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  Biodynamic Life

Caterpillar Free Brassicas without Chemicals

10/31/2014

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Nothing beats fresh home grown broccoli, cauli's and kale but its not much fun munching on caterpillars.  It is not an option to use chemicals for us so we have tried a few chemical free methods of controlling the white cabbage butterfly over the last few years. 

Picking off the grubs can work well but in reality taking the time to do this at our place doesn't seem to happen! It also is a continuous job as the butterflies will continue to lay eggs on the plants.   


We have found it is actually very simple to keep grubs out by placing a frame with bird netting over your brassicas which acts as a barrier and the cabbage white butterflies can't get in to lay eggs...hence no grubs.  This is the simplest and most successful method we have used.

Another idea we tried was placing a white golf ball in the tunnel house we planted our brassicas in last winter.  This theory is based on the fact that the cabbage white butterflies are territorial and they will see the white of the golf ball and think it is another one of them and go elsewhere to lay their eggs.  This didn't completely eliminate the grubs but they were certainly not a huge issue. 

I found an interesting article yesterday where instead of a golf ball you print out pictures of the cabbage white butterflies and laminate them and place them around your brassicas.  I am curious to try this and see how it works.  Here is a link for you if you want to give this a try.

http://southburnettpermaculture.com/2013/07/21/cabbage-moth-control/



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Our tried and true water saving tips

10/30/2014

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I am inspired to write a post on water saving as we live through another extreme and extended dry spell here at The Oasis.  As the name of our property suggests water is a feature of our place but the extremes mother nature throws at us here push even the most well watered properties to their limits.  We are noticing lots of people carting water in our area at the current time and we are very proud to say that in our 9 years living here we have never run out of water and be forced to cart or purchase water.  This is not because we live at an "Oasis" - it is due to proactively designing our home, lifestyle and our property with water conservation in mind.  Our water conservation methods are very tried and true and I thought I would share them as if they can work for us through some of the most extreme dry spells of the past decade and with a growing family they could be of use to many others as well!

1.  Ditch the Dishwasher!!
There aren't too many homes these days with out a dishwasher, I hear all the usual excuses of how much time they save and people being busy working etc etc....  Seriously - it does not take that much time to wash up by hand and the water saved is astronomical!!  And thats forgetting that most items put in a dishwasher are often rinsed first!  Time excuses fall on deaf ears to me - I work full time and have a lot going on outside of work with the farm and the family.  The first thing we did when we bought our place was sell the dishwasher that was installed in the kitchen as it was never going  to be used.  We actually have 5 people powered dish washers who do a very water efficient job and we all share the load.  And we save on electricity bills as well.  I really cant imagine raising kids who do not have the ability to wash dishes!! 

2. 
Get back to basics in the laundry.
With a family of 5 which includes 2 sports mad teenage boys laundry is a huge user of water in our home, as it is in many others.  When dam water quality is good I can get away with washing in dam water to save our tank water - having the ability to change between water sources is a must have on a property.  In dry times the dam water is not great quality for washing clothes if you want them to get clean so we have worked out how to get a lot more mileage out of our rain water for washing clothes.  The first thing we did was install a simple hose on the machine that runs the grey water onto the gardens.   Great but doesn't cut back on the amount you need in the first place.  The way we found to do this came to me when I discovered a product called laundry balls advertised in the Earth Garden magazine:  http://www.laundryball.com.au/
These were invented by a mother who had a child sensitive to the ingredients in commercial laundry powders.  I swear by these and found when I ditched commercial laundry powder our clothes are softer with no need for commercial toxic fabric softener.  The cleaning power of rain water and sunshine alone!  The reason we save water with the laundry balls is because you don't need the rinse cycle to rinse out the soap residue - so we halve the water use for every load of washing.   I set the machine onto a soak cycle and once the washing is done I put the water which is free of contaminants (added bonus) straight onto the garden.  I now save a fortune in laundry powder every year and can afford to buy a more expensive greener form of washing powder for the few times I need to use soap on the occasional loads of extra dirty work clothes or the white school shirts and cricket whites.  Again an added bonus of saving electricity as well.  What I have learnt from experimenting with ways to save water in the laundry is just how many products we buy with out questioning (such as cleaning products) that we really do not need. 


3. 
Water saving showerheads are essential when you have a growing family:
There is no doubt that shorter showers are essential when there is no rainfall replenishing your tanks.  Convincing kids to have shorter showers is an uphill battle.  When our kids were younger we found a novel way to encourage them to have quicker showers - I would run a stop watch and make it a competition to see who could be the fastest.  Having two very competitive brothers helped enormously - Mark my youngest son declared he would even get in the shower before the hot water came through so he could beat his older brother Ben!  This competition had a major impact on tank levels last drought.  This time around they are now aged 14 and 16 and it is not so easy to convince them to be quick.  I entered a competition last year where the CSIRO gave away some newly invented water saving shower devices - the oxijet which save water by aerating it - you need less water for the same shower.  To be in the running to win you needed to share a water saving tip - my story of the boys competition to have shorter showers with a plea for some extra help in the form of one of these devices now they are teenagers worked and I won!!  I can thoroughly recommend these as our tanks are in excellent shape at the moment and the water saving shower has had a major role to play in that success. http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Air-shower-saves-50-per-cent-water.aspx

4.  Gardening in drought:
Every time we find ourselves in a prolonged dry spell I remind myself of a Jackie French quote that "droughts are harder on gardeners than they are on gardens" .  I believe this to be true as each time I am amazed at the resilience of mother nature, we lose some plants but many come back to live when it rains.  Those we loose are not suited to our environment in the first place I feel.

Drought is also a rest phase for the garden - there's not too much going on out there so the gardener can take a bit of a rest too.  I start seedlings in pots each spring to save water and weeding - only planting out when they are established and hopefully timing planting to a rainfall event (fingers crossed!). 

We never waste water on our lawns.  I know many people find a green lawn therapeutic to come home to in a drought - if the garden beds are alive I personally find that more welcoming.  Personal choice I guess.  But when water is sparse you need to make decisions on where it is best used.  When watering garden beds less frequent deep waterings are better to encourage the plants to grow deeper root systems. 

Of course we also mulch to reduce evaporation and build soil organic matter. 

5.  Store water at every opportunity:
Catch every drop of water you can.  The soil is often overlooked as a major water storage on any property - by increasing soil organic matter through mulching you drought proof your gardens and land.  Well designed dams to catch water are also essential - our dams are a picture at the moment with the water lillies Angus planted to reduce evaporation in full flower.  Our dams are topped up by a solar pump in a well in our creek - this investment has seen our dams cope with keeping our garden and our garlic crop alive for many years where the dams alone would not have managed.  We also believe there should not be a roof that does not catch water into a tank.  When we came here there was one 20,000 litre tank -this would never have been enough water for our family through the droughts we have encountered.  Once of the first things we saved for was another 20,000 litre tank to catch extra water off the house and we also installed another 20,000 litre tank on our shed when it was built. We now have a total of 60,000 litres of water storage capacity for our house.   At the current time we still have about 30,000 litres of stored tank water after months of no rain.  Pretty good outcome!! 

6.  Create shelter in your environment:
Angus is a big believer in shelter to reduce wind speed and evaporation.  Long rank grass in paddocks and shelter belts, shelter created by our garden and by the trees we plant are all utilised with this in mind as well.  The water lillies on the dams are a form of shelter as well, with the added bonus of being stunning! 

I hope my summary is of use if you are currently needing to cart water for your home or just wanting to be more environmentally friendly in your water use.  Leave a comment if you can share any other ideas on how you manage to conserve water in your home or on your land.


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Permaculture Chook Pens: Egg Production from Happy Hens

10/30/2014

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One of our first projects when we purchased our property was to create a permaculture chook run so we could enjoy healthy fresh eggs.  We have 4 rotational runs which come off the central housing area and are used for vegetable production.  The chooks thoroughly enjoy cultivating and fertilising the soil in between vegetable crops and the soil improvement has been rapid in this system with only a few chooks.  The runs were constructed using steel posts with poly hoops to make the frame and recycled doors used to keep the chooks out of the runs when in production.  The chooks also get access to a larger area and when we are home can be let out into the vegetable garden and orchard area where garden beds are protected with small fences to keep them out of our food.

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Predators: we made sure that the chicken netting was buried in the ground about 30cm deep and have had no issues with foxes in the many years we have kept chooks at The Oasis.  I think this is also helped by the fact we have a lot of electric fences on our property which helps to deter foxes.

Vermin: A grandpas chook feeder was an early investment due to birds and mice eating all of the chook feed – I balked at the $300 price tag but when I estimated the cost of continuing to feed all of the wildlife in addition to our chooks I estimated the feeder would pay for itself within 6 months.  This feeder remains sealed to keep out vermin and the chooks learn to open the lid to access feed by standing on the ramp at the front.  We usually have to keep it open for around a week when we get new chooks for them to learn the ropes then they are good to go.  http://grandpasfeeders.com.au/products?gclid=CPicnZTOub4CFVgnvQod4SAATQ


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Best breeds: The choice of birds is critical if your main motive for keeping chooks is egg production.   Angus and I had both kept chooks before – mainly the fairly boring egg producing breeds.   When we had our chook run completed we decided to attend a poultry auction in search of some chooks.  We purchased a few isa brown layers and a trio of silkies.  My only reason for purchasing the silkies was because they were cute!!  We soon found them to be gorgeous natured but they rarely laid any eggs and once they had laid a few they promptly went clucky.  They would make a great pet but were not ideal for egg production for the family.  The isa browns were older birds and egg production was far from ideal.  It is important to be aware of the age of the birds when purchasing – pullets at the point of lay are ideal.  Also be aware that many ex commercially farmed chooks come on to the market after they have past their prime egg laying production and they wont necessarily be great egg producers.  One indication of ex commercial layers is that they have been debeaked.  Some people like to rehome these birds but we are more interested in a good egg yield so stay away from them.  On discovering a local poultry buy swap and sell facebook group I started to source some different varieties of chooks – we have had light sussex and also Australorp and have found again their egg production not as good as the more conventional isa brown hens.  This is partly due to the fact that these breeds are more dual purpose meat breeds but I also wonder if they are being selected by poultry fanciers for traits other than egg production which won’t be helping in that department.  This site can be helpful in researching estimated egg production for various breeds.

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html


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Best performing Vegetables in Chook run gardens:  we have had easy success with summer vegetables including beans, spaghetti squash, chokos and corn.  The one crop that didn’t yield well were zucchinis which grew prolifically but didn’t set fruit.  This was possibly due to the soil being high in Nitrogen.  It was also a wetter than normal season so it may be worth trying them again.

Future chook projects:  We hope to further investigate grain free composting chicken systems as seen in this video by Geoff Lawton.

 http://www.geofflawton.com/sq/34325-feeding-chickens-without-grain

We are also considering using a movable chook house and electrified chicken netting to get our chickens out in the pasture and see how they fit with our soil improvement system which is currently done using rotational grazing of sheep and cattle.

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Keeping Ducks: Our Natural Solution to Snail Plagues

10/30/2014

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When we purchased our piece of paradise in 2004 we created lots of new garden beds and heavily mulched them with straw to conserve moisture and improve our soils organic matter. We inadvertently created the perfect habitat for snails with moisture and cover in the mulch and it wasn't long before we had a huge snail plague on our hands.

We tried snail baits and they would disappear rapidly but the snails continued to thrive. We tried beer traps and other natural methods. Nothing worked and any seedlings we planted would be devoured by the snails in just one night.

One of Angus's clients had some stunning Khaki Campbell cross ducks and she gave us a trio. It didn't take them long to settle in to their new home and we began to let them out to forage in the garden of a day. It wasn't long before snail plagues became a thing of the past here at The Oasis.


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We have found keeping ducks to be very simple and could not imagine our garden with out them.  As you will see from the picture above they have bred easily and are stunning.  Our ducks roam through the garden during the day time foraging and at night are shut into a simple fox proof enclosure.  They are simple to shut in at night as we have trained them to be fed late afternoon which has them telling us when they are ready for bed.  You can come home late at night to some very cranky ducks when you haven't been home earlier to feed them and lock them up for the night. 

Water is essential for ducks.  Ours have a purpose built pond in the garden where they spend a lot of time.  It is pumped out from time to time and the water is excellent garden fertiliser.  We also have water bowls around the garden for the ducks. They can manage with a simple large plastic tub with water which is easy to clean and refill regularly.  Just make sure they are able to get in and out easily. 

We feed our ducks on pig grower pellets.  This idea came from the book For the Love of Ducks by Nyiri Murtagh.  We had no idea of how to keep ducks when we started and found this book  a great resource - highly recommended if you want to learn more about keeping ducks. 
http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/For-Love-of-Ducks-Murtagh-Nyiri/9780958559034

Many people seem afraid that ducks are messy.  Their manure spread around the garden is welcome and we have a large garden so it has never been a problem.  We have learnt not to leave water or a food source around the house or they will find it and leave a mess. 

So our natural snail solution has lead to what will be a life long love of ducks in our garden.  They control snails and other insect pests, add fertility, are simply beautiful to have around and they bring a lovely energy into our garden and surrounds. 


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Chemical free fruit fly control

10/10/2014

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Controlling fruit fly in stone fruit in home orchards is always a challenge even when chemical control is resorted to. When the reason you bother growing your own fruit is to avoid chemicals in conventionally grown shop bought produce then chemicals are not an option. We must have tried every organic fruit fly control method but our tried and tested one is fruit fly netting. We purchased some netting from net pro in Stanthorpe QLD after learning of it from an organic gardening friend who had purchased lots of their offcuts to save money. It is not a cheap option however the net will last for many years and it really is the easiest and effective way to enjoy fly free fruit. It has the added bonus of keeping the birds off your fruit as well. It is easier to cover and uncover the trees if you make a couple of poly arches over the tree to support the net. We have planted our home orchard in a configuration which will eventually lend itself easily to netting the whole area rather than individual trees.

We love nourishing our fruit trees with the biodynamic tree paste we source from Biodynamic Agriculture Australia. For more information on this product check out their website. http://biodynamics.net.au/resources/biodynamic-paste/

Here is a photo of our trees covered in this wonderful paste after pruning.

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    Kim Deans

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