations in various parts of the farm, to be followed by a couple of pigs to clean the soil of roots and weed tubers as a prelude to a planting of grains or beans, then following-up with fodder crops again to close the circle and bring the animals round again for the next cycle. Fortunately a neighbourhood friend (as opposed to a mere "neighbour") has great experience with goats, and has been considering getting a small herd for herself again, so we'll probably try and find some way to work together on that, pooling our knowledge, resources and energy. Another local farmer keeps a herd of pigs as part of his (commercial) farming, so I have a local source of expertise (and animals.) I freely confess my ignorance of both goats' and pigs' habits and needs, but will make sure I cure that deficiency before taking any concrete steps in this.
Then, too, I'm thinking about adding a couple of sheep to keep the grass around the houses under control...
One of the catches in this Grand Scheme is that we are "mostly-vegetarians". We still eat some poultry and seafood, but not Pork/Beef/Mutton -- mainly because we feel physically better than if we ate as much meat as most people. So what to do with a healthy, growing population of various animals? I could just sell them on to a local butcher, but frankly I don't trust the man's methods, animal-handling practices nor hygiene. This is probably the single biggest problem for me to solve before acquiring more animals. I will not abdicate the responsibility for closing the circle.
A local friend, Don, made the comment (having kept goats himself) that animals tie you down a lot. You can't just pack up, lock the door and go on holiday -- or even out for an evening -- without making provision for the animals to be fed, watered, shut-in at night, checked for accidents,... But then that's true already with our Chickens and Dogs. Not to mention the delights of cleaning the Chook House in the pissing rain.
I do have one nit to pick with Stoney's post, though: "Chickens are not dumb"? What other animal, upon laying an egg, spends the next half-hour announcing the availability of fresh food to every predator in the neighbourhood? I'm often led to wonder how the hell the species has survived this long!
Technorati Tags: self-sufficiency, animals, chickens, goats, pigs
Best Laid Plans, Plins, Plons, Ploons [ braamekraal/ ]
So the Summer garden is suffering badly from neglect, the brewing project is going much, much slower than desired, and I've left this blog alone for far too long. In part I can blame the weather: its been quite wet so far this season. Not that we're complaining about having plenty of water...After the very early start this Spring, everything ran to a standstill for quite a while. I thought perhaps it was just me doing something odd, but after a couple of other local gardeners made similar comments I have to conclude that there's been something odd going on with the weather.
But the excuses aside! I've been hacking away in front of a computer. I landed some paying development work, and decided to take it on in the interests of Earning Money -- something of a novelty after almost three years of Living By Our Wits! There are a few things I'd like to do that will benefit from some cash injection from the Evil Empire... solar panels, (electrical ones -- we're already more-than-well set up with hot water panels!) paying for Dale's University Sojourns, (so far he's doing it in far better time than I did, so I'm not in a position to criticise!) fixing the Rotovator so that I can nail the Kikuyu and get going with grains, wire bins for more compost heaps, plus some for mushrooms, a wood stove... there's A List.
We've been reaping the benefit of earlier work -- scapes and giant "Garlic", beautiful Cabbages and Kohlrabi, beans ready to be harvested for drying,... but some of the harvest is certainly going to take a knock!
Oh well, Needle, Nardle, Noo, and on we Goo...
Technorati Tags: garden, self-sufficiency, money
Flood Update [ braamekraal/ ]
Well, the rain has stopped for a little while, though there's a reasonable chance we'll get some more today. 304mm so far, in a span of about 36 hours! It's stuff like this that really screws-up the averages.The N2 (national road) is/was blocked in at least two places nearby. Over 1000 people have had to be airlifted to safety. More rain forecast for Monday.
Our road is very badly damaged, but people seem to be getting in and out. Several people in the neighbourhood have been asking the district roads people to fix the culvert for a long time, now, to no avail. My guess is that they'll get around to fixing it just in time for the next floods!
Technorati Tags: rain, floods, south-cape
A Rain Of Fish [ braamekraal/ ]
One of my very first posts when I started this blog was about a Big Rain – the Floods of '06, a little over a year ago. Well, brace yourself for The Sequel!
After a drizzly day, yesterday, the heavens opened in the late afternoon, and have not yet shut. At about 8 this morning the rain-guage was showing a guesstimated 102mm overnight. The scale ends at 100mm. All the dams in the area are overflowing with ummm... interesting... results for the roads. I think we'll be unable to get to town for a while, even after the rain stops. And it's showing no signs of letting-up yet.
There's a river down the middle of the veggie garden, since the small dam beside the house overflows that way. No serious harm to anything, though, since it was designed and the earth carefully shaped to channel the overflow between veg beds. It's only the odd mole-tunnels that can cause some small washouts. Pity the poor Moles, though.
In other parts of the region people are being helicoptered to safety. We're pretty safe; just helicopter in some Scotch and we'll be fine for quite awhile ;-)
Many more pics at Photobucket for the interested. Including the Rain of Fish. (A bunch of freshly-dead fish lying around where they've been washed out of some dam or other. Great amusement and yummies for the Dogs!) Sadly Photobucket seems to lack any way of putting the pictures in any kind of sensible order... :-(
Congratulations to Kevin and Becky, and a big Welcome to Owen! We wish you much happiness, learning and fun!
Chicken Hygeine [ braamekraal/ ]
The Cottage Smallholder » "How do I keep my chickens clean?" is a great post about Chicken Hygiene! Chickens are simply not very clean animals. It's OK up to a point to justify some of their habits by rationalising, "Well, there's no sense applying human standards to other animals." Mountain Gorillas, for instance, die if they don't eat each others' shit, since that's how they share certain enzymes vital to their digestive systems.1Chicken Mites are a real bugger and get out of hand really fast in warm weather. I detest using poisons, so dealing with Mites was a real dilemma for me for a long time, until The Lightbulb Moment a few years ago. Now, about four times a year, I clear out the bedding and crap from the chookhouse, and then take a blowtorch to all the surfaces (especially perches.) Works like a bomb2 and kills all bugs and their egss, provided I play the flame back and forth over each area for a while and let it get good and hot. Occasionally I get a bit too enthusiastic and manage to scorch the wood a little, but usually there's no problem.
Speaking of which, its probably time I cleaned out the chicken house again this weekend...
----
[1] I read it somewhere. What is this? Wikipedia? The Spanish Inquisition?
[2] ...visions of broken bits of chookhouse flying through the air...
Technorati Tags: chickens, chicken-hygiene, mites
Garlic Rust [ braamekraal/ ]
That's it! The garlic has succumbed to Rust. It's quite usual, really, just not so early. Normally I can just leave the bulbs in the ground until November, and still get a fair harvest, and they give me a pretty good return despite the Rust. This year, though, the Rust has been exceptionally early, andSince I claim, half heartedly (or is that half-arsedly?) to be a research gardener, I'm trying a small experiment: I've chopped the (totally rust-infested) leaves off about 1/3 of the plants. Of course they've immediately started pushing out new leaves, but I'm hoping that they won't get affected as quickly as when they have an existing load of orange-brown leaves.
Time will tell; I'm even contemplating trialling a Summer planting of Garlic (something I've never done before) as a Path To Recovery.
Life without Garlic is just unthinkable!
Technorati Tags: garlic, self-sufficiency, rust
The Battle of Wounded Knee [ braamekraal/ ]
Why does Bad Stuff always, always choose the worst possible time to happen? Spring is almost upon us; I am expanding the planting space quite a lot -- from the 13 beds that we already have, to at least 26. (For the first time ever I'll be making beds in sizes other than 10m2. Gosh! Adventure!) I have already dug 6 of the new beds. I also have to get compost heaps going to feed all those new beds, otherwise they'll be quite useless.Work was coming along quite nicely, when it all came to an abrupt halt. About a week ago I managed to do Something Evil to my right knee. Now, I have quite a high tolerance for pain, so, in my normal fashion, "just lived with it", apart from trying to move in ways that don't agravate the pain or stress my knee. I figure that pain serves a function. But alas! It's no good. I keep doing Bad Things, like kneeling down to pull some weeds, or cut some Lettuce for a salad. Yesterday I gave in and resorted to anti-inflammatory tablets. Trouble is, right now, faced with the busiest time of year, I can't do much of anything.
Just as well we had rain for the last few days -- a nice, soft, soaking rain -- not much in volume, but it has done a world of good for the soil and seedlings. That kept me indoors and quiet (and frustrated, and cabin-fevered) for most of the week, and now the soil is far too wet to work for at least a couple of days (except I could be hauling horse-shit and making compost heaps, and spreading wood-shavings in pathways, preparing insect-netting, building a greenhouse...) Still, happy to have had the rain, though.
The Tomatoes and Chillis I planted last month have started showing-up in their trays. Some of them are still MIA, but I'm quite surprised to see anything of them at all. This weekend will see the start of serious planting of Tomatoes, Chillis, Basil, Tomatillos and Tamarillos in seed trays. Pole Beans, too, if The Knee holds out, since that means bending down. Last weekend was the Squashies.
I always have a great deal of difficulty with the Squash Tribe as they fruit just when Fruit/Pumpkin Flies are at their most prolific, and we frequently lose close to 100% of the crop. Last year I partially solved the problem with a very light-grade shade net -- 12% shading -- and got a decent harvest. Trouble is its a damn expensive way to cover a very small area. We've only last week eaten the last of the stored Squashes. Black Futsu proved themselves quite hardy to the Fruit Fly stings, with about 40% of the crop getting by without any netting at all. Then I heard a secret from the largest ("conventional") veggie farmer locally. "Sow seed on the 14th of August." By the time the Fruit Flies are rampaging, the Squashes and Pumpkins are hard and thick enough to resist the stings.
So that's what I did. Here's hoping it works even a little bit!
Technorati Tags: self-sufficiency, gardening, vegetables, spring, knee, inflamation
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- Sunset
- Everything I Learned About Tethering Goats I Got From A Blog Comment
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- Flood Update
- A Rain Of Fish
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