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Bungala Ridge Permaculture Gardens REDUCE ... REUSE ... RECYCLE ... REPAIR ... RETURN ... REVEGETATE ... REPLENISH |
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Permaculture Diary: 6th January 2008 Copyright © Beverley Paine To start the day off right, after a decent sleep in, Robin and I went for a 2.5km walk along the beach. I did some limbering up exercises with my arms to get the blood flowing into my fingers and to ease the rigidity in my upper back. We aim to do this every day now, only earlier. The orchard, roses and shrubs along the fence were irrigated today. We plan to slip into a regular routine of using the drippers only on the days allowed by the permanent water restrictions in place, as below:
The long range forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology doesn't look good for rains generated by the La Nina effect currently deluging the east coast of Australia over the next few months. As a result I am going to be more cautious about our use of rainwater and use it to hand water the vegetable garden and pot plants, as well as in the house. If rains come we'll switch back to using rainwater for everything. The recent heat waves look set to recur on a regular basis for some time and I don't want to leave us short for the house. We're also mindful that we need to keep one tank full to run the sprayers around and on the roof in case of bush fire. Talking about water it was hard to turn on the tap, fill buckets, and dump the water into the trenches we had begun at my parent's house. I know we only used about a bath-full of water to soften the rock-hard ground but it seemed sacrilegious to put water on the ground with a plant growing there! Our son drove the spade deep into the wet trench to allow the water to soak down deeper, so that we'll be able to dig tomorrow. We began the trenches when we had 25mm of rain just before Christmas but the hot weather has baked the soil hard again. The digging is slow, but done in stages, an hour or two a day, will see the job done in a week or two. We plan to avoid digging on the really hot days. This way my father can help us without us worrying about his health. He has overdone it this year, working hard for a couple of hours every day grubbing out olive stumps with as much energy as a twenty-year old. It has kept him occupied while he waited for his house to be built but his age has finally caught up with him. We bagged dried apricots and strawberry/apple fruit leather, and set out another three trays of sliced kiwi fruit, as well as three trays of kiwi/apple fruit leather to dry. Dinner tonight is roast beef and a selection of roast vegies, thanks to the cool change.
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