One hour project : Shothole.

Today I did a project on plant diseases.

I took a look around our garden for sick plants and
discovered that our nectarine tree is sick.
Shothole is a disease that stone fruits get.
You will notice this disease if you see little purple
spots and holes in the leaves. I took a few photos so that
everyone could see what it looks like.
Some leaves were worse than others.


Shothole can affect buds, fruits and shoots.
Shothole is caused by windy or wet conditions and
can also be caused from poor drainage.
Any affected twigs or shoots should be pruned
and disposed of.
A copper oxychloride should be applied at bud
swell stage.

Curly leaves on our Lemon Tree

Today Patrick the engineer set Rhyannon and I a task which he called "The 1 Hour Research Project". My project was to find out why the lemon tree has curly leaves and has not grown very much since we planted it.

When i looked at the lemon tree (ours is in a pot) i saw that some of its branches had no leaves, one branch was dead, some new leaves were growing but all the other leaves were curly. I looked up "curly leaves on my lemon tree" and found out lots of information about what it could be. Mostly i learned that different types of mite and fungus cause leaves to be curly but our tree did not have any of the other signs for the mites or the fungus that i read about.

The things i read that seemed the most like our tree were called: Defoliation (that is when the leaves fall off), Magnesium Deficiency (This make the leaves have yelloy tips and is why they fall off) and Stunted (not growing).

To fix these things we have to repot our lemon tree into a bigger pot with good drainage and make sure it is not root-bound (that is when the roots have no more room to grow because they are all twisted around). We have to cut the flowers off so the tree can put more energy into growing bigger. And we have to mix epsom salt with water and feed it to our lemon tree and this will give it the Magnesium that is needs.

Put a positive spin on it

Well our cheeky little ponies may have attempted to demolish our Compost Bin of Best for the sweet scraps they could apparently smell inside, and they may have knocked some of the bales about so badly that i can no longer move the lid without everything falling apart; but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is no question that we will need new bales to hold C.Bob together, but now with an excess of loose pea straw and an abundance of pony poo we have the perfect base for our new garden beds. Next week we will plot them out and then it will be time for planting.

Getting back to our cheeky ponies...Whilst they came rather eagerly to Dragonfly Downs they were not so pleased with my plan of putting them back in their yard. Bowie was not too much of a problem (although i feel he played up a little just to show off); he's old hack at being led and he knows who the boss is (that's me). The young colt Ziggy Stardust however, has only been led one time before and that was to get him onto the float that brought him home. He was less than happy with the prospect of having another lead hooked to him and if it wasn't for Hugo (whose smaller stature is far less threatening) I would never have got close enough hold him and get the rope on him. Hugo and I then had another challenge trying to get Ziggy to go where we led. I do believe that we made a good deal of progress with just a little bit of brute force and lot of positive reinforcement in the form of freshly sliced apple. I'm sure that we'll have him eating out of the palms of our hands soon enough. Figuratively speaking I mean... physically he already does eat out of our palms.

Too much sun or not enough sun

Rhyannon is unhappy and not wanting to blog today.

She did not work on Dragonfly Downs today but went to

Daylesford Primary School Swimming Sports.

She is a little red and a lot grumpy. She has learnt a

valuable lesson in careful application and re-application of suncreen.

We have had to move the sweet basil, as unlike little girl, these are not

getting enough sun.

The tomato plants are going well and we have lots of green fruit growing.

Hopefully the weather will become a bit more consistent and we will see more results.

Beans are happening too and there are lots and lots and lots of figs.

The parsley and chives are very content in their old tyre and we have been using our own herbs, especially mint, in our cooking.

All of the surviving strawberries have now died, thanks to the curiousity of a certain little pony.

Our compost also gained some equine interest (and lost some structure) from the ponies too.

We have had a fair bit happening lately and the weather was really cold last week and now hot, so we have lost a bit of "oomph". Hopefully we will get it together and have some exciting news in the next few weeks.

For now, we are just plodding along........

Tiny pony : Bad pony.

This week we put Bowie and Ziggy into Dragonfly Downs to eat down the grass and weeds. Instead of eating the grass and weeds they decided there was something very yummy in the Compost Bin of Best. They munched on the pea straw trying to get inside. C.Bob now has a large amount of straw missing. Luckily they didn't get to the compost. We think it is still ok as is, but we will not empty and refill this one, we will buy extra bales when we need to.

Cold and Wet

The last day of summer; predictably it was grey and wet, which is fine because it was decided by an unspoken but unanimous agreement that it was going to be a lazy day. We did work on a few projects but it was a good day for just being together and as we worked all weekend i think we needed it.

Scratching the surface.

WEEK 4.
This week I got to help carve the sign for Dragonfly Downs.
It started as a lump of wood but now it is becoming a work of art (made from a lump of wood).
I got to chisel away at the dragonfly.
I used a wooden hammer thingy (my mum says it is called a mallet).
I will post a picture of this when it is done.

How does your garden grow?

Just a quick update on what is actually growing here...

The three tomato plants that were given to us by our lovely shop landlord Jim have flourished.

Rhyannon named them Red, Orange & Green (see pic below).

We also planted a tomato out that grew in our compost heap (Rhyannon named this plant Pink).

We have got tomatoes fruiting now as well as figs, olives, plums, blackberries, beans and pumpkin.

Our potted herbs are going really well especially the chives, basil and parsley.

Unfortunately Bowie ate all the strawberries in the upside-down planter.

Hugo does most of the watering of the tomato plants and herbs so I took these photo on behalf of him.

Red, Orange & Green.

Potted Herbs & Beans.

A new friend for Bowie

Bowie & Ziggy Stardust say "Hi".

Ziggy is so cute!

Yummy Hay

Week Three

Today we got a new pony called Ziggy Stardust.
It was very hard to get Ziggy to come home with us.
It took an hour and fifteen minutes....But luckily Ziggy is here.
The good thing is that Ziggy and Bowie are already friends.
Ziggy is much smaller than Bowie, but he is fully grown.
He is so cute and fluffy.
My mum fell in love with him when she was driving past his paddock a little while ago.
She named him in her head and kept stopping to pat him and take photos of him.
Now me and my mum get to collect more poo for Dragonfly Downs.
Caleb thinks that it is a gross job (I just read his blog).
I think collecting horse poo is quite fun. You should try it one day.
It is good exercise and good for the garden too.
It is also better for the horse to get that stuff out then to keep it in.

Sisters, Poo and Stuff.

Week Three: My sister's job was to fill up this see-saw with pony poo until it was full.

I am very glad this was not my job. Unfortunately I did not get any photos of her doing it...
Just the finished product. It looks very pooey. What a great job for sisters.

We also got to wear our dragonfly down shirt, that we designed a few days ago.
This is the front of my t-shirt


















This is the back of my t-shirt --- >

The great day of planning!!!!

Today I did planning: Lots and lots of magnificent planning.

Today I planned with my best friends Mr.Scissors and Mrs.Pencil and the color paper kids. It was a huge celebration when Queen grid paper arrived!

Today's festivities included lot of scribbling, writing, cutting and coloring.

P.S. Sitting down relaxing was also an important part of today's amusements.

We used grid paper and a colour key to position different parts of the garden. We had to think about the size that plants would become and how big paths needed to be.

Lost & found

We went for a bush walk on our property and found lots of interesting things for the garden.
Fallen branches from a recent storm (only ones from along the path), bits of wood, metal, broken crockery, machinery parts and tyres.
We brain-stormed different ways to incorporate these into our garden :

• As garden edging
• Mosaic pillars
• Garden arch
• Raised beds
• Statues & Sculptures
• Sun-dial
• Plant supports & frames
• Minor fencing
• Things for Fairies to play on!

The Compost Bin of Best

We made our compost bin out of pea-straw bales.

The Compost Bin of Best (or as I like to call it C.BOB) is close to the house. We have a small bucket inside our house and when it is full we place all the stuff in the bucket into C.BOB.

The things we put into C.BOB are weeds, scraps of food (not meat), organic waste, small amounts of paper and hair, fluff and stuff.

Our 1st Day

Today we started our new family kitchen garden. This is our journal of our efforts!

A few days ago we chose a spot right next to the kitchen, which meant Molly & Jet (our dogs) had to move out of their area. As a side project we will be constructing a new dog run for them (but more of that later).
We left Bowie in the yard  to eat down the grass and add some horse poo (well, pony poo really)!!!

Today we:

• Elected members for each job                                                                                       
• Photographed the areas around the house
• Measured the garden
• Measured the dog yard & calculated materials required
• Named our garden ...."Dragonfly Downs"
• Cleaned out rubbish
• Collected Horse Poo
• Weeded (wow there were so many!)
• Sourced materials
• Drew a garden design
• Started a garden budget
• Purchased some plants
• Started an online blog (& managed to change the date & time)

Blackberry Picking

Today we did blackberry picking at Bee Flats, which is part of our property.
We had to wear gum boots and gloves and we also brought a basket.
I almost collected forty berries.
It was a lot of fun.

I can't wait until the red and green berries turn black.
This is me and my brother Hugo picking the ripe berries.

Monster Weeds

Today I, Caleb Sebastian III; foreman of this realm, declared that all weeds in the land of Dragonfly Downs should be exiled henceforth and any resistance would be met with forceful removal by means of a deftly wielded axe. Begone noxious pest! Leave these lands forever and burn in the fires of purification.
Any weeds who attempt to grow within these boundaries will do so under pain of death by herbicide.

Our Rammed Earth House.

We didn't build it, but we love to live in it!

Tiny Pony: Heaps of Poo

Another thing we did today was collect horse poo.
It is not very stinky, but for one little pony there is lots and lots of poo.

We collected poo from the Bee Flats and Bowie Boundary section of our property.
So far we have collected three wheel barrows full and put it into Dragonfly Downs our kitchen garden.