Harvest season .  Some wonderful early rain in a few big doses but long warm spells in between has the farm looking lovely. We are all dealing with so much these days, hope you enjoy these scenes from the Farmacy . May is the month that Fuerte avos can be picked, and hooray for them.

In GAPS protocol we say sunbathing is not optional, and the weather has been great for that. If you eat enough saturated fat, you will never burn. The fat just under your skin turns sunlight into vitamin D, so important to every process in the body that it is now called a hormone. People who burn easily really need to do GAPS. Why? They have a lot of toxicity coming out through their skin. same goes for those with rashes and acne. Rebalancing the gut flora , eating fermented food and meat stock daily, and avoiding environmental poisons ( such as conventional food, sunscreen,  shampoo and detergents) can eventually result in tanning (not burning), but meanwhile, gradually building up the time spent in the sun is vital.

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We’ve been taking quinces, Golden Del  apples, limes, pomegranates , feijoas and the beginnings of the  lemonade lemons to the markets. Very grateful to our farmers market customers and some wonderful new local customers  alike,  as without you we would have no cash coming in.

                                                                The 2 do list is as long as ever, and the days are short.  The cows are confined to the yards and we are carrying everything they eat to them, which is a big chore. This is to allow the grass to get big in the paddocks. Obviously if we tax it too soon it will not grow deep roots, nor will the tops get big. Its like you with a parsley or basil  plant, if you have a tiny seedling and start picking its tiny leaves off it every day it will never get big. If you refrain and wait till the plant gets big, you can pick handfuls off it every day and it will not mind at all. Anyway, sick of cutting and carrying branches and hay ( yes it is the time of year to prune deciduous trees and throw them in to the cows)  we released the bovines into one inter swale paddock which looked quite advanced….. but they mowed it to billiard table in a day. This was semi  intentional, as the plan is to seed that paddock with perennial grasses as soon as Stew is finished seeding at the Witchcliffe Eco Village.

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 Pomegranates are growing on me. So glad to make the discovery that you can squeeze out the juice in the citrus press.

We collected carob pods for people and the cows, have a few trees to visit yet. Cows just love carob, it helps their rumen microbes  digest hay just as molasses does.  Stewart is having to shoo parrots away from the pecans every morning , I hope we end up with some.

Pixie and Trixie the calves are growing well. They spend the night in the calf shed together

I’m planting seeds of everything everywhere, it is a bit late but it has been warm and very  dry till now. The bees are fairly buzzing around the Desert Ash, spotted gum and carob trees….yum, honey coming up! The Monarch butterflies are mesmerizing to watch as they dance and land on zinnias and the and vanilla scented purple flowers of the geisher girl shrub.

Just near Geisher girl is the white sapote tree and I am reminded of one of Bill Mollison’s quip: “We could be in grave danger of falling fruit. “

White sapote  is not something you will ever see in the super market coz it does not  travel well, it is hard and green up till the day it turns yellow and mushy, plus they  have a few spikey pips inside .  As you can see it has abundant fruit ( as in half a ton per tree) and  grows 20 meters tall. White sapote,  after peeling away the thin skin, tastes like sweet mashed banana, so yummy with creamy yogurt ( thanks Belinda) I hope the pigs will get a taste for them. Pigs don’t seem to like sweet fruit. However Matilda does! Looks like we will be freezing lots, a messy undertaking, but worth it.

The tagasaste tree that has fertilized and shaded the huglekulture mounds for 2 years has just checked out after a short but useful life, and just in time the pear trees planted between the mounds are going to take over the role by next summer. They have powered along .

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It’s pleasing to see our swale paddocks responding to the re gen practices, greener than the river flats far below.

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Some agent unknown has busily dug around all the trees,  I suspect piglets. A big re mulching and re planting that will resist piglet snouts is a priority now. What could resist piglet snouts you ask? I’m thinking the unstoppable golden rod, lab lab bean, pig face  and banner grass could do the trick. It would be ever so nice if alfalfa would survive, but it rarely makes it through infancy.

If you would like to learn about soil creation and permaculture from us by helping out on the farm, please get in contact.