May

Lavender field as at end May 2011


Vegetable garden as at end May 2011


May began with three of P's friends coming over to give us a hand shifting logs, rounds and firewood out of our bottom paddock. We hired a log splitter and P and I took turns to split the wood we already had, and the guys split the stuff they gathered and took it away with them. I looked at all the wood we had split and estimated we had a couple of years worth there. Now I'm not too sure.

Over the course of the next week we moved the split wood into the newly cleaned out woodshed and stacked it nicely on pallets. P had put up polythene to catch the drips, but had to modify it a few times as the wind and rain got hold of it. It is now fairly water-tight.

Not content with just building a new woodshed, P is now working on a carport to keep the tractor and bits dry. His first attempt, using a large tarpaulin as a roof, didn't work very well. So he's back to the drawing board but not out.

Also at the beginning of May T came around and we pruned the lavender.

In April we were complaining about the lack of feijoas this year. Our neighbours gave us a whole bagful. And then this month our trees suddenly started dropping an abundance of fruit that I hadn't even noticed on the trees. We had so much I didn't know what to do with it all. I discovered making it into a feijoa juice drink was quite nice. Scoop the pulp of four feijoas into a bowl, add a quarter cup of sugar, and pour some boiling water over the top to dissolve the sugar. Leave to cool. Once cooled, strain the juice into a jug and top up with cold water. It's pretty much the same recipe for making passionfruit juice too, but we didn't really have any of those this year.

We bought a new ride on lawn mower from the Lifestyle Farmers Field Days at the end of May. A John Deere. We've been using the tractor to cut the grass pretty much since we moved in here, and it really rips up the ground. Also can be tough to manouver, and feels a bit scary driving on the slope under the fruit trees. I've wanted to get a real ride on mower for ages, but the one I really want is probably upwards of $10k. We deliberated for a while before deciding to get this one as there are good points and bad points. It’s slower than the tractor but can get a lot closer and turn in smaller circles. It mulches the grass and spits it out to the side unfortunately right under the adjacent row of lavender but at least it doesn’t leave great clumps of grass behind like the tractor does. It did a good job on the hill under the fruit trees. So far I'm pretty happy with it. We also bought a leaf blower as it was recommended to use one of these to blow the grass clippings away from the mowing deck everytime you finish using it.

The vegetable garden is empty at the moment. My next job is to plant some broccoli and spring onion seedlings (no more trying to grow from seed) for the winter and put more mustard seed down in the rest of the garden. I'm going to give broccoli another go over winter when the cabbage moths aren't around and see how it goes. I'm also going to make up some proper compost with the horse poo and sawdust the neighbours gave us, the rotten timber from the old woodshed, and the lavender clippings.

-M