Working Bee #?

We organised a working bee for Sunday December 8, 2013. It seemed an appropriate day. We can tidy up the place before the Christmas rush, see some friends just in time for the holidays and enjoy the warm sunshine of early December before the taxing heat of January and February. So, we had many good reasons to invite people around and we had many good people show up. Afterwards we realised it was exactly 12 months to the day that we had our inaugural busy bee!

The main tasks for the day were harvesting the rest of the potatoes and some of the produce out front (zucchini, radish), relieving the seedlings of weed pressure, planting more seeds, mowing the lawn, fixing the chicken coop, planning and creating new beds, breaking up sticks for kindling, digging a hole for a frog pond and “planting” an old bath tub and eating left overs in the midday shade. Sophie and Jen Mae found themselves wearing the same sun smart outfits and tried to reassure the new housemate, Lisa, that she wasn’t moving into a cult.

The Earlwood Farmers Craig, Duncan & Sophie G contemplate the location of the new frog pond…

… and minutes later the bath is transformed into a pond in the ground!

While there is much joy in the farming process, we are having ongoing problems with powdery mildew on zucchini plants. Not sure how to combat it, milky water spray and oil is not working. We think it must be abundant in the soil because we are getting the mildew even through it hasn’t even been very wet this year. But, before the mildew took hold, the plants out front managed to pump out some beauties!

The snap of the table below captures working bee essentials: water, sunscreen, produce, experimental muffins and a dry-erase board with the plans for the day!