Wurraglen in Dagun, Queensland, Australia | Gardener

Wurraglen

Locality: Dagun, Queensland, Australia

Phone: +61 7 5484 3749

Address: PO Box 47 4570 Dagun, QLD, Australia

Website:

Likes: 167

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Park
• Farm
• Gardener
• Nature reserve

21.01.2022 Pest scouting for beginners. Pretty obvious ecosystem response to abnormal mismatch between temperature, day length and moisture conditions. Prettier than the locust and aphid plagues though.

20.01.2022 Homemade Covid sense-of-smell test. The year's first sweet pea blooms.

20.01.2022 Birds near the house last Thursday morning. Thanks Greg Conlon for great photos.

20.01.2022 Crops under pretty severe stress already. We've had less than 2/3rds of our average Dec-Mar rain, following on from the driest soil conditions on record. No wonder the critters are hopping in to demolish the brief but prolific flush of lush green growth that is now becoming quite prematurely water (ie everything)-stressed.

19.01.2022 Elaine is the broccoli Queen! (If only we could manage this quality throughout the difficult weather ahead.)

19.01.2022 Helped out at the co-op stall at the newly re-opened Pomona markets. In spite of the wet weather, it was an enjoyable time, and produce sold well, partly due to the enthusiastic approach to marketeering from new co-op member Jacqui, who along with Elaine, Rod, Victoria and Suzette have put a great effort into getting this stall happening. Saturdays are getting busy with produce at Pomona in the morning, directly followed by Dagun Station in the afternoons.

17.01.2022 Many people here are looking forward to the La Nina weather conditions forecast for Eastern Australia. However, our little pocket of SEQ is still expected to experience more shit rainless weather for some time before the hoped-for relief. Surface and ground water levels here are already as low as ever experienced, most growers in our co-op have run out of irrigation water earlier this year than last year. (ie customers please be patient with the difficult supply of local fresh produce for this summer.) https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/hazardnotes/77

16.01.2022 Tried to host a virtual guided walk of part of our nature refuge for Gympie SteamZone 2020. My head couldn't manage linking video of the real world things with the video-gamish avatar world, and completely cocked up the interactive presentation bit. (I have always been hopeless with video games - just ask my grandkids) However, here are some of the real world video sections lumped together in youtube. We don't often share this part of our farm with others, and might try to do a more coherent video at a later date https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpvbhE59Jhc

15.01.2022 Great work from Caitlin and Jess at the MRCCC putting together the Mary River Catchment Crawl drone monitoring footage each year. Part of the landscape context of Wurraglen is the route taken by any soil that leaves our place via Dagun Gully. https://youtu.be/Y-_pWFKe9yQ

14.01.2022 Always good when a good photographer friend visits - thanks Greg Conlon. Russell (crow) the rooster catching early morning sun.

14.01.2022 Took some time off to visit a place that makes you feel as if you are the only human being on the planet - very therapeutic. Grateful to be physically able to get there again - its a bit rugged.

14.01.2022 Crops under pretty severe stress already. We've had less than 2/3rds of our average Dec-Mar rain, following on from the driest soil conditions on record. No wonder the critters are hopping in to demolish the brief but prolific flush of lush green growth that is now becoming quite prematurely water (ie everything)-stressed.

14.01.2022 Surprise find - feral Gladiolus xgrandivensis flowering in the top paddock. Cheery counterpoint to dealing with severe lack of water in the top dam.

13.01.2022 Auricularia cornea (cloud-ear fungus) fruiting prolifically on an old wild tobacco stem near the water in the gully after the recent storm rains. This one is edible, as is the wood-ear or jews-ear (A auricula-judae) that we often find growing in cicada-damaged trees in the forest higher up in the landscape.

13.01.2022 An interesting numerical perspective on our impact on the planet. Perhaps we massively overstepped the mark of 'sustainable' or what could be 're-gened' some time ago?

13.01.2022 Elaine is the broccoli Queen! (If only we could manage this quality throughout the difficult weather ahead.)

12.01.2022 Birds near the house last Thursday morning.. how did I miss this one. Golden whistler.

12.01.2022 Looks like we will be continuing to grow a small amount of some fiddly stuff over the summer - no rest for the wicked! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYB2la03Utw

12.01.2022 Hand-harvesting sunflower cover crop for chookfeed. Pretty labour-intensive but sort of meditative in small doses. Mobile music player (car) in paddock is helpful for sanity.

10.01.2022 Always appreciate good humour. A bit closer to home than what we'd like to admit.

09.01.2022 There should be an award for today's most heroic MVCH co-op customers. Wallum Co-op was flooded in today so they set up a sorting area at the edge of the floo...dwaters (transport by rowboat) so their members could get their fruit and veg orders! What is more amazing is that last month the same area was burning, with lots of disruptions and evacuations, and they still sorted out their co-op deliveries with the smoke drifting through the trees and the water bombing helicopters flying low overhead! See more

08.01.2022 Grew some sunflowers this year to keep the chooks happy. Also keeps the honeybees and native bees happy. Some of them are not suitable to sell as cut flowers though.

08.01.2022 https://youtu.be/XwaH-qT4Rm0 Finally, someone has created a physical model of the sort of chain of events that has to occur each week for the MaryValleyCountryHarvest co-op to organize the logistics of ordering, picking, packing, delivery, accounting and paperwork involved with the weekly fruit and veg supply cycle! However it is a much simplified model because it only involves 2 people co-operating without a mistake, rather than 40!

07.01.2022 Went for a really nice walk with neighbours/locals Holger and Cameron to visit the little waterfall in the middle of Amamoor National Park in the middle of the week. We actually received very little precipitation and absolutely no runoff from the days of drizzle early in the week - so no flow at all in the stream that feeds the waterfall. However,a great flourishing of fungus was spawning in the forest, including these very bright slimy scarlet mushrooms which I believe are Ruby Bonnets (Mycena viscidocruenta). Thanks to Holger's phone, which was the only camera that coped with the extreme colour contrast to produce a useful picture.

05.01.2022 This individual, who hangs out around our middle dam, has a curious nature and seems to come out to investigate when I'm doing something unusual in that area. It hung around me working in the banana patch for about 15 mins this morning, before moving back to the dam. It may have been investigating the scent of the poultry manure I was spreading. (Also I think it is possibly getting ready to shed and eyesight is not good today). In the past I have watched it seemingly 'playing' for joy swimming in the water when the dam fills after a long dry.

05.01.2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsAw236fYcY As a State we're not doing that well in managing our part of the National Estate. Even more important than increasing the area protected, we need to increase the investment in managing the protected areas we already have by an order of magnitude.

05.01.2022 hmm.. I wonder what made this convenient track through the incredibly long grass in the top paddock?... https://photos.app.goo.gl/aaQGib3mJpMLX5Wz7 This! https://photos.app.goo.gl/Jfthu6uxh4UX2P4p8... (Inspired by the childrens' nonsense song "Dan, Dan the wagon man".... ie the bit about "combed his hair with a wagon wheel")

05.01.2022 Heaps and heaps of wildlife in the houseyard/driveway last night/this morning - nice to be home. Tube-nosed bat (yes they CAN hover like a giant hummingbird) the most gratifying. I suspected that not removing the feral guavas on the driveway was appreciated by a lot of critters - particularly at this time of year.

04.01.2022 Homemade Covid sense-of-smell test. The year's first sweet pea blooms.

03.01.2022 Different region of Australia, but Mary Valley growers face a very similar situation with respect to supplying fresh produce to local markets and customers on a weekly basis. Even though we have seen explosive green growth in the paddocks following January's welcome rain, there is still precious little irrigation water in dams, groundwater or surface streams. Many have started planting again on the welcome gift of some soil moisture - but are gambling on follow-up rain to ...provide some future deep wetting and streamflow. Many thanks and great respect for those growers who have been able to keep up some local supply to the Mary Valley Country Harvest Co-op and the Dagun Station market stall over the last couple of very tough months. Even given some useful follow-up rain, it will still be a few more months before we see a return to a predictable supply of local fresh produce. https://www.abc.net.au//urban-farms-feel-the-burn/11919036 See more

03.01.2022 Surprise find - feral Gladiolus xgrandivensis flowering in the top paddock. Cheery counterpoint to dealing with severe lack of water in the top dam.

01.01.2022 Grew some sunflowers this year to keep the chooks happy. Also keeps the honeybees and native bees happy. Some of them are not suitable to sell as cut flowers though.