It has been raining and then sunny this week on the farm, which has been great for the vegetables! Lots of our seed babies are starting to emerge.
We’ve been learning about different gardening techniques by reading a lot and watching YouTube videos. We tried an efficient method to prepare beds to transplant baby onions. We learned the importance of getting your potting soil moist enough before sewing seeds. We also learned that weeds are a pain in the butt and you should try to avoid them appearing at all!
As well as gardening, we’ve been let loose with power tools again. This time we are attempting to build a big composter, consisting of three walls made from off-cuts of wood. Our host didn’t want to use any nails or screws, as the walls will eventually decompose (and nails are bad for tractor tyres). Instead, we sandwiched vertical planks between sets of horizontal planks, drilled holes and “sewed” some wire through them. We haven’t tried to lift them up yet as they weigh a tonne, but hopefully the half-lapped joints will stop the whole thing falling apart. The walls will be attached to posts made from some cedar trees removed from near the barn. We had to remove all of the bark from these before they can be used, which was a satisfying job.
The sheep have had three new friends arrive. Well, actually they are old friends who are returning to the farm. They have been kept as pets by a family who can unfortunately no longer look after them. They are well fed and pampered compared to the farm sheep, so hopefully they won’t get bullied (the big fat fatties).
We have been enjoying the sunshine with walks to the beach and relaxing evenings in the garden. There are lots of insects appearing, which means lots of birds. Our host thinks they have purple martins nesting in the barn, but thanks to the expert bird identification skills of our readers, I’m not so sure. They look like barn swallows in the barn (duh) and there are also lots of violet-green swallows around too. I’ve not seen any purple martins yet.
Hopefully we will have photos of a finished composter and even bigger vegetables next week!
Roaming Rollie 
Readin’ … cleanin’ … Eatin’ … Leanin’ … and weedin’
I am enjoying the ‘two fingered technique’ for making holes to put your seeds in. Very efficient.
I hope the saw and Rosie have cooled down now. Xx
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Yet more skills learnt, brilliant. Just one question, why not build the composter where it’s going to end up? That’s going to be some big beast to move. Love the purple starfish. Enjoy the weekend.
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It’s pretty close to where it will end up, plus our host has a fork lift attachment for his tractor!
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loving the violet green swallow showing off his best features. x
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“Our host didn’t want to use any nails or screws”. That’s the wonder, the wonder of glue!
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We were of course singing this hit whilst working. General consensus was that you would need a poop tonne of glue to stick those planks together though.
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The idea of drilling holes and threading wire through to hold it together sounds good.Or wood dowels?
Apparently they do have a few Purple Martins on Gabriola Island, by 2010 they had two colonies at south east end of the island, at Silva Bay Marina (14 boxes, 4pairs) and Degnen Bay (26 boxes, 15 pairs). They use nest boxes fixed to a shared post next to or in the water so may not be that hard to find if you go there ( social distance rules permitting).
Anna’s Hummingbirds have big fluffy undertail coverts – maybe they use them to keep there feet warm at night/in winter?
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We’ve still not attempted to pick the panels up yet… So we’ll see if it’s a good idea 😂 We didn’t think of wooden dowels! Might have taken a bit longer cos we’d have had to make some chunky dowels, but that would have made it totally compostable.
We’ve actually been to Degnen Bay and I thought I saw a purple martin! Well definitely look for the best boxes if we make it there again.
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I too am loving the purple starfish! At the end of your working holiday you should be able to build yourself your own wooden cabin with all the skills you are learning!
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That is the dream! Perhaps with a composting toilet and a sauna!
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