August 24, 2012 – 6:00 am
This winter I was determined, nay, rabid, about finally purchasing all the apple trees we would need to have a steady supply of appley goodness in 4 years time at Milkwood Farm. We’ll have heaps of time to plant them all out to their vaguely appointed destinations before bud-burst, I thought.
However, what with moving into the Tinyhouse, various on-farm mini dramas, a tangle of other priorities and the unfortunate passage of time, guess what happened. Yep, it’s nearly blossom-o-clock, and our fabulous fruit trees are all still bare-rooted, sitting in a bag of sawdust. But there is a solution. Read More »
November 6, 2007 – 12:00 am
The Loquat tree next door at Kirwin is a mighty beast – and it is much beloved by many of the birds hereabouts. Its got dense green foilage year round, doesn’t give a toss about frost, becomes a humming tree in winter as the bees go crazy with all of its blooms, and then has masses of fruit before Christmas. If only I could strike it from cuttings… but apparently it grows well from seed – yay. It is definitely a power tree and i want as many as i can possibly have all over Milkwood.
While poking about in my nursery, which sits underneath this great specimen, today I discovered a new little friend on the ground. He’d fallen out of his nest which is way, way up at the very top of the tree (a sort of messy openwork arrangement of sticks), and from the look of his anxious mother, he is a red Wattlebird. Given that Cobba, the kelpie sheepdog, is also housed under the Loquat, i thought I’d make the little cheeper a temporary nest to prevent him from becoming Cobba’s supper. Read More »
October 7, 2007 – 5:28 pm
As I think I’ve mentioned, this part of Australia is, although it doesn’t look it at first glance, a labyrinth of abandoned settler’s orchards. Every farm around here seems to have at least two of these gnarly fruit-thickets over in a back paddock somewheres.
These old orchards are the only sign left of previous shacks and farmhouses which dotted the landscape here over a hundred years ago, during the gold-rush years. Read More »
