Painting Prefered

By Hannah Parsons

Following one hugely successful week came another week of change and growth down in the garden. Having had the weekend off, relaxing with a couple of Julian’s friends, swimming in the dam and eating far too much, come Monday the Mandala was once again like a new place. Frogs in the ponds, an array of lettuce and beans ready for harvest and our first sunflowers. Beautiful!

This week I’ve been working on my favourite project…road signs for around the property and a huge mandala map. Not having painted for quite a while I had forgotten how much I loved being creative…and getting paint all over me! I have spent as much time on them as humanly possible without neglecting all the other duties on the farm, as I’m pretty sure Julian wouldn’t be too pleased if I just spent time painting away when there were beds to cultivate and plant and propagation to be done!

So of course we’ve both been busy with many other tasks on the farm. Having fallen a little behind with bed planting due to rain last week we’ve been extra busy transplanting our seedlings into beds with our new system of mulching first, then making little holes for individual seedlings to be planted into. It seems to be working well, keeping down unwanted weeds and helping the soil retain some of its moisture in the heat.

We’ve transferred small apple grafts from the mandala down into the orchard, which seem to be getting bigger by the week, and propagated some daisy cuttings for Julian’s cottage garden, which will soon be starting to take shape at the front of the yurt. The only thing I wish is that I would be around to see even more changes take place, but as it’s my last week here next week I’m afraid that I won’t. Looks like I’m going to have to visit next year when everything’s blooming…Julian won’t get rid of me that easily!

So, I’ll finish writing and get back to some work…it’s raining outside…what a shame…that means I’ll have to do some more painting!

Tremendous transformations

by Hannah Parsons

This week has been amazing…

Suddenly, almost as if by magic, the Mandala has become a mass of green. We’ve seen our first zucchini of the season with their beautiful orange flowers beaming to the sky. Our beans have gone haywire, spiralling skyward up their blue string trellis and popping out little baby beans left right and centre. The potatoes look so happy that they’re almost smiling and the nectarines and other fruits have plumped, reddened and look good enough to eat…I just want to pick them all now!

Sitting out in the garden yesterday I couldn’t believe the change. All the work we’ve been putting in over the last few weeks has really paid off. We’ve all spent so much time weeding then mulching the bare soil, transplanting our lovely little seedlings into beds and watering until it seemed we could water no more! But what’s most amazing to me is that all this prosperity in the garden has suddenly occurred following Julian spreading BD501 (horn silica) and seaweed solution over the mandala. Although I don’t know much about biodynamics, looking down into the garden I can see there is proof behind all the theory.

So with all this success under our belts (fingers crossed!) Julian and I have been out in the garden admiring our work and planning for the coming week. We have plans to plant a huge circle of sunflowers around the mandala which will create a border between the garden and the now flourishing orchard, and also look attractive we hope! With the mandala looking good we have plans to create a big map which can be used for tours of the farm, and also for our own personal record of how things are coming on down there. And in the lovely rain we’ve been getting, and expect to get for a few days (hooray for the vegies!), I have the exciting indoor project of painting signs to be placed on the property to direct our visitors.

I can’t wait!

Watery Work

by Hannah Parsons

This week I return to sunshine at Imago Forest…a little brighter than all the rain of last week. Everyone’s had a relaxing weekend, so we’re ready for an action packed week.

Again work in the Mandala takes up most of our time, and we decide to weed all the beds and thickly mulch around existing plants to stop our soil drying out in the returning heat. Our seedlings have continued to grow in their little trays and we are able to plant some out into a new bed as well as to fill in some gaps in old beds where the lack of rain has stopped seeds from shooting. Having had little success with lettuce due to the heat and lack of water we make a new plan for growing seedlings, omitting lettuce and trying out some more herbs and flowers for in the Mandala.

Our ponds continue to take shape and this week we have three successes so far…we knew we’d get there eventually! We take pleasure in lining, then arranging old pieces of wood and rocks around the edges…we were going for the natural look, but they have ended up looking like something out of one of our English gardening programmes! We’re obviously still very proud indeed and can’t wait for the frogs to make their way over from the dam.

With the Mandala electric fence now around the orchard as well (little wallabies keep nibbling at the grafts!) we give it some attention and plant out some small grafts that have been growing in a pot near the yurt for some time. We carefully dig holes, treat the soil with lime, dolomite and phosphorous and transplant the little babies. After a big drink of water we mulch around each tree to stop evaporation. Good luck little apples and pears!

Imago Forest Family expands

By Hannah Parsons

We jump straight into the week with more amazing pond action first thing Monday morning. Hannah, Paul and I manage to dig and line with plastic a pond in one of my mandalas, surrounding it with beautiful old pieces of wood and plants from the dam. I feel exceptionally proud of our efforts until the water line starts reducing! We realise we were hasty in our excitement and didn’t check the liner properly for holes…we all begin to wonder when we will complete a successful pond…one day we hope!

We continue our work in the Mandala, putting in some seating and planting a strong and sturdy ‘bean farm’ out of bamboo and string. We stagger the planting so we have a lasting crop and can’t wait to see the first shoots to trail onto their trellis. Julian has the task of mowing some of the long grass in the mandala, which is now starting to look almost park-like it’s so tidy! While I begin to rearrange my much used and rather unkempt seed box indoors, Hannah and Paul plant three special pumpkins in their own individual beds in the mandala. We end the day with news of a new Wwoofer, Michael, who will be arriving in a few days to join our ever-expanding Imago Forest family!

Wednesday Julian goes off on delivery duty while we three remain enveloped in a cloud at the farm. First thing, Paul and Hannah discover a very poorly chicken (one of the Barbarellas in dome 1) lying on the ground…she’s rushed inside by the newly formed chicken ambulance crew (Hannah and Paul) and nursed all day in the warmth of the yurt…we fear she won’t make it. It rains continuously, except for a break of 30 minutes when we rush out to dig yet another pond. We get it done and back inside to the warm fire just before the heavens open again! We bake bread, little rolls and carrot and orange soup for dinner. Julian arrives home at 7pm and we all tuck in…yum.

Thursday we seed clover, cowpea and alfalfa into beds for future chicken feed. We sow sunflowers in areas around the mandala and around the verandah at the yurt which will look stunning when they come up. We sow some more seedlings into trays as our recent success has been pretty good, and plant some of the older seedlings out into a pot to later decorate the mandala. With lunch on the stove Hannah, Paul and I sit and wait for Julian to return from the top gate with our new Wwoofer…how exciting!

Peeling Ponds

By Hannah Parsons

The last few days here at Imago Forest have been extremely productive, and all of us feel pleased with ourselves as we approach the weekend. I sit inside, looking out into the cloud which envelopes our cosy yurt as I write this week’s blog…

Looking back, we’ve made a huge difference to the appearance of the Mandala garden and spent many hours out there in the sunshine pruning, mowing, planting strawberries which have already thrown up bright green leaves, and transplanting our beautiful little seedlings into a bed. Although through the rain I can’t see any of our achievements, I feel pleased that our garden is getting the watering it deserves.

Hannah, Paul and I dedicated a full morning to digging two ponds in the mandala and lining one with bentonite clay…an experiment which unfortunately went a bit wrong… we awoke the next morning to find the clay had peeled away from the edges and a good portion of water had escaped! We’re disappointed, but put it down to experience and look forward to our next pond being more of a success.

As usual the chooks have been up to mischief! This week we have been taking particular care of one chicken who has a sore and swollen eye, giving her eye salt water baths every morning and feeling sorry for her as she grumbles at us in discomfort. During the moving of chook domes we had several escapees who evaded us until later in the day and then got put back in the wrong domes, and we’ve spent a good portion of time catching the pecked hens to put Tiger Balm on their bare bits (a taste the chooks are supposed to hate)…a very unusual task!

So now the week’s work is complete we look forward to seeing friends and climbing Mount Royal tomorrow with our neighbours…