Community Compost Bank

Let me start with a quote from Organic Growing with Worms by David Murphy that totally blows my mind.

'...the organic matter (OM) content of the world's agricultural soils, which used to be 20 percent, now averages less than 1 per cent. If that were raised to 5 per cent to plough depth (approximately 25 cm) 150 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide would be sequestered into the soil...Annualy, our world generates about 15 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.'

So that means that if we raise the OM content of our agricultural soils from 1 to 5 per cent, we can sequester 10 years worth of carbon dioxide in our soil. Well then. That's good news, isn't it. There is hope yet and it lies under our feet. If that's not motivation to:

1. Compost at home
2. By organic food to support organic farmers who's farming practices increase OM in soil
3. Hate the idea of letting your organics go to landfill to produce methane

then I don't know what is.

I read Organic Growing with Worms many years ago but re read it in preparation for some composting workshops I was giving. This and a few other books I've read recently have made me totally recommit to buying organic. It also made me bring to reality an idea I've had lurking around since completing my PDC last year - starting a community composting bank at Hilton Harvest Community Garden.

We've had compost bays at Hilton Harvest for several years and they work super well turning our garden refuse, chook straw, grass clippings, mulch etc into lovely compost. But as bays are made in 'batches' it was tricky to let people just wander in and add their every day kitchen scraps. Also kitchen scraps could attract (more!) rats to the garden if left in an open bay. We have also started lots of weekly activities in the garden and didn't have a dedicated bin for that either (though the chooks and the worms took some, they are behind our locked part of the garden so not easily accessible to everyone). Another motivating factor was seeing the cafe up the road chuck all their waste into one bin (yes, I had a rummage) which meant precious organics were leaving our suburb and heading to landfill.

So at the end of last year I applied for and received a grant for just over $2,000 from our WA Waste Authority to implement the idea of a community compost bank made from several darlik style bins. And here it is!

 

With my fabo Monday Morning gardening crew, we installed the bins a couple of months ago. We have nine at the moment but room for more if we need. In Perth where it gets so hot in summer we  set them up in the shade. We also put mouse mesh on the bottom and dug them in around 20cm to keep them stable and vermin proof. Already lots of people are using them - so exciting to see. We even got into the local paper! And just this week we got the sign in too! Hooray!

And I'm pleased to report that the Local Cafe is totally onboard. We didn't really give them much choice truth be told. Here are their instructions for the kitchen, new labeled bins and their green wheelie bin which we roll down the road to the garden each week to empty. The system works and I'm chuffed.

'Amy, what is permaculture?'

A couple of months ago my good friend Shani (from Ecoburbia) revved me up to finally do my Permaculture Design Course. It had been on my bucket list for ages and I felt like I needed some inspiration. It would also be a good chance to binge on exclusive Shani time - we are often busy and when we do catch up there's usually a million other things going on. So we took the plunge and booked our course, booked our AirBnB, kissed the family goodbye and headed over to Sydney for two weeks. Eep! Two weeks away from home! It was the longest I'd ever been away from my boy - flying all that way for all that time was a big deal for me. Was it worth it? Oh my. Yes.

We were just a bit excited on the first day.

The good folks at Milkwood really know their stuff. Our facilitators were Hannah (from Good Life Permaculture) and Brendon (from, well, I don't really know, just the world I think). They were not only fantastic facilitators but they taught us deep from the depths of their experience and generously dished it out for us day after day.

The first few days covered the ethics and principles of permaculture and for that bit we were lucky enough to have David Holmgren (co-founder of permaculture) teach us. When he walked in the room there was a hush and it was a bit like Jesus had just entered to bring us the good news that could save us. It was very exciting. David is just simply a lovely guy - humble, generous, wise and fun.

We went through the design process where we really learned how important observation is. We learnt about different systems to be aware of (climate, water, soil, etc). We then touched on some different elements you could include in a garden/farm system like bees, compost, aquaponics, annual garden (veggies), trees, and more. During all of this we all worked on our individual design projects, then our group project.  I loved it all, especially our group project. We were a great team - hilarious, kind and productive.

After the first few days Shani and I started playing the 'What is permaculture?' game on our walks home from the community centre to our AirBnB. It was to prepare us for questions from our partners and friends when we returned. It goes something like this:

Amy: Shani, what is permaculture?
Shani: Thank you for asking, Amy. Well, it's a design process. Um. And there are ethics and principles you follow to make your place efficient and so it provides what you need. And it's about the function of elements and how you use them. Or something. Augh! Your turn Amy. Amy, what is Permaculture?
Amy: Thank you for asking Shani. Permaculture is... uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm. It's a way to design your space with elements that interconnect and are multi-functional so you're more resilient. And it's also about your life and your lifestyle and your community. No, that's not really it either!

This conversation went on for two weeks and we never really nailed the definition. But for the record, here is David Holmgren's definition of permaculture: 'Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs'. I won't go through the ethics and principles. You can google that. But for my own purposes of revision I'll try to remember all the interesting and practical things I learned about and want to implement here at home and in the community:

More perennials - we mostly have natives out the front, but slowly we've been adding food plants like olives, soft fruit trees, and a macadamia. I'd like to add sweet potato, asparagus, ginger, rhubarb to make a lower story, ie more food forest style. If you have space and water, perennials are good because they are low maintenance, deep rooted and give you food.

Community composting - I was so inspired by Hannah's work on her various community projects and the idea of community permaculture I wanted to start community composting at Hilton Harvest. So I've chatted to the local cafe who are happy for us to take their food waste and I've applied for a grant from our Waste Authority for heaps of compost bins. So fingers crossed!

Composting toilets - because it is barbaric to pollute clean water with our poo.

Bees - I had thought this would be a bit of a longer term project, but a friend asked if we could host his hive the other day so maybe we can learn the skills a bit more quickly!

Trenches - to stop water runoff in our front garden. Slow, store and sink the water.

Mulch pits - for fungusy soils between the fruit trees. This one is already done, both at home and at Hilton Harvest.

So, you can see we have heaps of jobs to be getting on with. But the best things I took away from the course were hope, inspiration and wonderful memories of spending two weeks with a beautiful bunch of people who are all on their own exciting journeys. It was a little bit of magic when we all crossed paths and walked together for that two weeks.

Fruit fly control

We had about 500 people visit us for Sustainable House Day and about 200 asked me about fruit fly control (mostly due to this article in the local paper).

Fruit fly are a huge problem in West Australia and many other parts of the world and people struggle to control them. These days few people want to use nasty chemicals which many commercial growers still use. People are also busy so they don't want time consuming methods. So, here's my solution: a chemical free, set and forget method I call 'Net and Forget'.

We have two types of fruit fly here, the Queensland and Mediterranean types. Here's an example of public enemy number one.

First things first. This method works best for stone fruit and apples, for citrus see lower down. The first thing you need to do is prune your tree to a maximum height of 2-2.5 metres. This makes everything you do on the tree easier: pruning, harvesting, pest and disease control, netting, etc. Fruit above 2.5m will rarely be harvested anyway and will fall to the ground and spoil. Using ladders is dangerous and not even I want to risk a fall for a few fruits. Fruit trees are very hardy so don't worry about hurting the tree when you prune. The best time of year is after fruiting in autumn.

So, now you've got your compact tree you can start on infrastructure.

You'll need the following:

Four 2m lengths of re-bar (steel reinforcing bar), 12mm gauge. Sold at your hardware store (cost $28).

Poly ethylene 25mm pipe, approximately 8-10m per tree. This is high density poly pipe which is strong and flexible. Sold as Vinidex PE pipe here in WA at hardware stores in the plumbing section (not retic). Costs $2/m in 25m rolls =$20/tree.

One nut and bolt larger than 50mm. Cost $2.

Fruit fly netting with 2mm mesh. These come in a variety of sizes and you'll need to measure your tree to find out the size you need. The best I've seen are from Green Harvest online, the 2.5 x 2.5m ones are great (cost $80). They're also sold locally at Dawson's and Bunnings.

Place the rebar half a metre into the ground so you have 1.5m protruding. These need to be placed around the tree in a square approximately 2m apart.

Then slot the PE pipe over one length of rebar and over to the other corner diagonally. Do this again with the other corners and you have a dome a bit like a tent.

Drill holes in the centre of the pipes to attach the pipes to each other with the nut and bolt.

This is your frame finished and you can leave it up all year if you want.

Then you throw the exclusion net over the frame and weigh it down at the bottom with some stones or branches. Now your tree is fully protected from fruit fly! You should put the netting on when all pollination has finished of course and do it soon since fruit fly can lay eggs when fruit is as small as a pea. When you've finished harvesting you should remove the net and store it ready for next year. Below is our apricot tree in the front garden.

If you think you may have fruit fly larvae in the soil under your tree place a trap inside the net for the first year, after that you should be OK. You can also do this for a week or so if you've trapped any flies inside your net. My favourite traps are Cera Traps and you can buy them locally at Dawson's or Bunnings or online at Green Harvest.

The cost of this system is hefty: up to $130 per tree. But the frame will last forever and the netting should last 5 years if you take care of it. So, over 20 years that's less than $20 a year. Think about the money you'll save on buying fruit too, how much do fresh organic apricots cost these days? Probably $20 a kilo, so if you get a kilo of apricots then you've made your money back.

One note: double grafted trees are not great for netting. One half often flowers at a different time to the other and it's very hard to net half a tree! For this reason I do not recommend buying multi graft stone fruits or apples.

A quick and easy method is to just buy the net and throw it over the tree canopy. Then tie it to the trunk and you're done. Any fruit which falls is caught by the net too. You will find that branches and leaves grow into the net and get distorted using this method.

What about citrus I hear you ask. Well, citrus are tricky because often you'll have flowers at the same time as mature fruit due to the slow ripening of citrus. This means you can't net them because pollinators need access to the flowers so you'll need to go for trapping. Again, I recommend Cera Trap, an organic and very effective type. Place a few of these around your garden for maximum effect. You can make your own traps with old plastic bottles with holes drilled into them and there are plenty of homemade trap recipes on the web.

Now, sit back and relax while your fruit ripen!

Sustainable House Day - We're OPEN!

For some strange reason we are opening our house for Sustainable House Day again this Sunday. It's a lot of work in preparation but we love it. We've opened before in 2011 and in 2013 and we remember the fun of chatting to people about gardening, PV, chooks and bikes all day. What a wonderful way to spend a day! What we tend to erase from our memory is the weekends full of weeding, planting, sweeping... but what the heck, I actually enjoy that kind of work anyway and our garden needs a good spring clean every few years so it's good motivation. We're exhibitionists, so we're just embracing it!

Looking through all the amazing houses that will be open this year I have stopped to wonder why we should open ours. Many of the other houses are new builds, all 100% solar  passive and 9 star rated. Their houses look like Ikea magazines (minus the disposable furniture I hope!) and are all neat and shiny. Our house, by comparison looks like granny knitted it, what with our fridge worm farm, our chooks and our scruffy native garden (yes, that is a knitted wheelbarrow below).

Our house is a 1960’s brick veneer house which provided many challenges to retrofit to be more sustainable and energy efficient. We are located on the south side of a hill with a beautiful gum tree to our north (which we can't bare to chop down) and to start with we had no north facing windows. So there is no way we would even be on the star rating scale. Since we bought the house in 2001 we’ve made heaps of changes. But the main change has been with us, as in, our behaviour.

We are firm believers in behaviour change as a significant part of the solution to our current environmental crisis. One of the most inspiring person I've met, Colin Ashton-Graham (a behaviour change economist) starts his presentation like this:

See these light globes? Tell me, which one uses the least amount of power.

And of course everyone votes for either the LEDs or the CFLs and Colin goes, 'Sorry folks, the one that uses the least amount of power is the incandescent globe. It's the only one that is switched off.' Ha! That's how clever Colin is! He then goes on to explain that a sustainable house with unsustainable people in it is less sustainable overall than an unsustainable house with sustainable people in it. Our everyday choices like turning lights off when not needed, opening up the house to let in cool sea breezes in summer, only having one fridge, cooking more at home with local, organic produce, riding more, getting into community and purchasing less crap are central to sustainability. Having the latest sustainability gadget isn't really our thing (unless its bikes, that's Adam's weakness!).

So, while we do have some interesting stuff to show, especially our garden, we also hope the behaviour stuff will rub off too. Anyway, come and visit. We're open from 10am to 4pm this Sunday, September 13 - be lovely to meet you!

Look what I found just around the corner

I went for an amazing and beautiful bushwalk the other day. Even though we are at the start of winter we saw some gorgeous and delicate wildflowers - Calatryix (the pink star flower), Hovias (the purple pea flower), sun dew flowers and more.

 Plus, of course, the robust and unique Mensies Banskias, or Firewood Banksias and this particularly massive Australian Christmas Tree and this awesome Golden Orb Spider. I know the bush is this beautiful but what I didn't know was that this particular bit of bush it was hidden just around the corner from my place. 

   

The walk was hosted by the lovely Kate Kelly from Save Beeliar Wetlands who is passionate about our local bush and thinks it's rather a mistake to plough a six lane highway through it. Our idyllic one and a half hour walk was the route of the proposed Roe 8 highway, a part of the Perth Freight Link. According to the Rethink the Link mob:

'The Perth Freight Link is a $1.6 billion, 13 km 6-lane heavy vehicle freeway that will divide suburbs and destroy ecologically sensitive land.'

Kate reckons around 96 ha of this kind of bush will be destroyed and will result in keeping about 10% of trucks of our suburban roads. For a while. Until the Fremantle Port reaches its capacity, which it nearly has. The message the Rethink the Link group is putting out is that the freight can go on rail and the Outer Harbour in Kwinana Port, which is planned for, should be built asap. 

Everyone knows that more roads equals more congestion. Roads are not the way of the future. They are from the olden days when we all wanted to hunker down in our individual quarter acre block and drive our gas guzzeling individual death traps of cars around so we didn't have to see, hear or know the existence of our neighbours. We didn't realize the effect this was having on our collective psyche or our health or the health of the planet. We now know cars suck. What we really want is fewer roads so we get to crisis gridlock on the roads then those able bodied among us can get on our bikes, breath clean air, be healthy and connected to community again. That, my friends, is the way of the future. I wrote to Mr Barnett to express my views. Here's my letter:

Dear Mr Barnett,

I'm writing to express my deep concerns about the Perth Freight Link project. The project will not have the effect the government wants, at $1.6 billion it will be expensive and come at the cost of our precious urban wetlands and the connectedness of our community.

This project is poor urban planning and will devastate communities who live beside the the new road. It will slice us in half. Big roads are not conducive to parents walking with prams, kids riding to school or bike riders. No-one wants to live in a city where the only way to get around is by car.

My family enjoy visiting the Beeliar wetlands often on weekends. We ride our bikes around the lake and enjoy spotting swans, snakes and even occasionally long neck turtles. PLEASE don't destroy this. It's a rare and beautiful piece of wilderness right by our back door. The same is true of the corridor of bush that had been set aside for the road. When Roe 8 was planned decades ago I'm sure we didn't know how precious our remnants of bush would be amongst our current landscape of urban sprawl. Don't squander it for the sake of a road, the world does not need more roads, it needs trees and bush. Every remnant is precious.

I am also concerned about the effect of more trucks on the roads and the pollution they will bring us. Research shows that more roads only means more traffic. Thankfully there is a solution which is to rebuild and incentivise the use of rail for cargo to and from the port of Fremantle.

I suspect the government is severely underestimating the community opposition to the Perth Freight Link. People have been working on this campaign for decades and there is no sign their determination is dwindling. Please do not be arrogant. Listen to us. We don't want it. We don't need it. We can't afford it. The last thing this world needs is a new road.

Yours etc

It was satisfying to write.

Let us collect lettuce seeds

I really used to lament over our hot dry Perth summers. Last year we had no summer crops because we were away for seven weeks and as we gardeners know, a good food garden needs daily attention so we just didn't bother. But this summer, so far has been fantastic. We have had a bumper tomato crop, heaps if apples, bananas, boysenberries, lettuce and lots of other veggies.

Our new wicking bed is crankin' and will hopefully keep us in greens for a while to come. But of course, as seasons flow, some crops finish.

One patch of lettuce bolted a couple of months ago and now it's time to collect the seed. If you're new to seed collecting, lettuce is a great one to start with. I've been saving these seeds, which I originally got from our good friend Ben, for several years. They are red cos lettuces.

So first if all you need to do is resist picking from your best lettuce plants. Just let three or four go to seed. They look like this with fluffy seed heads when they are ready to collect.

Once they flower, seed and dry you just take the seeds. So simple. I just roll the seed head in my fingers to loosed the seeds and let them fall into a container.

And there they are, all ready for my next crop which will be in a few weeks time. I'm really trying to keep the greens rolling this summer. I have to remember how lucky we are in Perth - with care, we can grow most veggies most of the year round.

Commuting: electric bike is best

I have a 20km journey to work. Over the years I've made this trip by car, bus, bike and electric bike and the latter is my mode of choice these days. It ticks all the boxes: low emissions, time, health, cost and pleasure. So, let's go into the reasons. The table below shows the ratings for the criteria I think are important and I'll go through them one by one.

Mode of transport	Emissions	Cost	Time (minutes)	Health	Pleasure
Car	High	High	30	Poor	Low
Public transport	Low	Medium	75	Poor	Medium
Bike	Very low	Low	50	Good	High
Ebike	Low	Very low	40	Very good	Very high

Emissions from cars has impacts on both climate change and localised particulate pollution (eg smog). Most forms of public transport also emit these, however because they transport many people at a time the emissions are much lower. There are no emissions from a bike, except possibly methane escaping in the saddle area! The emissions from ebikes are minimal. My 40 km round trip uses about 1kWh of energy and since we have solar panels most of this is from renewable resources.

The costs of running a car are huge. It's estimated that the average Australian car costs about $12,000 a year to run. This includes registration, insurance, fuel, maintenance and depreciation in value. On fuel alone it is the most expensive way to commute by far. I'm amazed to read in the news that Australian's number one financial worry is the cost of power, when the cost of running a car is far higher. My 40km round trip costs $20 a day if you calculate it at 50 cents per km. If I did that every work day of the week it would cost around $5,000 a year. The cost of public transport is quite high too. My return journey costs $6.60 a day. Riding a bike is free and the ebike costs around 25 cents to charge. I've put the cost as very low due to the fact I don't go to the chiro any more (see health section). The exercise I get means I don't need to go to a gym to  stay fit. Three years ago we replaced our second car with an ebike and we've probably saved $8,000 a year since then. Here's the old bomb off to the scrap yard.

Time is the only area where the car wins and time is precious. The big loser here is the bus. I have to walk to the bus stop, wait a few minutes, get off the bus and change at Canning Bridge, then wait a few more minutes until the next bus arrives and then walk for a few minutes when I get off the second bus! The bike beats this easily and the ebike isn't far behind the car.

Health is a big deal, in fact it's one of the most important things in life. There is no exercise value in driving a car and since most of us sit behind a desk all day that's not good. I've also had two accidents on the way to work in the last eight years, with people rear ending me resulting in minor whiplash both times. Except for the walking bit public transport isn't much better. In fact, if you consider the fact that you have to be in close proximity to people who may be sick it could be worse. The health benefits of riding a bike are huge. Why did I put good for bike and very good for ebike I hear you say. This is what I've found: riding a bike is good exercise but it's also very tiring. This can cause wear and tear on the body and result in injuries. This doesn't apply with ebikes. I can set the level of assist on my ebike to suit how hard I want to push my body and this means if I'm a bit sore I take it easy and still get to work on time. I've also found that I ride my ebike much more than the normal bike. There's no exercise value in a bike collecting dust in the shed. These days I ride to work three times a week (I work 3 or 4 days a week). In the past I've had chronic back problems which need regular trips to the chiro (every 2-3 weeks), but since I've started riding so much I don't need the chiro any more. This probably saves me about $800 a year.

Pleasure is different for everybody, but I find I get the most out of riding my ebike. I love the feeling of gliding along without too much effort, of overtaking cars stuck in traffic along the freeway bike path and of arriving at work energised and ready for the day. The down side is the weather, but we're lucky in Perth. It's mostly sunny and rain rarely stops me riding. I quite like going by bus too because I can relax and day dream or read a book. The car I just find frustrating, you have to concentrate so much and the traffic and waiting at lights is just boring.

So there you go, that's my take on commuting. And here's the bike I use, a Workcycles Fr8 with an Ezee electric conversion. 10,700km on the clock and going strong. I can load it up with enough gear to go away for a 4 day work trip and can pick and drop Quin from school too.

New roof

Having just finished the reno the last thing on our minds was spending more money. Then one thing led to another and we ended up splashing a lot more cash.

Firstly, Quin was diagnosed with a mould allergy. This meant that our slightly leaky roof was a big problem and possible allergy trigger. Then our builder recommended a roofer to us and said you won't regret going to tin from terracotta tiles, it will make your house way cooler in summer and warmer in winter. This sold us of course! We love our old house but she ain't the best insulated and we suffer a bit in the more extreme months.

So, tin it is. It cost an arm and a leg ($15,000) for the new roof, including Anticon insulation underneath for the best thermal rating. We are very happy with the early results, no leaks and it looks mint. We'll give an update when the thermometer reaches 40C, which will hopefully happen later rather than sooner.

Now, no more spending for us after a crazy expensive year. Let's see if we can pay off the mortgage before it all goes belly up again!

New PV system

We first got PV (photo voltaics or solar power) 6 years ago and the 1.1kW system has done us well. We recently had a new roof put on so we had to remove the solar panels and I thought it might be a good idea to upgrade our PV system at the same time. This is how the old system looked.

The 1.1kW system cost us $6,500 and in 2010 we qualified for the new WA Feed in Tariff (FIT). This pays us about 48 cents a kWh that we feed to the grid. The FIT runs for 10 years to 2020. A while ago our energy provider (Synergy) decided to reduce the amount they paid people who don't get the FIT for power fed to the grid from parity to what they charge their customers (28 cents) to about a third of parity (8 cents). That got me thinking, when the FIT ends what will our power bills cost us? The amount shocked me, about $600 a year for us measerly 5kWh a day users. I thought well I'll just upgrade my system in 6 years time and we'll be right. Then I thought wait a minute, why don't we upgrade now and the new, bigger system will pay itself off much more quickly with the FIT. I checked the rules which state that you can keep the FIT if you keep your original inverter. Luckily we got a larger inverter than our system required, a SBA 1700 which allowed for a bigger system.

So, now to choose new panels and sell the old. I thought it would be hard to sell the old Kaneka thin film panels considering new panels sell for under $1 a watt these days. However I was pleasantly surprised when an ad in Gumtree got many people interested. The first offer was $900 for the 1.1kW Kanekas, an offer I couldn't refuse. It turns out that the buyer wanted to upgrade his own system and needed that vintage Kanekas to be compatible with his other panels.

 We were told that we could overload the inverter by placing some panels facing west and some north, so we decided on around a 3kW system. The choice of panels was between Yingli, Daqo and REC. The first two are good quality chinese panels, the third very good quality European. We decided on the RECs which should give better performance over a longer period of time and have a world leading energy payback time of one year. The REC 260PE polycrystalline panels are now installed in two strings of 6 panels, giving us 3.12kW. This is the west facing, tilted array on the garage roof.

And here's the North facing array with the solar hot water system alongside.

This upgrade cost us around $4,600 including removal of the old panels. Subtract the $900 we got for the old panels and the total cost was $3,700. It should pay itself off in about three and half years and then we'll have another two and a half years of FIT before we go back to the stingy rate. Our power bills will be in the negative (ie a credit) for the foreseeable future so the money is a great investment as well as good for the environment. Despite being bigger in kW, this system is much smaller in physical footprint and this allowed us to move the solar hot water system further up the roof into a less shady spot.

Now, let the sun shine all day and the rain come at night...

A preemptive strike against feral honey bees

We had an emergency situation here yesterday. Who did we call? Batman! The situation was a imminent swarm of feral honey bees about to move in to our nesting box. We noticed quite a few scouts hanging around and really did not want a swarm on our hands. Its happened once before and its quite frightening. Bees are loud and serious when they swarm and if they move in to a nesting box they will sting and kill baby 28s and make their hive. 

We called Joe from Natsync (aka Batman because he loves bats, possums and parrots - in fact all things Australian native). He was here in a flash to rid the box of curious bees armed with his bee suit and ready to unleash his secret weapon! Actually he didn't need the suit for just a few scouts so Quin quickly tried it on!

                             

He took the box down and we found a dead fledgling in it. It was quite a mature one and Joe suspected that it was stung but probably the brothers and sisters had escaped. 

Luckily we had the secret magic bee repellent growing in the chook yard - wormwood! Joe packed it in a little mesh thing and placed it in the box. We put the box a little lower in the tree so in future we can stuff wormwood in the box ourselves next time it attracts the attention of some unwanted bee scouts.

So now our nesting box is all go for another clutch of 28 eggs. We're hopeful. Only a few hours later the box was being inspected by a lovely couple of 28s. I could just hear them chatting to each other. 'It looks lovely inside, Love'. 'Hmm, but its a little low on the tree, Dearest'. 'Yes, but you know, its all about location...'

We hope they move in!

Mulberry season!

Perth is a tough place to grow food. However, there are a few exceptions - sweet potato, olives and most fun of all, mulberries. Here in our suburb, there are several cracker mulberry trees right on the verge. Great big trees, great for climbing and getting mulberry stains on your school uniform. 

Luckily we often ride to school and we have been watching the fruit on our favorite tree getting plumper and darker over the last week or so. And now they are ready to pick!

We picked enough to take some home and put in a pie. Funny thing was we collected them in an unused doggy poo bag. That freaked me out a bit because from the outside of the bag it looked like we were the very responsible owner of some kind of massive great dane. 

Anyway, once home we whipped up this yummy pie: 

• Short crust pastry: half a cup plain spelt flour/half a cup wholemeal flour or what every flour you prefer, a few tablespoonish scoops of butter. Rubbed in to the flour, add a tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt, add a little dash of water and a little dash of milk and combine with a butter knife. Not sure why we always use a butter knife to mix it, but my Granny said this was essential. Who am I to question her wisdom?
• Mulberry mix: chuck in a good few handfuls of mulberries (no need to destalk), a peeled and grated granny (fruit, not the Grandparent), and a tablespoon of brown sugar - no water as the berries are full of juice. Let it reduce a bit. 
• Roll out the pastry, put it in a greased pie dish and pour in the mulberry mix and bake, 180 degrees for 20 mins or so.

Vola! Great with whipped cream!

I just love making use of food that would otherwise go to waste. Mulberries are so sweet and fragile, they only last on the tree a day or two before they drop and are ruined. So while they are in season its great to take advantage of them. You can munch them straight from the tree or you can juice them. We also freeze them in containers to keep us going between seasons. People often ask how they can get berries plastic free - well this is the answer for Perth peeps! They are great on ice cream or in smoothies after they have been frozen. You can also make mulberry jam - but be warned they are very low in pectin so you will need to add heaps of lemon juice (which can effect the flavour) or add commercial jamsetta. 

Go forth with your doggy poo bag and enjoy the bonanza!

Blooming again

The garden is looking blooming marvellous again, so here are some pics.

The self pollinating almond is in full flower, we're hoping for a bumper crop to make up for disappointing yields in the past.

The broad beans are flowering with some beans set already. Yum!



The apricot has just started to flower. Amy didn't want me to prune it this year so I told her it's up to her to take care of the fruit fly!

The grape vine is just starting to shoot, hopefully we'll get fruit and shade from this.

One of our banana plants has a big bunch (250+) on, hoping to harvest by Christmas.

The apple tree is in blossom, these should fruit in November-December.

The macadamia tree has shot away this year, we're crossing our fingers for our first nuts this year...

The natives are looking good. This is a flower of Kunzea baxteri.

The newly planted dwarf Wurtz avocado tree is shooting, a sure sign it has settled in well.

Most exciting of all is that two of our three olive trees are flowering (Manzanillo and Corratina varieties). This is the first time for these trees three and four years after planting. We can't wait to harvest our own olives in April after years scrounging local verges for them.

The weeds are doing well too. Our arch nemesis soursop is everywhere in the front garden, which is a shame because it makes the garden look so samey. Next year we'll get on top of this so we can have an open garden hopefully.

The favourite with local honeyeaters, Calothamnus quadrifidus.

The mango is looking good despite not having any protection from the cold this winter.

Close up, Calothamnus quadrifidus.

After a few dry weeks we just got 20mm of rain, so we're happy campers...