09 November 2010

Starting well into the process

A while ago, I thought it would be a grand idea to document the process of setting up my doomstead. Of course, being as I'm master of procrastination, it hasn't happened yet. (The process of setting it up's been a bit slow too, if I'm honest.)

Still. Time to start. This is what it looked like the last time the Lands Department flew aerial photography of the area. (To get some sense of scale, it's a bit over 20 acres.) That's some time before I bought it, and it looks much nicer now, at least to my eyes. I reckon my neighbours hate me, though, because it'd be a source of weed seeds.

By "weeds", I mean Ruby Saltbush, Fragrant Saltbush, Cutleaf Mignonette (they actually may have a point there, but sheep like it, and it's great bee fodder), thistles, Salvation Jane, tagasaste, a dryland lucerne cultivar I broadcast, and numerous other native and introduced grasses, shrubs and trees, well, really anything that isn't wheat or sheep. There's even feral wheat, barley and peas coming up from when it was last cropped. Oh, and some sheep remains.

I'll share what it looks like when I get to grips with embedding photos. But it's really fucking green. Last time I was up there, a couple of weeks ago, the stuff growing on it was waist deep.

I've got 5 acres direct drilled to random native plants by Trees for Life in the south-west corner, and I've planted a few olive trees along the creek line. The next step is to put in about 100 grape vines, once I work out which variety will be drought-tolerant and give me more-or-less drinkable red wine.

Posts will be very occasional, btw, as I'm probably the laziest man alive.

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