Water.

At this time of the year my blog should be bursting at the seams with photos of gorgeous rainbows of fruit and vegetables. Hundreds of varieties in all different shapes and colours. This week last year I was blogging about beetroots and peas and rocket and radishes. This year you get the puppies.

This ain't no ordinary season. This certainly ain't no ordinary January.

Actually, the truth is so far in our ten years of organic farming we have learnt that there is no such thing as an ordinary year. Some years there's too much wind, some are too hot, some bring fires and other other crazy weather patterns. As farmers we have learnt to listen and watch and to adapt.

But until this year the one constant has been the respect and love we have to have for water. Water is good.

When we moved here we became self sufficient in our water supply for the first time. We have had to be mindful in washing and drinking and laundering and bathing even in the middle of winter, to ensure we have enough for the coming summer. Our house water comes from the rain that lands on our roof and is precious.

Farm water has always been a constant topic for discussion too. We have bores that fill dams, we have dams that fill irrigation systems and we have irrigation systems that are always being planned and fixed and tested and diagrammed and updated.

On a farm water is life giving, water is precious, water is the topic of so many discussions.

Most years the running joke around here is that Bren has another girlfriend called Tap who he is always rushing off to meet and spend time with.

But then this year something happened to turn our whole theory of water on its head.

We learnt that water can also be destructive. Water can ruin your plans, stop you from planting a crop, turn your crop to seed or to mush, it can take years of carefully maintained top soil and send it off down the creek. Water can be scary. Water is a contradiction.

And everywhere we go there are more crazy water stories. The lettuce grower who had to plow in ten acres of flooded lettuces, our neighbours at yesterday's farmers' market who had to sell so much of their strawberry crop as seconds, our friends Andrew and Jill who lost their entire crop and left a gap where their stall usually stands opposite us...I could go on and on, I'm sure you could too.

So now we are living through the rest of this crazy season. We are grateful for our chookens who continue to lay, that we don't have enormous machinery and input costs and that we never put a crop in so we didn't lose one. Our hearts go out to those less fortunate.

Please buy local where you can, buy direct from the farmer where possible and look out for those that are producing the food that you eat.

Flooded farm.

Happy spring!

Its been raining and pouring here.

We've had 40mm of rain since midnight last night.

A dam up the road has broken its banks and the bottom of our property is under water.

This photo shows one of the reasons why we close the farm gate stall over winter. You'd have to get your bathers on to get to that little shed stall today.

The last time we can remember it raining like this was in 2003 when we'd just spent a small fortune redoing our driveway only for it to be washed up stream.

So today we are thinking about organic trout or organic rice.

And we are optimistic about the coming fruit and vegetable season.

Have a wonderful weekend wherever you are.

Oh, and thanks so much Mitch for the great pics. X

Happy Wet New Year!

Irrigation.

Every year over summer we make jokes about Bren having another girlfriend called Tap, as he is constantly jumping up and going to change the irrigation taps.

At this time of year its all about the water.

We use these wobbler sprinklers until the seed germinates and then we swap to drip tape.

Our farm gate stall is opening on Sunday. I hope you can come and see us soon.

Water plants.

This is Richard from Bell's Water Gardens in Newlyn.

On Friday Richard spent the day waist deep in our house dam planting out more than a thousand water plants.

Some of the plants are for habitat for the wildlife, some like water chestnuts are edible, some like water lilies are aesthetic and all aid in preserving and ensuring the water quality.

Our house dam is also our main irrigation dam and planting 30 species of water plant is in keeping with our ideology of maximising biodiversity throughout the farm.

The Waders.

I have spoken before about the Daylesford Organics style police.

I have no idea how these beauties got through the gates.

Bren says they are called waders.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Today they got tested out for the first time and apparently they passed.

The air temperature is 7.1, I'm guessing the water is quite a bit colder.

We have this issue with high iron and iron bacteria in the water that is coming out of the bore into the dam. You can see it all orange against the green of the dam.

This iron is sludgy and clogs up pipes and filters and creates a bit of a mess and a lot of extra work.

Bren's theory is that by making the water go up into the air before it goes into the water he is aerating it which in turn will make the iron particles heavy and sink to the bottom. Aeration also helps to improve water quality in general.

He will also be able to monitor how much water is coming out of the bore from the edge.

I'm just glad I'm the designated photographer.

Sunday Afternoon

Here at Daylesford Organics we have a tradition of making pasta on Sunday afternoons.
It's a whole family event.

Mixing, rolling, cutting, draping and drying the dough.



This is the view from our kitchen window.
It's the calmest its been for days.

The house dam is the fullest its been for years thanks to the help of the new bore. You might actually need that bridge to get across to the island.

That path behind the bridge was part of the containment line during the February bushfire. You can see where it burnt through our bush just behind there.

Hello duckies!

Dinner time!

And the vegetarian option.