Paul and Hannah return!

So much has changed since we were last here with Julian at Imago Forest, firstly, everything seems to have grown and grown!
The fruit trees located throughout the Mandala garden are looking taller and wider, they’ll soon be providing more shade and some delicious fruit!
We’ve also been enjoying lots of healthy (and very tasty) leafy greens including Silverbeet, Tatsoi, Kale and Endive which are all popping up around the garden. It’s also nice to see tall bright-yellow sunflowers poking their heads up in the sunshine, the chooks are loving their seeds.
The next major change is the soil, there’s been a big improvement (it’s softer, moist and darker in colour), which makes bed preparation a lot easier. I’m sure the Italian Garlic we planted yesterday will do very well in such healthy conditions.
We were last here with Julian back in September/October 2007 and between then and now we’ve been busy WWOOFing up the coast towards Queensland and living with friends for 14 months down in Melbourne. Although we’re only here for a very short time (5 days), it’s wonderful to return to such positive sights and sounds around the farm.
Some of the other things we’ve noticed include:
• the dam is full to overflowing
• beds all look so much healthier after so much rain recently.
• Julian showed us the garlic he produced recently

Stunning

It really is beautiful up here at the moment. Although it is very dry, the dam is holding up well and keeping the vegies going. Millo and Shelley are up at the farm and with fresh eyes they are eagerly picking the blackberries which can still be found here and there. Look out this week for fresh berries and jam!

Inside Please!

It's been a long time coming, but some solid walls are about to go up for the wwoofers. There's a large open shed that was built many years ago, that Millo and I put some pavers down this week. After that we'll put up some walls and then the wwoofers will be able to move out of the tent and into the cottage!
It was a week of hard work as we dug the foundations, compacted the gravel and laid the pavers. Initially we were cutting the bricks by hand which was slow and resulted in many broken bricks. We then borrowed an angle grinder with a diamond head which allowed us to do the whole lot again, neater and in the same time it took us to do half the job by hand.
Thank you Millo and Simon!

Back on the farm : )

Coming back to the farm was a very pleasant experience, with the tremendous job Robin had done in looking after it.
Compared to a mere three weeks ago, the farm looked like a tropical jungle! The warmth and rain has certainly made a difference.
It was a great pleasure to be able to pick Strawberries, Bok Choy, Tatsoi, and Imago Mixed Salad as well as our regular eggs to have for you at the shop last week. And right now the zucchini and cabbage are working hard on their development too!
And of course we've just pulled up all the garlic in readiness for the field day next weekend.
Hope to see you there,

Julian.

Plain Old Farm Hand

Today marks the end of almost three weeks of flying solo here at Imago Forest, while Julian's been away at the Slow Food Conference in Italy. What I've learnt is that trying to keep the garden under control while running the shop once a week is absolutely exhausting. The satisfaction that comes with looking back on the garden as the shadows lengthen and reflecting on a good day's work is quickly tempered by the realisation that there's still a big list of jobs still to do. I guess that's just the way it works: You can spend all day mowing the lawn, but there'll still be plenty of weeding and pruning waiting for you tomorrow, and then there's the fertilising to be done and a few more beds to be planted... But on the plus side, the reason that the garden's been a bit overwhelming is that there's plenty of growth going on. We've got bok choy coming out of our ears, the silverbeet and lettuce are coming along, the potatoes, pumpkins and zucchini's are steadily improving and we've even got some small fruit developing on the trees. I'm off for a well-deserved weekend break to Sydney, but am looking forward to hanging up my farm sitter hat when I get back, and getting stuck into work as a plain old farm hand again.

Dirty Work...

This week’s been largely dominated by digging. We’ve done so much of it that I’m a little disappointed not to have unearthed a few fossils. Thankfully, with the help of our now exhausted Italian WWOOFer Jacopo, we’ve come on leaps and bounds in the space of a few days. Sadly he could only stay with us for a week before heading back to the real world in search of paid employment (and a few days’ rest), but with four more beds sown, two more well on the way, a batch of pumpkins and potatoes planted, two chook domes moved and the wallaby defences shored up, he should be more than satisfied with his contribution. Grazie infinite!

Hold your breath

This week we welcome Jacopo to our team. He’s a first time WWOOFer from Italy, which makes me feel like something of an old hand. I do have three whole weeks of farm work under my belt after all. My grand discovery this week is that herbicide-free organic farming means there’s a lot of weeding to be done. A lot. The garlic beds have been looking pretty crowded, so Jacopo and I have been hard at work pulling up all of that unwelcome greenery to give our garlic crops a little breathing space. Several hours later and, while my hands feel like they’ve seen a lifetime’s worth of weed-pulling, the garlic’s looking happy, healthy and all set to be dug up by your good selves at the Imago Forest field day at the end of November.

Robin's first week

Hi, Robin here. I’m a Pom (sorry), and I’m Julian’s latest Wwoofer. For those of you who don’t know what that means, Wwoof stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms. It’s a scheme that allows travellers to volunteer at organic farms across Australia in return for bed, board and a few new experiences.
I’ll be here for the next three months, and will be sharing some of my experiences with you through this blog. I’m new to life on the farm, so you’ll be getting my insights as a complete newcomer.
As an urbanite, this week has been something of a baptism of fire for me. Imago Forest is pretty remote, we live in a solar powered yurt, sleep in tents and shower under a hose (we’re hoping to get the new solar hot water system up and running shortly).
My first week here has been a real lesson in sustainable living. Virtually nothing is wasted. Food waste is fed to the chickens, weeds are pulled up and used as mulch for the trees and egg shells are crunched up and fed back to the chooks to improve egg quality. Meanwhile, us humans live off the grid on solar power and rain water.
The week’s been pretty hectic, what with having to deal with rain damage, trespassing cows and a huge delivery of gravel, but yesterday I managed to spend my first full day in the garden. We dug up a few of the vegetable beds, which are looking really healthy, and have planted zucchini, squash, silverbeet, broccoli cabbage carrots and plenty of flowers. Now the hard bit is waiting to see how they grow…

Irish Enthusiasm!

Rhoda and Fiona came last week and were fantastic help! While they were here we got 10 beds prepared ready for a winter planting. The backlog arose because of the weeks of rain where we couldn't plant. When it's too wet, digging the ground just ruins the structure. Thankfully there'd been a week of no rain before they came so that while they were here we could get stuck into it!
(left: planting spring bulbs)

No-effort Farming - a few weeks on

I've had two very excellent people up here - Jim and Rob - and we've been powering through the bed planting. These are some of the first of many beds being planted out under the "new" no-effort method.
The beds at Imago Forest are all circular, so we've planted silverbeet, peas and spinach around the outside, broccoli inside that, and carrots and shallots in the very centre. Throughout the entire bed we've also lightly sown oats and spring flowers.
The reasons for this are to have a thick and varied bed to reduce weed and pest problems, to put often picked items around the outside, close to the path and to put infrequently and larger plants in the centre.
It's possible that the wallaby has been kept out so that all this hard work doesn't go to naught!

Behind the Curtains

Well it's the end of an era... we'll all be missing Hannah's blog. And to avoid any comparisons, I thought I'd take a different tack altogether with my postings and write about some of the behind the scenes goings on.

The Christmas day last weekend reminded me of how far things have come since I moved here in August last year. The entire mandala is now in operation, and while the beds have a long way to go, there are distinct improvements, not the least that the blackberries are mostly absent! But more importantly it was good to reflect on the tremendous support that I've had in making Imago Forest a success.

I want to thank the organic farmers that have mentored me, my students that have provided me with income while developing the farm, past customers who supported me in the early days and current customers who support me right now!

At times the farm has felt extremely challenging, however when thinking of the number of people that have backed me, I regain the momentum to provide an alternative to the supermarkets and where people can have a direct connection with how their food is produced.

THANK YOU

Bumper Harvest to Farewell Hannah

By Hannah Parson

Well, my last week on the farm and my last blog. I can hardly believe how quickly the last three months have gone…it doesn’t seem like five minutes ago Julian and I had just met at Morisset train station and we were on the mammoth drive up to Imago Forest…and now it’s my very last day. It’s sad that I’m leaving but I depart with lots of fantastic memories and, of course, an online blog to look back on!

This week has been a busy one, trying to tie up a few ends before I go. For weeks we had been discussing doing road signs and a mandala map and as you know from my last blog I’ve been spending a lot of time on completing these projects. The signs are finished and ready to be put up, hopefully in time for Julian’s Christmas party on Sunday, so everyone can find their way around! And the mandala map is outside, in view from the window I sit at, just waiting to have the pencil lines rubbed out…and then that’s finished too. I feel very pleased with how they have turned out…I hope lots of you will see them in use on the farm in the future!

One of the things about this week that really sticks in my mind was the harvest on Wednesday morning. We got up at 6:30am before the heat and harvested the most lettuce, kale, silverbeet, tatsoi and bok choy I’ve seen since I’ve been at Imago. It was so good to be involved with such a great harvest on my last week, and also to be involved in the packing of each individual box and their delivery to you at home. Delivery day is usually quite a long one, but it’s the day all our hard work on the farm comes together and we can show it off a bit! We hope you are enjoying what you received…

So, it looks like it’s goodbye from me and my blog. It’s been a pleasure helping Julian in the process of getting his food to you at home and meeting some of you along the way. It was great to hear that a few of you followed and enjoyed my blog…who knows, maybe I’ll come back to Imago Forest one day and add another excerpt! Watch this space :o)

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…

Wonderful Water

Reflecting on the last twelve months at Imago Forest, we've learnt so much and grown more vegies than we thought would be possible without using irrigation. In particular salad mix and carrots are now possible, whereas previously they were not.
With the warmer weather we've been excited about all the crops that we could plant. However almost exactly in time with the warmer soils came the "Big Dry". All of five weeks of no rain. On a typical farm this would barely even register, we imagine, however at Imago Forest we've been looking anxiously to the skies, but have realised that as we are now growing crops that are much more water dependent, we must choose to start irrigating occasionally, or stop growing these extra crops.
As the carrots and salad mix have been popular, we thus began the investigation into how to irrigate... and it was looking like it would easily run into the thousands of dollars. So with a bit of initiative, Paul and Hannah took advantage of the dam being uphill from the mandala garden (part of the permaculture design) and pieces of hose around the farm and constructed a gravity feed pipe from the dam into barrels in the garden.
From the barrels we now hand water the beds as required. Fingers crossed that it will rain as predicted this week, however we now have an option to get by on.

Fowl Tales

I arrive back to Imago Forest to reports from Julian that the chooks have been letting standards slip a little in my absence and not so many eggs have been collected over the weekend. So Tuesday morning I head down to the domes to have a little chat to them and give them a bit of encouragement for the coming week….they weren’t being very attentive but I’m pretty sure they got the message! The rest of the day is spent in the vineyard planting another 31 fruit trees. This time we put in Nectarines, Peaches and Nashi (a delicious type of Japanese pear that I’ve never heard of before!) so now we have a good collection of different fruits.

Of course on Wednesday is delivery day again so we’re up early to harvest bok choy and pack the boxes. While in Singleton I get some much needed time at the library to continue on my ‘Farm Instructions’ for planting a bed and also moving chook domes…and I try to remember all the details. Lucky that the weather is beautiful as our car breaks down and we spend half an hour at the side of the road waiting for a kind neighbour to pick us up. When we eventually get home I go out to the chooks to find a total of 19 eggs…see, I told you they were listening!

Thursday we’re up early and talk about Mandala layout over a cup of tea. We identify an area to cultivate and get straight to it with the broad fork, loosening all the old roots from the ground (slightly back breaking I must confess!). As usual we add lime and dolomite and dig through, removing weeds as we go along. With the chooks watching from the nearby dome (shouldn’t they be hard at work laying those eggs?!), we finally get to plant our Asparagus, and all before lunch. Our afternoon is spent planting 2 more beds, making a grand total of 6 since I arrived just 3 weeks ago. Hopefully I’ll be quite the expert soon!

Champion chooks keep count

Week two at Imago Forest and I’m really starting to settle in. The chooks are getting used to me and have stopped pecking me quite as much! This week they have laid fantastic amounts of eggs…and I feel quite proud!

Monday we collected Paul from Singleton who is coming to help us on the farm for a few days. We get stuck right in and sow a bed Monday afternoon and I’m pleased to find I remember enough from last week to be able to explain to Paul the reasoning behind the planting patterns we use in the Mandala Garden.

Tuesday the weather is perfect and we plan to plant 36 trees in the newly cleared orchard area. Morning is spent grafting several types of apple tree to root stock…Julian cuts and joins each piece in a clever fashion which will hopefully ensure successful grafting, while Paul and I use grafting tape to bind and label each new tree…Cox’s, James, Sauvages and Esopus etc all heritage varieties. After some hard digging by Paul and Julian, and once again the mixing in of lime and dolomite, the gentleman kindly allow me the best job of planting the trees! Our production line works well and we finish just in time to quickly admire our day’s work before dark falls.

Wednesday, Julian and Paul head off with the deliveries while I remain on the farm. Perra follows me around as I see to the chickens and collect the morning’s 15 eggs…that’s my girls! With some time to sit I add to and alter our farm operations flow chart as we keep having brainwaves on how to better it, and we can see how it’s developed in just one week. Following this I do my first small stock count in the Mandala Garden and realise I need a lot more practice at recognising what’s what! The cool of the afternoon is spent planting 2 more new beds, and this time I do one on my own…cant wait to see if it turns out well…I did put a lot of love into each and every seed!

Thursday arrives, not a cloud in the sky and another day ahead of us in the newly created orchard. We rake up all the grass from the clearing, put a good amount of manure around each tree leaving space around the trunk, and then cover the manure with straw for protection. A job well done, the orchard now looks like a mass of huge nests with sticks sticking up in the middle! After a day in the sun we shower, relax, read our books and look back over what we’ve achieved this week.

Hannah Parsons

Hello from Mount Royal! My name is Hannah and I'm currently up here at Imago Farm, working with Julian through the WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) programme. As a complete novice in the field of biodynamics I'm looking forward to learning about the various levels to the work Julian does here on the farm, from the day to day schedule through to the thought and theory behind the concept of the Mandala Garden. So for a few months I'll be helping plant, nurture and harvest the produce you receive...and I hope it's all to your satisfaction!

Each morning since arriving here on 2nd September, the first thing on the agenda has been to tend to the chooks. Day one Julian showed me how to feed, water and collect and clean eggs which has become my first small responsibility on the farm. It's been my first experience with chickens so I'm still getting used to getting pecked!

Day 2 the weather wasn't so good and we found ourselves concealed by a cloud being so high up. We put our minds to writing an operations flow chart (a work in progress) and I began to get a pretty good idea of all the work needed to run the farm each day of the week. As I hand made bread baked in the oven, I learnt some of the theory surrounding the Mandala garden, in particular guild planting and its advantages.

Wednesdays are delivery days so we awoke early to pack the fruit and vegetable boxes before the chance of any sun. We weighed each item according to the order sheet and arranged the fresh produce into labelled boxes ready to deliver. Julian explained how it can be useful to do a stock count of the remaining produce for help with our orders later in the week. Boxes packed and loaded onto the ute we set off to Singleton, amazing views to both the left and the right.

Day 4, Thursday and we take the opportunity in the finer weather to spread some lime and dolomite over the Mandala Garden to sweeten the soil. Julian teaches me about soil acidity and how using these two materials can improve the availability of nutrients and thus the growth of our fruit and veg...so hopefully the hard work has been worth it! We relax for a much needed lunch and then head out again to move my first chook dome. Again I learn more about soil preparation and how the chickens fertilise and scratch, partly cultivating the earth for us.

The day ends with the much anticipated sowing of a bed...first we do a little cultivation and Julian explains how he tries to cultivate shallowly to prevent soil compacting underneath. We then sow a nice mix of asian greens, zucchini, coriander and others, and I see guild planting in action as we sow in radishes between our other vegies which will be the the first to be ready. We should see our first shoots in about 2 weeks which will be extremely satisfying for me, and eventually I'll have seen my first cycle from sowing to harvesting and delivering to your door!

Pruning the Fruit Trees

Well, it was well and truly time to prune the fruit trees by the time we got out there with the secateurs. The peaches and nectarines had their leaves starting to show already... naughty naughty!

So we sharpened the secateurs, and went to each of the trees and cut it back to vase shape. It seems a bit drastic cutting off so much material, but the theory goes that you set the shape in the early years, and reap the benefits in the future. I'm after a vase shape here to maximise fruit on each tree. Whereas a central leader shape maximises fruit production per area (if you pack in lots of trees). Also a vase will work better with the domes that come in quite close.

Paul and I kept the "scion" wood that we cut in readiness for grafting it onto rootstock when it arrives.