Soil By Design in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia | Education

Soil By Design

Locality: Cowra, New South Wales, Australia

Phone: +61 410 678 967

Address: About 5km out of 2794 Cowra, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.soilbydesign.com.au

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25.01.2022 Honey is not the only thing being harvested, from the sweet to the tart, our finger limes are also dripping off the tree. Salads, desserts, G&T, cheese platter, smashed avo, fish, oysters, pannacotta or cheesecake. So versatile!

23.01.2022 Happy Spring Fever. Finally, here's our new 315 square metre grow-house that we have been building over lockdown. Just last weekend gone was spent locking down the end cover, planting veg seeds in the boxes and transplanting trees from the smaller grow-house on the right, building compost bins out the back, wood-chipping the pathways, adding the overhead and drip irrigations, selectively weeding the green manure crop, and doing some mowing. No wonder we were stuffed last Sun...day night! Still have to get a tree auger to plant the avocados in the middle this weekend and in time the black tank will be cut down for our dip pool. Most importantly this now doubles our water capture. You'll recall we bought the frame 4 years ago and had the first couple of arches in place taunting us for the last year. Well for comparison the second picture was taken from the opposite corner on 28 June 2020 just two months ago. Woohoo!

22.01.2022 It's that time of year again, and perfect timing to be preserving some produce for winter, oh and in case we need to self quarantine. We harvested the last of the cucumbers, the green tomatoes left on the plants, and some peppers and chillies. For the cucumbers we've used two different recipes for brine fermenting, with little variations adding our lemongrass and new season finger limes, and a grape leaf top and bottom to add some tannin. A cucumber pickle is sousing in the fridge, and I'm now about to get stuck into the green tomato relish which will include a couple of last year's stewed apples that were in the freezer.

21.01.2022 It's been a big week at the farm seeing a four year project take a huge leap forward. After driving to Maleny in Qld, twice, to dismantle and transport back a 30m x 10m growhouse, this week we finally got all the arches installed. When it's all done it will nearly double our water capture, better get another tank, and provide a sheltered oasis for growing a variety of fruit trees and other edibles under the 4.5m canopy in fabulous compost we have been building regularly over the years. Thanks to Geoff, Des, Dylan, and Ron on the crane for helping us to get this far, not done yet but such a leap forward.

16.01.2022 World Soil Day 2020 Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity!

14.01.2022 The trials and tribulations of living "off grid". With so many dust storms this summer, people complain about their car going brown after just a spit of rain. Well the last couple of days our batteries have been down to about 50% charging capacity, a salient reminder that dust doesn't just frustrate car owners. Too hot to jump on the roof at 43 degrees in the middle of the day, but after 8pm in the fading light, with a cool breeze and the temp at a balmy 39, it was just long enough to 'dust' them back to health. If you're grid connected are you getting your full feed-in?

13.01.2022 Wind, rain, hail or shine, nothing stops our afternoon walk around the property with the dog and today was our third afternoon in drenching rain. 60ml in 56 hours and counting. It is an opportunity to observe how things are working, or not, every day, each season, in all weathers. Today we can examine where water is flowing, are we storing or losing it. Is it pooling where we want it or creating a hazard. Photos captioned with descriptions.... Our contour swales are working, slowing the water down to give it time to soak in and limit erosion and loss of valuable soil asset. Curiously, our Chinese Quinces have decided to set blossom incredibly early this year, why? No idea! The rest of the orchards are all resting quietly, fruit bud set and just waiting for Spring. Of course, where else would the ducks be in duck weather but out in the rain. Quite happy.

11.01.2022 Myoga, or Japanese Ginger, we only get one chance each year when the buds emerge to harvest it at it's prime. We transplanted a number of tubers last year and they obviously prefer this wicking bed or perhaps the lack of competition. So I was delighted to find yesterday when we were doing some prep work to find the buds were just breaking through the ground surface. Pickled or fresh can be used in salads, miso, sushi, through steamed rice, noodles, or on fish.They have a distinctive and delicate flavour.

09.01.2022 It was wild for about 5 minutes as it dumped 12 ml of rain, vid in comments, minimal damage although the vegie house structure is a bit wobbly (technical term) but the big grow-houses are solid. The corn in the veg house was virtually flattened, thought I'd best get some stakes to prop them up, but the wonders of nature, 24 hours later it is standing upright again. Couldn't help thinking about Pilates and having good 'cor-n' strength to align posture. Sorry that was a bit corney .

08.01.2022 For an introduction to Holistic Management, Savory Global is, for a short time, offering their HM Intro pack at no cost. Use your isolation to study and prepare your own holistic context great time to prepare for when we come out of this. https://savory.global/ebooks/

08.01.2022 Life long learning is important to us. Nearly 10 years ago Nicholas did a course in soil biology and microscope analysis that set us on this path, and nearly every year since we have added to this knowledge bank with related or complementary courses. This year he has come full circle and is redoing that foundation course, laboratory and consultancy accreditation program but this time directly with the world-leading authority Dr Elaine Ingham. So much has evolved in the last ...decade including Dr Elaine's focus on things like compost building. Here we are putting theory into practice building a measured winter fungal dominant compost as part of rehabilitating a local property. Up to this point, we have primarily used the Berkley 18 day composting method. The new recipe only requires 2 turns with a maximum of 3, saving a lot of energy on the 7-9 turns needed for the Berkley format. However, the recipe is much more precise in ingredients, temperature control and maturation process. Our mushroom cultivation work also ties in nicely with this format as it allows us to develop much higher fungal dominance through both the ingredients and the ability to add fungal spawn to the maturation process. The benefits of which can move plant succession from weed dominance and towards native and perennial grasses. See more

07.01.2022 I know it's been doing the festival rounds for about a year but today I caught the cinema release of the movie "The Biggest Little Farm". I laughed, I cried, I fell in love with their enthusiasm and passion. If you want to see the triumph of biodiversity and dreams realised with all the trials and tribulations along the way make the effort to track it down. https://www.google.com.au/url

06.01.2022 Well here it is again or for those who haven't seen my home fruit dehydrater before, it goes like this. Black card table with legs sitting in water to keep the crawling critters away, a spare window with wood chocks to keep it proud of the table and a food throw over the top pegged around the legs to keep the flying critters away. Halve the fruit, in this case "cotton candy" apricot/plum cross, hence the lighter colouring, and leave out in the sun for about 3 days. Make sure ...you top up the water baths as they evaporate quickly too. I don't treat the fruit so they will go brownish rather than retaining their chemical preserved bright colouring of commercial packets. Keep in an airtight container in the fridge and can be used all year.

06.01.2022 Got the cucumber pickles and tomato relish done and then Nicholas brought in about 100 capsicum and a pile of basil. Pesto made and now in the freezer and still pondering what to do with the capsicum. Suggestions? The persimmons are an astringent variety so will be months before I can retrieve the pulp but the birds were starting to sample them. Similarly we harvested some of the pomegranate, which are shining like red beacons up in the orchard, as the parrots have come back visiting and they would disappear otherwise. It's time to plant out some winter veg, hence the big clean out of the vege house and the covered growhouse. Obviously his broken rib is improving.

04.01.2022 Here's an opportunity, for a limited time, to watch a relevant, full length, solution based film about personal and community responsibility for the production of food, energy and care of the planet. Some innovative and practical ideas to encourage young and old to realise "The Need to Grow". Watch it today, in your lounge room, at no cost. We sat through it this week and while it felt a little disjointed and there were some things we wanted to know more about, overall it was worth the investment of our time. https://grow.foodrevolution.org/

03.01.2022 Well, finally decided to turn those 100 capsicum into a roasted capsicum tepanade. Did the red ones first just for the eye. This variety does not have enough flesh to make them as the usual char roasted in oil, so I went rustic style for bruscetta, toast spread, cheese platter, pasta toss. Yum.

02.01.2022 It's a fine line deciding how much honey to harvest to give the bees enough space and how much to leave to ensure they have enough food for winter. Let's hope we have made the right choice. After spinning the frames the honey is put through a course filter to eliminate the remanants of comb and a second filter to ensure any fine particles are also discarded to result in this beautiful clear liquid gold. Yum!