Eight Acres

When Pete’s dad bought our first electric fence energiser from a garage sale, it came with a roll of electric fence polywire that turned out to be lots of short lengths joined together with knots. When we set up the energiser with this wire it did not provide a decent shock because all the joins did not connect all the wires properly. If you have a good look at polywire you will find that it is several strands of very thin wire woven into a plastic mesh. The heavier duty more expensive polywire has more wires and stronger mesh. If you need to join two lengths of polywire, you need to make sure that all the individual wires are in contact to pass on the electrical charge down the fence. We ended up buying a new roll of polywire, and then the fence worked properly. melting the ends of the polywire Much later I came across the answer in one of the manuals that the electric fence companies give out (if you are interested in electric fencing, this is a great way to find out more, ...

I started sprouting when I read about it in Nourishing Traditions . I bought a sprouting jar with a special lid that lets you rest the jar on an angle to drain, but you don’t really need any special equipment, just a jar and some cheesecloth (or thin fabric or mesh), an elastic band and somewhere to rest it (the dish rack does a good job). My three favourite things to sprout are chickpeas (garbanzo beans), fenugreek and alfalfa. I thought I would show you some photos of my sprouting jar so you can see how quick and easy it is, and tell you how I use them. Especially for those going into winter (or yet to harvest much from a spring garden), sprouts can be a quick and cheap way to add some green to your meals, and sprouting beans can add some protein to meals without having to cook them. First the chickpeas. I just sprout these until they have little tails, and that only takes 2-3 days, then they are ready to use. Day 1: put some chickpeas in your sprouting jar, add water and l...

As I said in my garden update , we have had a bit of rain lately, mostly at the end of March, with a top up in mid-April.  Everything is green again, until the first frost of winter... which might be coming soon, it looks like the LONGEST summer is finally coming to an end and its time to start the woodstove and find the winter woolies!  I can't say I'm disappointed, the heat has been really getting to me. Cheryl wet from the rain and giving me a serious look The drain from our driveway flowing in the rain First woodstove fire for the season Even though last month I said that we sold the braford cows, I was a little premature.  We were EXPECTING to sell them in the first week of April, but we had another heat wave forecast for the weekend we needed to round them up and it seemed cruel to leave them standing in the yards in 35degC heat.  We decided to leave it to the next sale, two weeks later.  We successfully rounded up all the cows into the yards...

What a difference a few weeks can make!  Since we had the rain at the very end of March (about 100 mm) and then a top up of 30 mm in mid-April, suddenly everything is BRIGHT GREEN again and growing vigorously.  Its not going to last long though, the nights are getting cool and the grass will die off as soon as we have the first frost, along with the frost-sensitive veges like tomatoes, potatoes and curcubits. harvest basket in May 2014 In April I continued to harvest chillies, kale, tromboncino, various asian greens and herbs.  And a few rosellas.  I'm hoping I can harvest some more before they die off over winter.  With the rain and cooler temperatures, lots of seedlings sprouted up around the garden, so I sprinkled out a few more seeds.  I also planted carrots, turnips and radishes.  The radishes should be ready to harvest soon. A massive patch of parsley (which I have had to start thinning out!) and behind that is self-seeded onions tha...

Ginger ,  galangal ,  turmeric  and  cardamom  all belong to the genus Zingiberaceae, which has to be the coolest genus name ever, it sounds like something a celebrity might name their child, I think I’ll call them Zingies for short. This is one genus name that I can remember because it expresses the taste of the spicy plants it describes! I grow the first three Zingies, and now I’m curious about cardamom, because I think I could surely grow that too and apparently cardamom is the third most expensive spice after saffron and vanilla (cha ching! I am already planning our cardamom farm!). The first three Zingies are all used for their spicy tubers, which cardamom produces spicy pods, which are included in chai spice. I don’t know much about cardamom yet, so I’ll stick to writing about the ones that I grow and do some cardamom research later.  Last week I dug up my Zingies to harvest the tubers before they die back over the winter, so I thought it was a good ...

If you only have a few dairy or beef cows on your farm, it is possible to keep your cows in calf using artificial insemination (AI) and not own a bull at all. A bull can be extra work and an extra mouth to feed, but there are some advantages to keeping a bull, even on a small farm. Donald the dexter bull If you rely on AI, you will need to find a technician or vet who is willing to travel to your property. You will need to watch your cows for signs of heat, and call the vet when the cow is in “standing heat”. It may take several attempts to achieve a pregnancy if you don’t get the timing just right, and you will pay for each visit. Consider that each cow will come into heat at a different time, and if you have more than two or three cows, the costs are going to add up, and it might be worth keeping a bull. You can read the rest of my article on Farm Style..... Unfortunately our little dexter bull Donald died from lantana poisoning a few weeks ago , but before he got si...

So you've heard about the amazing work of Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm and you want to know more, but you don't know which of his books to read.... (Or you haven't heard of Joel Salatin and have no idea what I'm talking about?? What??   Catch up here ) Since we went to a seminar with Joel Salatin a couple of years ago , we've bought and read four of his books, and his dvd, so while I can't advise you on all the books, I can at least give you a preview of the ones that we own and that might help you to make a decision. You Can Farm You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise If you are thinking about farming or already own a property and want to get more out of it, this book is a good place to start.  It is not about how to farm, as in how to raise animals or how to plough a field, its about how to set up a farming business and be succesful.  Pete and I often talk over the ideas in this book, its clear...

I think most bloggers will relate to this, it is always a surprise to see which posts become the most popular!  It is never the ones that I think will be the most useful or interesting or funny, or that I've put the most effort into!  If you don't have a blog, you might be interested to know that, behind the scenes, there are lots of statistics that we bloggers can look at to figure out how many pageviews a post has had, the country people have come from and even the search terms used to get to our blogs.  I probably look at the stats more than I should, but I find them fascinating. Here are the most popular posts of all time on my blog at the moment: Chicken Tractors I don't know why my chicken tractor posts have been so popular!  I'm sure plenty of others have written about them too.  When I realised that the first post had a lot of page views, I wrote some more posts to explain the concept in more detail, I was also asked to do a guest post on chicken...