Sustainable Backyards is in 5 months!
We’re entering the depths of winter, daylight hours are less than 10 per day, slowing growth to a crawl, even without the Sou’easter tearing across the garden. With less than a month to the shortest day we are in cajoling mode, attempting to convince the vegetables it’s a good idea to grow, using covers and the tunnel to keep things warm. It also means we’re less than a month until the days start to stretch again and we look forward to the seed sorting and catalogues, the planning and the frantic planting of spring.
At the moment we are mid-way through some major infrastructure additions here at Goldbush Micro Farm. These include a greenhouse and a concrete floor for the wash and pack shed we plan to build with it’s walk-in cooler (eeek!). These things aren't specific to the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail, they need to happen but it is all part of the juggle, what projects will we prioritise? What stage will we get to on some that we can leave at that point so we can safely show people around and they can see what we’re doing? What things will we definitely have complete?
I love a good deadline, it creates a focus I struggle to find otherwise when there are so many options in front of me. Our 3.8acres has swales with the beginnings of a food forest (should I put more attention there, it needs more wind protection and understorey plants in?), a small woodlot (where the trees are struggling on a scraped back hillside, should I be mulching them all?), beef cattle we haven’t quite got the grazing right for improving the soil, chooks that aren’t laying as well as I’d hoped, no progress on the sub-tropical greenhouse in the last 2 years (is there anything we could do to move this forward without spending any money?), the house garden needs to be used for garlic this year (can we get the paths done in there and sort out the couch grass too?). I could go on, but you get the point!
The final draft for the Garden Festival booklet is done, so while the days are short and the fireplace cranking, I shall continue to rearrange the list and do what we can in the time we have, knowing that relaxing time and fun time with the family is also important. We won’t tell visitors what was on the list, if you don’t!
