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Honey (one of the chooks) hadn't been laying for a few days which is unlike her. And then one day I was home when she got out and just vanished. And I found where she'd been laying the eggs: in the compost bay!
On the other hand, we think Hainan has laid an egg somewhere else...we just don't know where...
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An interesting read about backyard fruit by Australian gardener Jackie French: how not to grow backyard fruit. Basically, climate change is wrecking the way that gardens seasonally work – as proven by her garden in 2019. Still productive, just not as much as usual.
Mind you, she lives south of me, in the Araluen Valley which is southern NSW and inland a little, where the soil is LEGENDARY fertile and the winters are much sharper than up here in Sydney. The summers are also less humid, and possibly not as hot. So she does a lot more pears and apples than we can do up here, where a more mediterranean climate calls for citrus, and sub-tropicals.
Weirdly, the last season worked beautifully for all my early-flowering stone fruit in Sydney. If we get the same rains in late September and early October, then my nectarines and peaches crop should be pretty spectacular, even though I trimmed all those trees down quite significantly this autumn.
I definitely need to manure the apples and the plum – this weekend, I think. Maybe the cherries, too? I think last season’s dearth of crop was due to wrong weather conditions rather than a lack of nutrients but I’m not entirely sure about that. Hm. Definitely potassium for the cherries and plum, then manure – although debating whether to run it through the chook pen first.
I’m wondering if the ridge of green lawn that marched along the run of the sewerage pipe is because the old (probably clay) pipe held some residual moisture in the midst of a drought season that kept that line of grass verdant when the grasses around it faded. Also wondering just how difficult it would be to rig a greywater pipe from the kitchen sink out to the fruit tree garden. Because there’s so much rinsing-off water that just goes down the drain to the sewers and it could be used just as well to water the fruit trees through the dry spells...
Still need to speak with a plumber about the runoff from the roof. And possibly a roofer about the gutters and eaves.
On the other hand, we think Hainan has laid an egg somewhere else...we just don't know where...
--
An interesting read about backyard fruit by Australian gardener Jackie French: how not to grow backyard fruit. Basically, climate change is wrecking the way that gardens seasonally work – as proven by her garden in 2019. Still productive, just not as much as usual.
Mind you, she lives south of me, in the Araluen Valley which is southern NSW and inland a little, where the soil is LEGENDARY fertile and the winters are much sharper than up here in Sydney. The summers are also less humid, and possibly not as hot. So she does a lot more pears and apples than we can do up here, where a more mediterranean climate calls for citrus, and sub-tropicals.
Weirdly, the last season worked beautifully for all my early-flowering stone fruit in Sydney. If we get the same rains in late September and early October, then my nectarines and peaches crop should be pretty spectacular, even though I trimmed all those trees down quite significantly this autumn.
I definitely need to manure the apples and the plum – this weekend, I think. Maybe the cherries, too? I think last season’s dearth of crop was due to wrong weather conditions rather than a lack of nutrients but I’m not entirely sure about that. Hm. Definitely potassium for the cherries and plum, then manure – although debating whether to run it through the chook pen first.
I’m wondering if the ridge of green lawn that marched along the run of the sewerage pipe is because the old (probably clay) pipe held some residual moisture in the midst of a drought season that kept that line of grass verdant when the grasses around it faded. Also wondering just how difficult it would be to rig a greywater pipe from the kitchen sink out to the fruit tree garden. Because there’s so much rinsing-off water that just goes down the drain to the sewers and it could be used just as well to water the fruit trees through the dry spells...
Still need to speak with a plumber about the runoff from the roof. And possibly a roofer about the gutters and eaves.
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I am envious of your garden and your stone fruits. That is delightful.
And, I am intrigued by climate and landscape and etc. What you describe of the Araluen Valley sounds a bit like where I live now (northeastern US, sharper winters), whereas Sydney seems like it might be similar to where I grew up (southwestern US, mediterranean climate, lots of subtropical whatnot.)
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I suspect your version of 'sharper winters' is not the same as my version of 'sharper winters' - they might have snow inland, but in western NSW it would be brief - maybe a couple of days. Admittedly, my idea of a NE USA winter is kind of snowed in!
Depending on who's doing the metrics, Sydney is either 'mediterranean' or 'warm temperate'. But citrus can grow here - quite well, in fact, and so do subtropicals and even tropicals. A lot of it, however, appears to be about creating a 'microclimate', which means that a section of your garden has its own little climate. So two apples, planted in Sydney, one in a warm, sheltered position, one out in a position that gets colder winds in the change of seasons, will fruit rather differently based on the 'microclimate' that they've been planted in. And you can quite easily create a microclimate for growing things: something grown up against a western-facing brick wall will have a spot that's a few degrees warmer than something grown at the end of a path between two buildings that forms what's basically a wind tunnel.
Right now, I'm trying to find a place in my garden for an apple that requires some reasonable cold in winter to fruit, and hopefully can handle fairly hot summers!
So, yeah, climate and landscape is really interesting to me, too!
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Usually, they're cooped up, so they lay their eggs in a laying box/nesting space that we made up for them. But when they get loose in the garden...well, we don't know where they lay their eggs then...