weekend jobs

The Asparagus has died off well and truly now so i have chopped it off and used it for various things. It will serve as rabbit bedding - the great thing about that is that they nibble it up into tiny pieces and it falls through the wooden slats as mulch.They probably eat quite a bit of it as well.

I have used some for mulch underneath the pigeon pea, which have not yet been frosted off but are not growing particularly fast. The rabbits are not all that keen on pigeon pea at the moment - although they seemd to be keener on it during the summer. This is in contrast to clover (another legume) which they absolutely love - and i have been collecting it from the park over the road. it has now grown back enough after the mowing to begin picking again.

The baby rabbits have now been separated out from the mother rabbit. She promptly sealed up her burrow with anything she could.

During the whole time she has babies she will block up the burrow and unblock it when she goes into feed them once or twice a day.
She might even use the box filled with asparagus’ mulch as a nest for her next babies.

The oranges were also treated to a top dressing of muck and dirt from the chook house. i thought i'd do this because it is forecast to rain a lot over the next week and it would get a good soaking in. Oranges should be given some sort of fertilizer in July as in August they begin to break into flower - and then set fruit. The amount of small fruit they end up dropping will be dependent on how you keep the water up to them and how well you have fertilised.

We also turned the compost heap out at the garden plot, which was just as well as it had some dry patches in it. One person digs and the other hoses to get more moisture into the pile.

We also picked the last of the pumpkins, but some of them are borderline in that they may not have been mature enough before the vines were frosted off.

This pic was just to show the "gossip cabbbage" on the right and more recognisable cabbages on the left. The cabbages are prefect as there are no cabbage moths or butterfly to shot hole the leaves. Some of these cabbages are going to be made into Saurkraut. I made a whole bunch of Saurkraut last year and it was a hit (for me at least). I had it throughout the summer when we can't grow cabbages - and all the nutrients are preserved and some enhanced by the process of fermentation. A couple of people in our street hope to organise a sour foods workshop to pass on some skills in the making naturally fermented foods. Another one of my favourite fermented foods is grated Diakin radish. it develops a lovely smokey flavour and i preferred it to the cabbage in the end.