The Perth heat has continued into February, with further days over 40! The garden is suffering a bit- showing the effects of prolonged heat. Despite that though we have continued to harvest plenty of vegetables, especially the usual summer gluts of zucchini, cucumber, green beans and tomatoes!
We have gifted lots to family and friends, as well as made tomato chutney, frozen cherry tomatoes ready for winter casseroles, ratatouille with the zucchini, fermented, pickled, made zoodles (zucchini noodles). It feels like a never-ending supply at the moment, but we are trying to preserve as much as possible for when there is not such an abundant supply!
It has been hot for the bees too, and we had to put up a gazebo to provide more shade during the real hot spells. It has been very successful, and there has been less ‘bearding’- the mass of bees on the outside of the hive- like in this photo the day we put up the shade.
Despite the heat, we have had a good honey harvest this season, collecting almost 30 litres!
Well, after some very changeable weather leading into summer, we have had a couple of weeks of scorching temperatures with four days in a row above 40 degrees Celsius!
We went out regularly to top up bird baths, rigged up a gazebo over the bee hives, and tried to stay cool ourselves. Despite the heat, we have had some great bird visitors including a Grey Shrike Thrush, Rainbow Beeaters, and Scarlett Robins, as well as all the usual.
Grey Shrike ThrushScarlett RobinRainbow Beeater
We even, amazingly, had an echidna!
Bruce, the pup, quite perplexed by a ball of spines!
Our insect visitors really crank it up in summer with the sunshine and heat, and it has been fabulous to watch the Blue Banded Bees and this fascinating stick insect.
With the warmer weather, (although those over 40 degree days are tough!), the aquaponics, orchard and dirt gardens have thrived and provided kilos of nectarines, peaches, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, sweet corn……….
Pumpkin palace- growing pumpkin vertically to reduce the snake hazard.Luffa starting to take off!tomatoes and corn thriving
Of course, with all that produce, a lot of preserving goes on! Our favourite chutney is Nectarine Chutney, which is also great made with peaches. We made so many jars of Nectarine Chutney though we decided to make some Peach Jam to give out as Christmas presents (and of course to keep a supply for ourselves!)
Yummy peach jam!
And finally, to finish off 2021, our first full year at McCarthy Park 2, the beehives are thriving and after a couple of poor seasons we had a great harvest of 24 litres of honey.
After spinning in the extractor, it is strained into a 20 litre bucket (or two in this case)Once the honey has ‘settled’ in the bucket, we fill our containers!Still a few air bubbles, but they aren’t a problem!
There was a considerable amount of wax cappings so this was cleaned, melted and strained to provide nice blocks of wax- the colours are amazing!
We use the beeswax for a variety of home products and remedies, including wax wraps to use instead of a plastic wrap.
We are thrilled that the billabong is becoming a regular waterhole for the local Carnaby cockatoos! They come and bathe and drink, making quite the racket in their gusto!
We have also had regular visits from an Oblong Turtle (or perhaps visits from several, not sure!).
These turtles, also known as Long-necked Turtles, wander at least 500m from the water’s edge to nest!
With the warmer weather but still plenty of rain, the garden is blooming!! The roses have been in such abundance we have been picking them to dry petals for a family wedding coming up soon.
This is just a few of the roses!Rose petal confetti for late November
The rest of the garden is enjoying the weather too, and is such a pleasure to work in and look at!
After being bare for what felt like a very long winter, the weeping mulberry is not only looking fabulous but is laden with delicious mulberries!The bees just love the lavender and borage at the moment!
It is always great to harvest our own food, which we do on a regular basis. Recently we harvested a couple of red cabbages to make the next 12 month supply of sauerkraut. One batch just cabbage with a few cranberries and caraway seeds, the other included home grown fennel and chilli too- yum!
Such a beautiful, vibrant colour!A week or two later and both went to the fridge, ready to eat!
Work on the billabong has continued and it is now complete! it looks fabulous and has already been visited by local birds including a flock of Carnaby cockatoos. A solar powered fountain just adds a little something during daylight hours.
Well, every now and then we are getting some warm spring sunshine, in between the rain and cold winds! Despite the cold, our pineapple has finally ripened….and it was delicious!
The end of winter brought with it a big tidy up in the aquaponics systems- it was amazing how much was removed to make way for spring planting, but the grow beds still looked lush and healthy!
One of our final development projects is to create a ‘billabong’ as a habitat for frogs and a water source for a variety of native animals. A big hole was dug (with a bobcat fortunately!) and lined with plastic. We then filled it with water to let it all settle prior to trimming the plastic, adding stones around the edges. Still to come are the Western Pygmy Perch to eat any mosquito larvae, and some water plants!
Well, the rain continued into August! This has been a good thing though……. as it brought the Noongar season of Djilba during which there are clear sunny days in between. Our winter planting is dong really well, though some of the tube stock in ‘the oval‘ has suffered from the heavy rains and storms….and we suspect, rabbits……so needed replacing. The addition of a small electrified wire around the perimeter has now stopped the rabbits, and the plants are thriving.
The succulents in the garden have really enjoyed the cool winter, and many of these are flowering for the first time.
With the change of season, we even saw the first Monarch butterfly! Although these are not native to Australia, they have become very common in some areas and when we first moved into McCarthy Park 2 there were so many.
The Djilba season also is the time for magpies to prepare their nests, and we have seen our resident family of magpies collecting fibre from ropes and from the palm trees. they also love the occasional snack left over from the dogs!
Along with the rains, we have seen even more fungi.……some varieties we have never seen before!
So July 2021 is Perth’s wettest July in 26 years! We have had days of 30-40mm, but Monday 26 July was the record, with 64mm!
The pool has flooded several times, and some plants have suffered from the wind, rain and frost (we had -1.8 at the end of June…… but there has been a wonderful abundance of fungi!
We love McCarthy Park 2, but ever since we saw it we knew ‘the oval’ would have to be revegetated. Not only did we want to reduce the amount of lawn (and mowing), but we wanted to reintroduce the native plants that would have been removed to make the large driveway turnaround. Doing this will provide extra cover and food for the native animals, and be much more sustainable than lawn. It will look better too!
We waited until June, so the weather was cooler and with the guidance of Apace WA who specialise in community regeneration, we have begun the preparations for a July plant out. Apace helped us design the space, choose plants that were native to the area, preferably fire retardant or resistant, and a variety of sizes and textures to improve the aesthetics.
First was removal of the lawn, then delivery of loads of mulch and crushed gravel for the path.
Then, several balgas (grass trees) were planted. These were purchased from and planted by Replants, a company that specialises in rescuing and on-selling grass trees from land that is being bull dozed. We were so very happy to get some lovely larger additions to go with the existing grass trees already there.
Once transplanted, all were burnt- including our existing grass trees that still showed plenty of couch within them.
Already it is looking better! But next came the pathways through ‘the oval’….
…..and then the spreading of the mulch. Now it all settles in for a while until July when the native tube stock will be planted.
After a huge effort to get the aquaponics up and running, it has been great to consolidate a bit this last month. The aquaponics has really got going and is loving its new position on the east side of the house. In summer we will need some protection from the easterly wind, but in this autumn weather it is really cranking!
System 1- the original system moved from the old houseSystem 2- newly established
Both systems are going very well with good plant growth and healthy fish.
Also going well are the beehives, which is surprising in a way as it is well recognised locally as being a very poor season. Where some have had to feed their bees all through summer, we have managed without that and even did a small harvest (12 litres) as we downsized for the winter months.
The newly established ‘bee room’ proved very successful, with plenty of room to extract and clean up.Yummo!
Another finishing touch to the garden was the installation of a SubPod, a worm/composting system we are trying out as we decided not to bring our old worm farm (an old cast iron bath). So far it is great to be able to reuse those items the chooks won’t eat, such as tea bags, lint and tissues!
Edible garden, with herbs, bush tucker and the SubPod. Agapanthus line the garden beds around the house as they are considered fire retardant.
In February we moved our yabbies and aquaponics system to the new house, but both to temporary areas until we had some paving completed.
We didn’t want to lose this 6 weeks of growth by emptying the grow beds!
After much thought, we decided to set up a second aquaponics system rather than run aquaculture as we had at our previous place. This will enable us to keep Silver Perch year round as we like to do, but also run Rainbow Trout over the winter months as usual. It also provides more space for growing edibles!
Over the Easter break, we finally set up our systems in the area that was planned for them. This was no mean feat! One system was new and easy to position and set up from scratch, however moving the existing system without emptying each of the three grow beds and their lush veggies was quite an accomplishment thanks to ingenuity, perseverance and sometimes brute force!
car wheel trolleys were perfect for relocating the yabby tank and the aquaponics grow beds!
Once the new system was set up and all the pipework complete, we used a spare tank to transfer the water and fish from the existing system.
Tractor buckets are very handy for that last bit of water!
With some planting out, we now had the new system up and running with over 60 Silver Perch. Now to tackle moving the established system……
A car jack was used to lift each leg of the grow bed enough to place the car wheel trolley underneath. Once all four were in situ, the whole grow bed was pushed into place on the other side of the house.
It was not without difficulties! But we succeeded!
The empty fish tank from the original system was dragged around and placed in position… and the pipework completed.
Next step was to return to our old place and get the Silver Perch from the swimming pool! The small tank borrowed from Cheidys Aquaponics was invaluable.
We ended up removing the pump and draining the swimming pool (using the pool water to transfer the fish over a few trips), and successfully transferred 120 or so fish from the pool to the aquaponics systems. Each tank has 90 or so fish in a variety of sizes from fingerlings to 40+cm long.
And we are now fully set up, with yabbies in the foreground and our two aquaponics systems on the right!
