WE are spending at least a day a week on the farm now that spring is here. The plants are starting to push new growth. We have done two prunes - one a high prune, taking out the leader if the tree has not branched and it is now above shoulder height. We have done a low prune, decluttering the leaves around the graft and below knee height
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| Good branching with new growth |
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| This was one of our poor doers, but it is picking up now. The water shoots are generally reddish in colour, but all the same I usually remove the shoot that is coming out by the graft when it is low. |
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| Going really well |
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| Can you see the flower raceme next to the bamboo pole? |
We've labelled all of the poles now and I have created a spreadsheet on Xcel so that we can give a bit of tender loving care to those that are struggling. This may be a spade or two of compost ( we bought this), an extra tie or restaking.
The next exciting venture was to use our own worm wee and seaweed tea to create a fertilizer. We had stored this in a myriad of empty milk bottles. Thank goodness the painter left us with lots of 10L pails with lids that we will use next year.
The large white container is where we brewed the seaweed tea from kelp harvested from Kaiti Beach after a storm. It has to be thoroughly rinsed off to reduce the salt. We were three rows short and the bought product smelt awful, and was very expensive.
And today's activity was to close off the old compost pit and prepare a new one. Duncan has done quite a bit of shredding so the consistency looks quite good.
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| The new pit |
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| The old pit now covered, the bins we use for storing branches etc until Duncan has a chipping session, and the new pit |
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| Our hay stack here is just about gone. |
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| Look, ma, one hand. Making good use of our dolly. |
Of course there has also been mowing every seven to ten days.
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