trees – Page 5 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

hot and cold

2016/02/08 Danielle 0

The climate is something that a lot of people don’t really think about much, unless they happen to be involved in climate change activism or have friends or family who are. For my family, I am that person – although my family are generally better than average in terms of awareness of climate change and the science behind it. Weeks like this – 41 degrees Celcius yesterday, and predictions of 42 – 45 degrees every day this week – make me painfully aware of these issues. The heat is unpleasant for me, but I spend my days in my air-conditioned […]

productivity

2016/01/08 Danielle 0

One of ethics of permaculture is ‘right livelihood’, which is a boiled down abstraction of the idea that people should be able to make a living – being environmentally conscious doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on commerce. Which is good news for those of us with a mortgage. I want to be ethical in my interactions with the rest of the world, even the financial ones, but I also want my bills to get paid. On that front, although this property is home now, and a test bed for a great many ideas and experiments (such as my dino-chook project […]

summer holiday tree planting

2016/01/05 Danielle 0

This has been a lovely, idle, summer holiday. To be honest, you could replace ‘idle’ with ‘utterly slack’, and not be far off. I’ve read books, gone to the beach (twice already this year, which is impressive given that it’s an hour’s drive each way), played with my cats, and barely checked my email. It’s been wonderfully relaxing. The regular household chores have continued to be done though – pot plants watered, kitty litter cleaned, the chickens and the guinea fowl fed. The guinea fowl are hardly keets any more at all, they’re almost completely feathered out. We did put […]

Polyembryonic Seeds

2015/12/22 Danielle 0

Plants grow from seeds, but what many people do not know is that not all seeds contain just one plant embryo. Many varieties of mangos, for example, have polyembryonic seeds, as do most citrus. A polyembryonic seed is one which contains multiple embryos. Poly-embryonic seeds produce a number of shoots, one of which originates from fertilisation. The fertilised seedling is often weak and stunted and should be discarded. The other seedlings are clones of the mother tree. Yes, clones – just like a cutting, only from seed. This means that if you grow a polyembryonic mango (such as Kensington Pride […]

hot chocolate: Theobroma cacao

2015/06/23 Danielle 0

The middle of winter is stormy, wet and grey. More so than it has been for the last few years, which is making me regret the fact that my water tanks aren’t in place yet to catch some of the rain – but at least the swales are catching it. The whole property is green, and the soil is starting to look like something living in a lot of places, dark and crumbly and full of mycelium. We have clover sprouting and fungi springing up all over the place, and a few of the lupins from last year must have […]