Nirvana Biodynamics

After a busy and productive harvest season , my newly rebuilt north facing shed was ready for me to do the internal fit out so I could snuggle up on bleak winter days to create a basket or two. Its payed off, as well as being the greatest way to add another creative element to gardening ,keeping active in winter I scooped the pool at the Royal Adelaide Show in the basketry section with my creations. . Bread n’ cheese won best basket overall Spring happens  slowly here and is often unpredictable but the tunnel house continues to supply food for the table . The fruit type vegetables have, as usual been planted in the propagator (2days before the August full moon.) to get a head start before being planted out on the new moon in October.This winter we enjoyed a regular supply of small red and yellow capsicums. I've found they do 2 seasons well in the tunnel a this summer (2nd season) they will produce the most ripe ones from early in the season til the end.I’ll also plant some new ones...

We have had a very busy time of late with the chestnut harvest,shed relocation and farm tours. Fortunately we had some excellent help from woofers', Emanuele and Federica from Northern Italy who where keen to learn about our farming methods and sustainable lifestyle. While they were able to experience our lifestyle and farming methods first hand we learned about chestnut forests in Northern Italy and their traditional foods, celebrations and way of life. The polenta and kangaroo is a merging of the two cultures. They were keen to experience food from paddock to plate .Here they are preparing birds for the table a valuable experience as they wanted to provide quality food for themselves in the future. A few new building skills never go astray. Emanuele also put 26 years of rainfall records on the computer (something I planned to do one day but never got around to.) Now its easy to see patterns and trends in our rainfall patterns. The busy patter...

Isn ’t it interesting that if you wait long enough what you do becomes trendy. For 26 years we have created a wholistic garden & farm, ‘Garden Quality Farming” in balance with its surroundings. Although it is a commercial orchard it is also a system that embraces the whole and provides opportunities to learn the many skills that have been lost through the generations. A successful example of such a lifestyle is rare let alone so close to a major city & costs the public purse nothing. Whether its educational farm tours that show the overall diversity & balances that can be achieved on any scale to the home orchard , vegetable & herb gardens or natural fibre gardens its all here. Here everything has its place under the cosmos and everything interacts with everything else creating a wholistic system. To achieve such a system takes planning, work and definitely does not happen overnight or in fact after several years. Once the quality environment starts to click in...

I am very impressed as to how the vegie garden is looking and proves that all the quality compost and biodynamic methods really pay off big time in extreme conditions.-or maybe they are more noticeable then. Although the hills are cooler – This week so far 34, 42. 45 today is about the same if not hotter than yesterday with no relief in sight.Actually at present its 44. Only the January planting have been covered. I use light weight curtains & old sheets over ¾ Polly hoops. They are held on by pieces of ¾ polly cut down the middle. I find this much better than shade cloth which is heavy and needs more supports. From Jan- March the monthly plantings are usually covered to aid germination & to keep the blackbirds from scratching them up .Once germinated the covers are removed but this week I have been covering during the day and removing them in the late afternoon. They are all looking good. I have just continued my routine weekly watering program – each bed is watered once a wee...

One of the things we enjoy doing is playing social petanque. A few years ago Quentin started playing and encouraged me to come out at least to meet new people as he thought I ‘spent too much time working and needed to get out more.’ Although I really enjoy working from home,in my own quite space it is nice to meet different people. So each Wednesday morning we go off to play petanque with the Adelaide Hills Petanque Club down at Stonehenge reserve in Stirling. Quentin takes it more serious playing on Sundays as well as the occasional league games. Wednesdays are very social with around 30-40 people playing. Each week there is a draw to make up teams of 3 or 2. We then play 3 games punctuated with morning tea, laughter, chat, much fun and sometimes a prize or 2... It is from this atmosphere that the Derrick Rowley Trophy, in memory of Derrick is played. A competition that players go into a draw to determine teams. In the past it has been triples but this year because of numbers it was...