Greenbackyard

And another year has past. We have left 2008 with a tragic “bang” from an aquaponics point of view, which is quite unfortunate.

I’ve seen many people, more than usual, complaining about how bad 2008 had been to them and how many tragic things ocurred during the year. It’s strange, I can somehow share some of the aspects of this and, at the same time, I cannot stop thinking that some positive things happened:
- Barak Obama got elected;
- We bought a house and made the HUGE move north;
- Zeek turned one (he survived us);
- I made lots of new friends that I hope to keep for many years to come!

So, all and all, it’s been a great year! I hope that most of you will see this positive side too and, if not, hoping that 2009 will be even better!

We came back to Sydney for a couple of days to spend a bit of time, during these festive days, with Danielle’s family.

We have been away from Bondi for just 3 weeks but in the last week, we lost 10 out of our 11 fish! Apparently the main pump in the fish tank was slightly disconnected from the outlet and “appeared” as it wasn’t working. Danielle fiddled with it less than a minute and made it work.

The Silver Perch have been resistant for 14 months, they endured winter and my lack of attention for a while, soon after Zeek was born however, in the last 3 weeks, I entrusted their lives to people that didn’t really care about them, even though they told me in repeated occasions that they would look after them, feed them, make sure that everything was working. I guess, I made a mistake and now we only have one Silver Perch left, which is really unfortunate.

What I take of this experience, besides the fact that I should have probably not trusted the whole system to people that are not interested in aquaponics or in the fish for that matter, is that any system, no matter how resilient it is, still needs constant monitoring. And it does help to understand the basics on how the system works so that you can diagnose when something goes wrong.

It’s not the “end of the world” either, it’s a pretty big setback in our plans, but since we have moved up north, it’s now a good sign that we cannot have a system in Sydney and be living in the mid-north-coast.

_MG_2881, originally uploaded by brunom.

After 3+ years, someone saw something different in this picture and now I cannot see it any other way, it’s a big alligator! How amazing that after a while of having looked at this picture, uploaded it, etc … there’s still new things to be discovered.

I guess that there are many things that we haven’t really blogged about lately, like our move to Thora (near Bellingen in the mid-North Coast) and the change in my professional life … I think those are the subject of new posts. And, over the next year or so, we will adventure ourselves in a larger scale aquaponic system than the one we had in Bondi. The weather patterns here are quite different and there’s less pollution in the air, so I hope that our results will be superior. I will keep you posted.

Our move will slightly change the focus of this blog, it won’t just be about aquaponics and micro-farming in city blocks but rather about the life of city-dwellers attempting a “green/tree change” in a modern world.

As part of thinking about what we might someday plant in our woodlot, I looked through a great paper produced by the NSW Dept. of Primary Industries (see this post) and I was immediately drawn to the  qualities of the Sydney Blue Gum, Eucalyptus saligna. According to the chart it is relatively tolerant of frost and it likes a well-drained, sandy loam to clay loam, with moderate to good fertility. Intrigued I googled Sydney Blue Gum and came across the Australian Hardwood Network, which provides quality information on the technical specifications and applications of native hardwood timbers.

On site they have a species guide, with information about the Sydney Blue Gum. They talk about the properties of the wood in terms of density, hardness, durability (they have classes of durability), strength, joint group and timber grade. Most of which I know bugger all about, but it’s meant for the timber industry. Interestingly they also grade trees by their natural resistance to termites, which is pretty cool. ‘Some species of timber offer higher resistance to incidence of termite attack than others’. That would be something to think about, especially if you grew a lot of one type of timber.

Great site, check it out

Back to the Blue gum though, apparently they can grow over 70 metres tall. How beautiful would that be?

A few weeks back we took some drastic measures and cleaned up most of the growbeds. Why? Well it’s spring, all our winter crops had already yielded (broccoli, etc) and, to be honest, it was just out of control, not in the sense that nature needs to be controlled but in the sense that some plants were dead or dying and sometimes a pruning process is required. That’s what we did, we removed the old tomato plants, old basil and removed dead roots, etc . After that well needed pruning, I planted some basil and coriander seeds that we got from greenharvest.com and, less than a week later we already have little green spots.

I think designing a garden is like designing a patchwork quilt - you can collect lots of little ’squares’ of information and pull them all together into a big bright tapestry when your hand is ready to hold a spade. Right now I’m thinking about the farthest reaches of our new house, at the very back of our cleared, gently sloping paddock. I’m thinking about a woodlot.

We have two wooden stoves and so my first priority for our woodlot would have to be for firewood. Who doesn’t like a nice toasty fire in winter? Also since I’d also like to have a beehive for honey one day, trees that feed hungry bees would also be most welcome. Why not throw in the potential for a bit of timber too, while we are at it? Anything we plant would have to be frost tolerant, low maintenance, it would have to love  a heavy clay soil, and be very good looking, (just like me). See, not that’s not asking too much, surely

I’m also open to the idea of planting a couple of different mutually beneficial species, and having different layers in my woodlot, maybe even a food forrest.

So I began researching about what trees would work in our area, bringing all of these strands together. I was pointed in the right direction by the permaculture forums, (all praise the goodness) to some documents available on the NSW Department of Primary Industry website. There I found the perfect resource! It’s a paper called ‘Farm Forestry NSW: trees for coastal regions and nearby ranges‘, and in it they list the qualities of native and non native trees, including

• Species name;
• Common name;
• Height (m);
• Minimum rainfall (mm);
• is it useful as stock fodder?;
• is it useful as timber?;
• useful for honey bees;
• what is it tolerant of;
• what it prefers; and
• what to avoid

I’m so happy - I’ve been reading it over the last few days, narrowing down trees that might work for us. Other good publication titles that may be of interest include:

• Farm forestry NSW: recommended tree planting times
• Tree management after drought
• Farm forestry NSW: trees for the tablelands areas of NSW

Nom nom

This morning, after a long and beautiful walk along the cliffs, I thought it was time to head to our backyard and check the current status of our litlle project as, since Zeek was born, most of our attention has been going to the little man.

Well, the good thing is that an aquaponics system seems to need very little maintenance, at least when the stocking density is low, like it is in our case. The tomatoes are ripening, the brocolli is flowering, the peas are growing and the fish are all alive and kicking.

We haven’t been posting many updates lately but everything is good, and we have a good excuse of course both fish and plants are doing well, which is great in winter. We have some crazy broccoli and the never-ceases-to-amaze tomatoes.

The good excuse is that we have bought a 10 acre property near Bellingen in the mid north coast is NSW and, once we are there we will continue with our aquaponics adventures except that in a larger and nicer place

An abundance of beautiful, fragrant, potent basil straight out of your aquaponics system means only one thing - its time to make pesto!

You can’t really go wrong with pesto - spoon it on fresh pasta, spread it on toast, or you can even freeze it, pesto is a ‘must have’ for any kitchen. (Except my brother Stephen’s kitchen. He hates pesto, but then he always was maladjusted.) So here is my pesto recipe;

Ingredients:

basil - lots
pine nuts
parmesan cheese
garlic
olive oil
salt

Blend the basil, garlic and pine nuts together, add enough oil to get the consistency you want from your pesto. Add the parmesan last, then readjust the oil. Note - if you choose to add parmesan, the shelf life of your product is reduced. Pesto sans cheese ‘lives’ longer.

Now taste for salt. Your cheese may have been salty enough, but if your palate demands more salt, sprinkle a bit in.

Sterilise enough jars to take your pesto. I advise using smaller jars rather than large ones, as once you open the jar, you have to use it. I use old jam jars; wash with soap and water, or bung them in the dishwasher, then bake in an oven of 100 degrees c for 10 minutes. Add your pesto. Allow to cool. Store in fridge.

What would be extra nice is if you printed little labels for your jars - quite a few modern printers allow you print out sticky labels. If you can be bothered, be sure to include the date of creation!