Spring is here, the tomatoes are being planted, and it’s all about the mulch. Also, we’ve had 13mm of rain! And in a season like this, 13mm warrants a celebration…
We’re also embarking on our first Permaculture Design Certificate of the season here this weekend, so the farm is a-buzz with new people & Rose is cooking up a storm (as always). The new piglets have settled in, the forest garden implementation continues, and it’s all systems go…
Team compost + mulch: Market Garden intern Jeremy, and Michael mulch the cucumbers…
Pearl oyster mushrooms rising out of the many bags of spawn made at the Mushroom Cultivation course a few weeks back
How to make it rain – lay more irrigation in the market garden! Wwoofer Linnea taking hold. 13mm might not be much, but it’s still more than zero…
After the rain the greens were jumping! Radishes, cima di rapa and spinach. Funny to think we’ll eat through all this (and much much more) in 2 weeks of the permaculture design course that starts today… humans sure do eat a lot of food…
Tomato trellises are up, and all the climbing tomatoes planted. Michael opted for re-bar for his trellises this year as we’ve learned just how heavy a full row of fruiting climbing tomato plants are!
Pastured piglets in their first patch… happy as pigs in grass, and all respecting the electric fence nicely…
Cima di rapa – oh how we love thee! One more round and then we’ll have to dream of this till winter – it’s all bolting in the heat now.
Tim Malfroy showing students a Warré beehive frame during last weekend’s Natural Beekeeping course… beautiful weekend as always, the bees were super calm, met lots of future beekeepers…
I thought I’d also share some of Rose’s kitchen snaps… these are from her catering extravaganza for the Natural Beekeeping course last weekend. In between courses the food is also pretty darn good (today’s breakfast of home-grown oyster mushrooms and broadbeans on home-made sourdough toast as a drool-worthy example)…
Borage flowers from the kitchen garden, chilling until morning tea time…
Orange cake with yogurt icing and borage flowers…
Broadbean and potato salad (home grown) with home-made ricotta…
Sourdough scones with Warré honeycomb, calendula petals and cream…
Yeah the food’s ok here. Happy Sunday everyone – what are you having for lunch?
13 Comments
Your posts are a feast for the eyes and senses, and they make my mouth water and stomach growl! Wow, great job, everyone! So, since I’m a beginner, I just want to ask, those water lines run on top of those ridges, right? Do you secure them with wire brackets, cause when I tried that they totally rusted and I got rid of them. Thanks! – Kaye
Hey Kaye, the irrigation lines stay put by themselves cause, thanks to their water,t he plants grow quickly and hold em in place! Most of them are also mulched… glad you like the look of it all!
Oh my! I’d just about sell my soul for morning tea with you guys! The orange cake and scones look simply divine and that broad bean and potato salad…
So awesome guys! Good luck with the upcoming PDC! I love reading your posts!!!
You guys will have to start a Milkwood farm recipe blog soon if you keep posting these amazing recipes teasing us
Hi there Kirsten, love Michael’s trellis ideas… suggested it back home for next year. Any chance on a orange cake recipe with the yogurt icing? I’m flush in both here in Korea at the moment.
I’ve been warned not to plant my Borage seedlings I have in seed trays as once in it is supposed to be impossible to control…the seeds etc spread everywhere…..any comment on that one?????
hmm. well it depends what you mean by ‘impossible’… ours are dotted around the gardens and we just pull out any seedlings that pop up where we don’t want them… seems pretty easy to me! Not nearly as big a deal to control as plants that spread by runners (mint/comfrey) or jerusalem artichokes – we’ve never had a problem with them as they’re easy and quick to extract from where you don’t want them? Fabulous bee forage flower, worth it just for that to heighten your garden’s pollination i rekon
I’m in So. Cal micro-climate and have borage seeds. It never freezes here. Shall I just plant them now? I want to keep flowers through the winter for bees, but my Mexican sunflowers are winding down. I don’t think borage will bloom till spring, though, right? Wish I could get a better look at those trellis’s. I really have to get something installed for my peas. Is the rebar that short bar that braces the taller bar? And what are you using for the wire? Thank you for taking the time to comment. I wish I could come there and learn from you guys, but, I will just have to make do with studying your blog.
– Kaye http://www.youtube.com/user/kittrellkaye
Y’all are just inspiring me all the time. Thanks for the updates.
One question about the bees though… I thought with Warré hives there aren’t removable frames? Because you don’t use foundation right, so the comb just kind of goes willy-nilly and you can only harvest a whole box at a time?
I’m still trying to wrap my brain around Warré, so apologies if I’m way off. I was just curious since in the photo Tim is inspecting a frame and I thought that was sort of antithetical to Warré!
Heyo – Warré hives have top bars (and sometimes side-bars) but generally not full frames – the frame Tim is holding in this image has four sides but is NOT a conventional ‘frame’ as it’s got no foundation, wires etc – it’s a left-over frame from the nucleus box that Tim delivered originally. when Tim delivers colonies, he delivers them in a single box with four-sided frames within it, to ensure that the bees can build comb that wont collapse during transport (ie to the 4 sides of the frame) but which still allows for removable frames (as required by Aussie law) as the bees build to the sides of the frame, not the sides of the box… if that makes sense…
Anyway, generally (as you can see in most of our other warré posts) the frames have top and side bars, but no base bar. This allows for inspection of frames (as required by law) but also allows bees to do their thing and draw natural comb, attaching it to the sides of the frame rather than the sides of the box
Ah, awesome! Thanks for clearing that up.
Everything looking wonderful as always Kirsten! I’m very jealous of the piglets and for some reason suddenly hungry…
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[...] favourite are the borage flowers, They are so pretty and are edible too. Check out this orange cake topped with borage flowers. [...]