Spring is early this year the nights are still cold at this altitude but the days are very nice. I started another garden bed in the back yard all I need now is some rain and I will apply the biodynamic preparation. I can almost taste the tomatoes.
The snowdrops in the pot are up and have a couple of flowers and so are the daffodils near the back door:
Some nice colour:
It is like the fairies have been working at night, I started shaking the soil out of the grass I turned over and here is this beautiful friable soil where only a couple of weeks ago was hard clay. Then again it could be the action of the gypsum doing what it does best.
 | The avian inspection party checks out the improved soil. |
Next I need a fence around it to keep the scrub turkeys out. I have read that if the soil is in tip top condition biologically then the turkeys don’t come. I will certainly try this and see. There has been no rain since starting.
I seem to remember that the moon was in the seventh house last entry. Well at last I stopped thinking about it and wielded a spade in the back yard, the spade is certainly mightier than the thought process.
The ground is very hard and the spade only penetrated a few inches but it is a stare, the ground will loosen up when things start growing. I gave it some blood & bone and a good helping of lime. Being subsoil there will have to be a lot of humus added but that’s a lot of fun.
Looking around the yard there is room for several more beds but this will do for starters.
There was a scrub turkey wandering around this morning so I will need to use netting. On Gardening Australia a couple of weeks ago there was a viewer’s tip which advised using the herb Five Spice which repelled the turkeys. I will try that one for sure.
| I had breakfast with the stars this morning, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Orion and all the rest of the family. It was such a delight watching the orange glow on the horizon and there was the stillness, that silence which lives in everything was there. |  |
The moon is in the seventh house and the weather is pleasant, a good time for a new garden challenge.
I have long been looking at the back yard with a view to growing veges there instead on having to drive 45 minutes to the current vege garden at Springbrook. The problem being that when the house was built the land was excavated at the back to a depth of about 1 meter making the surface soil hard clay. The soil is so hard that a crow bar will only penetrate a couple of inches when driven hard.
So, why not give it a go. I have started off with an application of gypsum at the rate of 1KG per Sq.M. to break down the clay and in the near future I will also give the area a treatment with the biodynamic preparation 500:
Here it is after the gypsum….
At present I am contemplating a no-dig garden to start off with, I wonder if I will have spring veges?
