Mad Bush Farm Diary: vegetables

Oct 20, 2015

8:46 PM -

blackberry,gardening,learning,permaculture,planting,recycling,sunflowers,vegetables,weeds

Life in the blackberry patch and it's a struggle!

This is my enemy right now. Rampant blackberry all over what used to be a garden. I've been gradually hacking away at it section by section. Oh for perfect soil and no blackberry, but all I have is hard impacted clay from years of stock walking all over it and not much else. It's disheartening to even thing about it, But over time I have coaxed what was a struggling mandarin tree to grow. This year it's twice as big as it was back in 2012. Here it is in the photo below a struggling sad tree not anymore. I put a tyre around it and started putting in horse manure and any other organic matter I could find plus a good dose of blood and bone. It worked. Each year since I've mad sure it's well fed. Someone made the mistake of suggesting I should put lime in my soil with a PH of 8.6 no way!

Here's what I did today:

Planted a Beefsteak tomato plant to join a second for our own use\
Dug out a huge blackberry root that has bugged me for years
Finished building a tyre wall in the first stage of the growing area
Prepared a bed for my Moulin Rouge sunflower seeds
Made up four more trays of seeds to germinate
Dug out heaps of unwanted Californian thistles
Listened to the third lecture in the course I'm doing with the Open Permaculture School

I've had a great day and a very productive one. I woke up this morning feeling much more grounded and with a sense of purpose. I won't say that my depression wasn't trying to get me down. It was but I carried on. I know now I've done the right thing by making a firm decision to get out of the mire I'm in and keep moving forward. I am going to make this work. Happy me!

Oct 19, 2015

2:05 PM -

gardening,horticulture,lavender,vegetables

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Starting out in a new venture at the Mad Bush Farm with things that grow

Sustainable Backyard Garden Display at Hamilton Gardens

This is my daily diary so I can keep track of what I'm doing with my future venture. After seven years of raising my kids, battling unemployment and depression with it I came to a decision. I have the land, the will and the determination to change my life. So I decided it was time to finally do something with the farm and make it pay somehow. This isn't going to easy and I have very limited financial resources. Once a while back I read about a man in the far north of New Zealand who was unemployed and only had a spade and a budget of $20 per week. He leased some land from his Iwi and has turned it into a successful growing venture. I have a spade, a pitchfork, loppers and a determined attitude that's a good start.

A few weeks ago I bought some lavender seeds from Kings Seeds and some black cummin. I planted part of the first packed of lavender seeds in a tray and hoped they would come up. I didn't expect that within three days the first of the tiny seedlings would appear! Out of the first tray I managed to get about 20 young plantlets the rest I removed as their growth was too weak and spindly. I also have Sugarsnap peas that need transplanting and some broccoli as well. It's going to take a lot of work to sort out the really difficult site I have for planting. The soil is terrible so it's going to need a lot of nuture and time. I'm prepared to do that. Wish me luck!