In the short space of time since the end of November 2014 I have had the opportunity to host two lovely people. First Dan came along and we had a busy week, laying out plans, revising them and then implementing stage one of fencing off the orchard from the vegie zone. This is an important task as it will allow the geese to traverse between their night pen and the orchard/olive grove zone to graze. Why? For two reasons, geese are grazers by nature and to keep them in a pen is not good for their emotional health. The second reason is so that they can mow the grasses that will grow in that zone and keep it tidy for me. Long term benefit for me is less physical work mowing the area (it is a big area). All the fence posts were driven into the ground, ready to attach the straining/chicken wire. I also have 2 proper gates to finish that fencing off. Once done I am going to put lattice around the sand pad to the back of the hot house and across to the fence which divides the house yard and paddock. The actual vegie zone has taken on a whole new look in the last month, extra gardens have been built and are now planted with summer crops, the little arbour garden was revamped and planted with annuals that will attract bees for pollination and where I had a raised timber bed, I now have a straw bale bed. That will be used to grow fodder crops for the poultry and rabbits. Thus saving on the purchase of foods for them at a high cost. My current WWOOFer, Tiphaine is from France. Such a graceful person with a lovely disposition. She has taken on all tasks set for her, even if she has problems with the language barrier. She has fallen in love with the current litter of baby rabbits and is amazed with their growth rate. Tiphaine is planning to stay up to 3 months with me, during that time she is also working for a local Olive Grove in order to get her 2nd year visa. I have enjoyed all the transformations taking place and that will take place in the next month or so as they all lead to a more balanced and easily managed system of integrated self sufficiency.
The current view of the vegetable growing zone
Tiphaine watering in the newly built straw bale vegetable bed
Long term I am working toward installing an aquaponic system in the hothouse, but this will have to wait until I can get a large framework built over the entire sand pad and a form of protection from the heat set up. Due to high temperatures that we get here, the fish would not survive the summer if I didn't do so. I will also be putting in a small pond ( design and such to be decided) in the s/w end of the orchard so the geese have access to deeper water for the summer months. So many projects and many more plans on the go. Permaculture is something that never ceases to amaze me. Designing and refining things as time goes by, perfecting those things implemented in the beginning and then sitting back a while to enjoy the spoils.
