Farming has a steep learning curve that you don't really even know about until you throw yourself into it - like, by buying a farm or something completely silly like that - and then you find you have things to deal with you never anticipated.
So here goes with my First Year Out Organic Farming Round Up.
Eggs: Eggs from our chookies were the big winner. I've learned why every farmer keeps chooks - and why every city dweller who can keep them should do so too.
Our chooks have kept us so completely in eggs that to buy eggs would be ridiculous.
Chicks: However, our chooks have not been without failures. We've so far failed to get any chicks - no idea why, the eggs are developing, they're just getting halfway then ceasing to get to full development before hatching. We'll keep trying (well, our hens will!), but if nothing works I'll get the incubators in.
Chicken lice: With the warmer weather, our chooks have also had an infestation of lice. They pick them up from local sparrows. I've tried cleaning out the chook house with hot water, and with eucalyptus oil - neither worked. Then I tried an organic mite killer. No luck there either. So I'm about to go and get a lice bomb (conventional) and give that a go.
I'm not alone in this problem - all the chickens around our area have had the same problem. Its been a real pain - we've had to go into the chook house with rubber gloves and hair caps on (ugh), and often have showers afterwards. Chooks lice will not infect humans or spread within human populations, but they're itchy little buggers!
Free range chickens suck: OK. This is a city versus country "thing". I know it sounds all nice and natural and lovely to think of chickens roaming free, but our chooks are about to end their free range status and become chicken run chooks.
The reason is simple. We just can't plant anything without the chooks destroying it. Unless, of course, we chook proof it. Which means metres and metres of chicken wire around every single thing we want to plant. And even then sometimes the chooks get in.
The chooks have eaten my strawberries and raspberries, destroyed two flowerbeds, ate their way through my giant sunflowers (not so giant now), and trashed the driveway flowerbeds, scattering bark chips everywhere. They dig holes in the ground and rip up the lawn too.
So I'm getting together with a mate, and we're building a BIG run for them. They'll be happy. I'm also building them a portable dome, which will be able to be moved under the orchards so I can use the chooks to clean up fallen fruit when I need them to.
But their free range status is ending. It's either the chooks, or everything else. So the chooks have to be contained.
And of course I'll blog about the buildng of the extended run when we build it, probably in late January or February.
Fruit trees: So far, all of our fruit trees we've planted, except a small lemon tree which got eaten by the sheep (our stupidity in planting it in a sheep paddock and assuming the sheep wouldn't think it looked tasty), have survived. I'm calling that a success.
Radishes and lettuces: Both growing well, and keeping us in stock for salads. Success.
Hot house crops like zucchinis, chilli peppers, basil and eggplants: Yee Gawds - success! I never woulda thunk it, but they're doing well. Go me!
Cucumbers: The cucumbers are starting to grow terrifically. We're getting lots of them - enough for organic home grown, home made pickles this year! A definite success. I'll also list in the successes book the amount of work it took to get a watering system and earth floor installed in the once-defunct cucumber house. Go me!
Tomatoes and capsicums: We had our first tomatoes and capsicums this week. The plants are covered with flowers, and more fruit are developing. I'm thinking salsa, aren't you? :-) YUM!
The tomato house resembles a tropical jungle. Definite success.
Uh...the "grass" in the orchard: OK, I'll claim being an Aussie on this one. Because in Australia, where I come from (Adelaide), if you leave grass unmowed for six weeks it might get to be three inches long...maybe. If you're lucky and fertilise it and water it and sing lullabies to it every night.
Well, I did the same in the fruit tree orchard, because we'd put new trees in, hadn't put fencing up around them, and didn't want the sheep to get them, and, well, now we have a jungle in there. Grass three feet long, and I'm not kidding.
I'll go in with the brush cutter. Boy, was I dumb. But I just didn't know how fast grass will grow in New Zealand.
Orchard fruit: It is still to early to tell, because none of the fruit is ready yet, but the pear tree is covered in masses of fruit. Its looking very promising. Also looking promising are two trees that now almost certainly appear to be plums, and two more trees that I'm betting pretty solidly are apricots.
However, the peach trees seem to have some sort of disease. Not much fruit, and curled leaves. I'll take photos of the trees in another post, and see if any gardening clever-person out there knows what the problem is, and why the peaches aren't doing much.
We also look set to have figs this year on our fig trees, plus a good crop of hazelnuts, pioneer nuts and walnuts.
Wood burners: Our home does not have a wood burner. Not our decision - it never came with one. We're putting one in. But I just wanted to point out that NOT having a wood burner in the country, in a cool climate like ours, when you're surrounded by free wood, is insane.
Sheep stocking rates and general sheep dumbness: I knew nothing about sheep when we bought the farm. I'm learning...slowly. And what I've learned is that we need A LOT more than six sheep (our current number) over spring and summer to keep the grass under control here.
I'm starting to understand why people here have lambs every year. It's not just about profit. It actually makes sense from a grass growth perspective. You see, it gets the numbers of mouths up in time to eat the huge amount of grass that starts to spring up like crazy in about september time.
What we should have done is get another dozen lambs or so in early Spring, fattened them up over the big growth seasons (Spring through early summer) then sold them off for Christmas. Like everyone but us did. But we didn't know.
It's things like this that you're just clueless about when you're a newbie farmer. Never mind, we're cutting a lot of hay instead, which we'll sell off, and we'll get lambs in next year.
Fat sheep: We thought our sheep were so fat they must be pregnant. Nup. They were just fat. Really, really fat. Like, Mr Creosote-type fat. They're wider than they are tall. Huge. Massive. OK, I think you get the picture ;-)
The importance of fencing: OK, we got this one right. When we bought the place, we checked the fencing over properly. We still need to do some more internal fencing to seal off two more paddocks, but I can't emphasize this enough - if you buy a farm, it needs really good fencing. It especially at least needs adequate fencing. To keep your stock in and especially to keep other people's stock out.
Keeping gates shut: I knew about keeping gates shut in the country, having been raised in a semi-rural area, but I was a bit dumb at first about keepng the gates to our driveway closed.
That's how Johann (remember him?) got in. He just waltzed in through the front driveway.
These days we keep our gates shut all the time. We've put three new cherry trees in the driveway area, and trust me - if we didn't keep our gates shut, the local road sheep (as in, people's sheep who escape regularly and are found on the road or in YOUR poperty if you're not careful) would have had a cherry tree snack a long time ago.
The cherry trees are probably big enough to survive sheep attack now, but we're taking no risks. We're keeping the gates shut. We got this right, eventually.
All in all it has been a mixed year, with a really steep learning curve. But we're still here, and we're still learning! I'm hoping that 2011 will see me not making any of my mistakes again - but I'm sure I'll make plenty of new ones!
Happy New Year!
Have a lovely day!
