Its been as windy as this week which has sliced all our Banana Tree leaves to shreds and even though it makes no difference to the plants it just makes them look a bit battered.  We named our little bull calf Ajax and next week I hope to start halter training him.  I have been collecting plenty of cow and horse manure over the last few weeks and have been filling up our Hugelkultur Bed getting it ready for spring planting. I have also used plenty of manure and sugar cane mulch in my orchard garden as the soil is looking a bit sad in there at the moment.  The Galloway Field Day was on the weekend at a property at Mt Tamborine and we had a great time meeting new people and learning more about the cattle.  Trevor also put gates on the shed so we can store the hay or accommodate the cattle when needed.  Still no rain but hopefully next week will be kind to us and bring the rain clouds.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture

This week has been quite exciting with our cow Sugar giving birth to a beautiful bull calf.  Trevor named him Ajax and he was born 30th May at around 8 in the morning.  Ajax is white with black points and we will have in up for sale around Christmas this year. Trevor also started on a milking station/crush where we can milk the cows when they have calves but also use it for measuring, spraying, tagging etc of the cattle  The weather man did say we were in for some good rain but unfortunately we only received 22 mls on Saturday which didn’t do much for a dam levels but 3/4 filled our tanks.  The weekend weather was pretty shocking with high winds coming off cold air.  We will be looking to the sky again this week hoping for some more rain that will hopefully restore our dam levels.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture

Still no rain which is disappointing but as they say every day gone is another day closer to the rain.  Anyways this week, which is still hot even though its Autumn,  I started the clean out of the horse paddock of  horse manure and as I didn’t get time to finish this job Trevor and Kallis helped on the weekend. All of the manure was shifting onto the Hugelkultur Bed. While digging a hole to plant another one of Kallis’s Dragon Fruit, Trevor hit one of the irrigation pipes and since this was done late in the afternoon it wasn’t until the next day we could purchase a joiner from the nearest hardware shop. While out Trevor thought it was a good chance to buy the bolts to fix the little end loader with.  Also this weekend we decided to try finding a recipe  for banana flowers as we didn’t think it was right to see them wasted.  It seems they are quite popular in Thai cooking and we found a simple salad recipe that incorporated the flower nicely.  You can see the result under our Banana Tree write up – https://genesisnovel.com/genesis-novel-pastures-and-agriculture/banana-trees/banana-flowers/

In the Orchard all the plants/trees are going well with my raspberry plants still producing and my passionfruit plant now flowering.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture

 This week a lot of planting was done in the veggie garden.  I planted some more potatoes (Ruby Lou) as well as some more onions, leeks, parsley and climbing honey peas.  We collected some more old outdoor swing sets and trampolines for my vertical garden so hopefully we can start sorting them all out over winter.  Trevor and Kallis also decided on a place for Kallis’s Dragon Fruit and they were able to get one planted out much to Kallis’s delight.  I noticed that the dam level is receding a bit now so hopefully we will be lucky and have a down pour soon to fill not just our dam but our tanks.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture  

By the end of this week we have planted some more Banana suckers which were just as big as the mother one.  Trevor has counted eight bunches of Bananas now so its going to be interesting to see how they taste and if we can sell them.  Our little Bull Calf Bert was sprayed for ticks again as even though we live in a tick area our girls have never had any but unfortunately Bert came here with ticks and now we are trying to get rid of them.  I planted some more potatoes and planted my onions as well.  I have also noticed that my Apple Tree has some young apples so that’s great as last time they were lovely.  We were also very lucky and received 14 mls of rain. My Grand Daughter also visited and spent plenty of time with the animals.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture

Ok so today is my first time at blogging so hopefully its not going to be too bad.  I started off my usual way which is, waking at 5am and starting the dam pump so as I can first water my Tagasaste plants in the top paddock and at the same time watering the Banana Trees  that are set up with sprinklers. Kallis also gets up the same time, during the week, to feed the cattle and the horse before he gets ready for his early morning bus trip to school and Trevor has to do his usual hour and a bit drive to work.  In my personal garden today I replanted my capsicums into the covered area as I believe it has been just too  hot for them in the open.  I also planted a knew purple capsicum so hopefully it does well.  After planting them I watered them with Epson salts as this is suppose to promote better peppers.  I also planted some purple carrots as they are Kallis’s  favourite. Weeding the vegetable garden was also accomplished and the planting of a new Passionfruit vine.

I have been using my personal  orchard for experimenting on growing a variety of plants that we may be able to use as a source of income in the future.  After growing pumpkins, cucumbers and watermelons in our Hugelkultur Bed I decided they all took up too much room and it was way too messy, so after pulling them all out, as they have all finished production, I have decided today to try vertical growing on all my vines including the strawberries.

All up today was a good one with my nice tomatoes I picked from my garden and with the dark clouds it would be perfect if it rained.

Jody Reeves – Genesis Novel Pastures and Agriculture