"Balmoral Park" farm garden

Peter grew up on a Turkey farm so we always intended to breed turkeys when we had the space. what we didn't know was how rare they had become and how hard it is to get any turkeys other than white ones. We started off with what was supposed to be a breeding trio but poor old Bruce was well past his use by date. We later found some turkey chicks, white and slate grey, they have formed out breeding stock so far.We hope to find some blue and bourbon reds as well when we have a bit more time to put to this task. Our first lot of turkey chicks were a bit tragic as we had not realized that they can be very careless mothers and actually just knock the chickens over. Turkey chicks are not as robust as our backyard , crossbreed chickens. Our last lot of turkeys hatched out just after Christmas and the mother threw the first one out of the nest. Zoe and I rescued it and brought it into the house. As each egg hatched we also rescued them and ended up raising them in a box, with a light fo...

What a day of variable weather it was yesterday. Started off really very hot and humid and it looked like the predicted rain was not going to happen. Then about four in the afternoon it became very black, with lots of thunder and lightning. Ten minutes of very heavy rain and a little light hail followed. I just started to think that if this kept up we would finally get some water in the big dam! Must have jinxed myself because then it stopped as quickly as it had started. 14.5 mls all up so not too bad. This morning we woke up to find that instead of everything being refreshed by the rain it was covered in thick red dust. The pictures tell the story. How sad for the farmers further west who have lost all the topsoil that forms the dust. The dust storm has now extended all the way to Brisbane. Apparently a once in a life time event. We have two silkie hens sitting on four ordinary hen eggs each. Our cross breed chooks never seem to go broody so we use the silkies as incubators and the...

The second day of spring and a perfect spring day. Started off a little cool and warmed up to about 21 degrees. We had 10 mls of rain on the weekend so the garden is going quite well despite a few hot and windy days already. This week I have been doing lots of clearing away and weeding so we can see and appreciate all the lovely plants that are growing. As I was doing this I was really amazed to notice how much of our garden is now comprised of things that we have propagated, Lavender, Rosemary, Pomegranate and things that are self seeded (volunteers). The garden is also full of hardworking insects, birds and bees and my favorite volunteer, a blue tongue lizard that I credit with getting rid of the snails and slugs! On the poultry front we now have a turkey hen sitting on twelve eggs and another silkie sitting on four hen eggs. We had a bit of a calamity though with something (Peter suspects a feral cat getting into the turkey pen and killing one of the hens) When i looked at my photos...

Today it has been 26 degrees and still in winter! I am worried about the summer already, not least because we have less water in the big dam than usual. However have to keep on with the garden plan so this weekend has been a busy one in the garden. I have started planting my summer vegetable seeds in the cold frame so today have planted: Many varieties of tomatoes including: an heirloom mix Galapagos Christmas grapes cherry roma Ox heart Money maker tigerella Also Capsicum California wonder, seven color mix and Jimmy Nardello Cucumber double yield and mini muncher Zucchini Black Beauty and Tromboncino Eggplants Long Purple, Heirloom mixed and Listada di Gandia Shallot Green Asparagus Lettuce flame Tomatillo purple Lettuce crisp mint Tuscan black kale Coriander Also planted to seed a polystyrene box of mesculen mix and one of rocket We moved a small lemon tree to a new location where we hope it will flourish and planted our bay tree out from the pot into the garden. Will also plant out ...

Aquaponics, winter 2009, probably the best crop it has grown Marmalade I made with the fruit from the little citrus trees. Blood orange, orange, grapefruit and lemon..yummy and a great colour. It will be great to get more blood oranges next year. A heirloom variety of Broccoli...the kids used to call these Madonna's bra when they were little. Brassica's and colorful chard A view of the Vegetable patch More winter veg Nasturtiums and flat lead parsley volunteers! View from the backdoor Stock grown from seed, smells great! garlic and herbs Radicchio..great colour Artichokes...mostly volunteers! violets... originally these violets came from John and Margot's home in Wingham, they were Robyn neighbors. We planted them at Treetops where they were one of the great survivors...planted one here and thought it was dead and now they are everywhere...today I potted up a dozen for planting in the rose gardens.

Late autumn roses T his little succulent came from the garden at "Bindawalla", I hadn't expected it to have such a pretty flower and it has been flowering for about two months. We planted it next to a camellia that has a similar colored flower so it looks very pretty. The Pumpkin Harvest Turks Turban, one of the heirloom pumpkins I grew Joey's Garden (Before we knew Jemima we prepared a garden to plant twenty Just Joey Roses) This is the garden just before planting

Maybe if I keep trying I will get this blog thing working the way I want it to. I want it to be able to show people who are interested what we are doing and to be a record for us of what we are doing in the garden and things like climatic conditions...thought it was going to be easy but is seems a bit complex. These photos will be a bit random but this first one is Jordan, Dom and Angus, on the way down to the dam. This gives and idea of how we started the garden. This photo is Katie preparing the area for her Australian wedding, digging out cat heads, it gives a bit of an idea of how the garden was looking in March 2008. When we came here there was only a tiny little garden around the house so we fenced off a much bigger area that was basically just a cat head infested paddock! The vegetable garden ready for winter planting in May 2009.