Hanging out with the chickies!

Check out our new chickie babes. Mrs Chicky is an English game. She was clucky so we let her sit on some of the Bantam Rhode Island eggs. She turned out to be a good mum. Now she’s started something - a Rhode Island hen has just decided she’d like to sit too. I guess we’ll have more in another month.

Cabbages in the office

**This is from 25th October as spring has hurried on now and it’s got busy and I haven’t had much time to post.**


It’s been a very wet spring here this season and my peas rotted in the ground - so did my neighbours, and even my friends in town, and they’re right near coast. Cabbages have done pretty well though. I think Lisa is sick of hearing about the cabbages. She calls them ‘Findhorn’ cabbages - after the community in Scotland that reputedly grew giant vegetables, helped by the plant spirits, or devas. She likes eating cabbages more than me, though - I’m just the grower. Maybe she just dreams of giant cabbages, she is of Scottish descent after all.

My office, the BC garden, is looking a bit improved but not as good as last year at this time - although I have concentrated on a brassica crop this spring instead of as many potatoes. We’ve got potatoes in to come on after the brassicas but it’s been so wet I wasn’t able to put as much time into the garden as I would have liked. Still, it’s not looking too bad, and we’ve got food in the “hungry gap”. In fact we’re still eating the last of the apples and there’s plenty of dried chestnuts left as well as some maize and beans. We won’t starve.

Together with the Earth, our work in the garden provides for our bodies and nature provides beauty. So, here’s my office - and 'cabbages' for our souls.

Lucy and the Organic Vegie Pizzas at the end of the World

Our friend Lucy came to visit from far off WA.

Of course it was an opportunity for Lisa to make vegie pizzas (from the garden - food meters about 10)

Sorry, no pictures of the pizzas -  eaten too quickly - bad for you, good for us :)

We took her to see Marrawah - very nearly on the edge of the world

 

Well, it might not be the end of the world just yet.....

 

but if it was, it would be nice to be there with Lucy!

Lapoinya flooding washes away the bridge. A close call for us.

A storm was brewing and it didn't disappoint. Rain all day continued into the night and we were about to go to bed about 10pm. Then we noticed some wet spots appearing on the ceiling of the cabin. Lisa lay on the bed and sure enough. Drip – a drop landed on her. The rain got heavier. More wet spots appeared. This was nothing new, a couple of years ago we had record rain and the roof leaked a bit. The strong wind had lifted the tin a little. Old nails. I banged it back down after that. Looks like the wind had lifted it again. Problem was this time it was leaking over the bed – in two places. We knew we couldn't sleep there. We checked out the other cabin – same deal. We had no choice but to evacuate. We have a town house in Wivenhoe about 40min away. Some of the leaks were getting pretty near some of our books and papers, so we hastily packed the car.

About 10.45pm we were ready to leave. The rain was pelting down and we switched off the power just in case. We made a dash for the 4wd. The garden path had turned into a small river and we waded upstream like salmon. Luckily the car started (we just had it fixed) but we had both got soaked – even with the pretty good wet weather gear we had. Into the wild night we went.

We didn't get more than 200m before we encountered our first bit of flooding, then we splashed through about 100m of quite deep water just past Matt's dairy and Keith's place. Visibility was about 10m at most through the squalls and heavy sheet rain and the fog. Fog and rain at the same time – nice – must be the Tarkine.

We got just past Lapoinya and approached the bridge. “Slow down”, I said, “Just make sure the bridge is still there”. My prior experience with Tasmania engineering was still a fresh memory (I walked on the platform at Dip falls – a few months later it fell off the cliff face and they had to replace it). The bridge was there but it was just as well we couldn't see the raging torrent below us. If we could have I doubt we would have crossed. This was about 11pm. This morning the bridge was no longer there.

We went and had a look today after we came back (along with half the residents of the area). We talked to another local who said that an ambulance had been called around 12.45am and screeched to a halt before the gap, narrowly missing tragedy. So somewhere between 11pm and 12.45am the bridge had fallen. We realized we were the last people to cross the old Lapoinya bridge. We now know how lucky we were.

Organic Apple Winter Special

 We are offering a winter special for our later ripening apple varieties. Delicious organic Granny Smith and Twenty Ounce apples for sale by the basket. 
Only $10 per basket for 3kg. Delivery into Wynyard and Boat Harbour, and pick up from the farm on Saturdays.Please ring 6445 4469 or email ghfarmtas@gmail.com to order some today!

Growing with Love is about Caring

Growing with Love is about Caring:

From Cracking Clay to Something Wonderful in 18 months

 

Gavin Edwards
Good Heart Farm
Lapoinya, Tasmania

We bought the farm mid 2012. I made the first garden here, the Hobbit garden, thinking we were going to stay in the packing shed but the shed turned out to be too noisy near the road. So then we moved down the bottom to the cabin. Of course, I had to make another garden down there (the Magic Circle garden in 2013).

September 2014 saw Lisa wanting to go to a herb conference in Arizona. I was against leaving in spring - after all it was a major planting time - and if we don’t plant we have to buy shop food - yuk! Lisa was determined to go however, so I said I’d go and protect her (Women! I’m a sucker, I listened to my heart). Besides, it gave me a chance to hike the back trails in search of native edibles.

We were going to need to expand the garden anyway. So I built onto the back of the Circle and made the BC (Behind Circle) garden.
It took about three days.

 

We were about to leave - the day before I planted the beds out to potatoes - just finishing mulching before we left. Close call.
This is what it looked like in November 2014.

and December 2014

January 2015

 

We ate a lot of potatoes that year! In fact we were sick of potatoes. Luckily I had good lettuce and peas in the Magic Circle to break the monotony.



Later in the year my goodly neighbour, Stan, then gave us, you guessed it, sacks of spuds! I thanked him.

January 2016 - and we’d had very little rain all winter and spring. It turned out to be drought. The ground (clay loam) cracked, nobody had any grass - it was the worst drought this area had ever known. Wisely, I left some beds in the circle unplanted - I figured I might not have the water to water the crops with and as it turned out I was right. We had drought followed by 100 bushfires burning throughout Tassie. I watered all my beds in the BCg by hand with watering cans.

But inside the fence was a different matter. This is how it looked on the 29 January 2016.
 

 Yes, an explosion of Food!

The yellow vine above is Dutch Purple podded peas ripening - pea soup in winter - yum.

Lisa in the corn 16feb16

Cucumbers and squash above

A heritage cherry tomato here - planted late on the back fence. Had about 200 off two bushes.

 Pumpkins growing 21st Feb 16

"Pumpkin!"

The harvest basket 23 Feb 16. Button squash (Patterson Panache Juane et verte), cherry toms and purple beans.

 First of March
and the pumpkins are still exploding and threatening to take over the whole valley



Time to harvest some (no frost yet but somethings starting to gnaw one - so time to come out just in case)

7 March 2016

This was in the driest summer ever and watered with watering cans. No poisons or chemical sprays - totally organic - you CAN do it.

I call this Self-Sufficient Gardening™. It works.

If you want to learn how to grow with love please contact us at The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™

Hope to see you there!

Nashi's and Greengages

HI everyone. We are open today from 10am to 3pm. Come and buy some delicious fruit grown with love. Today we have  Yellow Nashi Pears, Greengage plums, Prune plums, Red Gravenstein apples  and more for sale. So take a drive out to our beautiful farm. We would love to meet you.

Organic Fruit FOR SALE

 
Hi folks, our fruit season has started! We have delicious Organic Prune Plums and Greengage Plums for sale from the farm gate.The Greengage plums don't last long, so pop into the farm this week if you'd like some. Just give us a call first so we can get the fruit ready.

We will be open this coming Saturday 10am to 4pm. Change of time since it looks like people need a a little more time to get to us. Look forward to seeing you here!