mid winter report 2017, part 2, poultry

The two hens are doing well, though perverse dark weather stopped egg laying early and they are just resuming now.

We moved their house, in fact have set up two houses, so they can readily be moved to clean ground and where they have been can be put to crops for them or for us.

Because of previous problems with pigeons, sparrows and others spending a lot of time in the chook pen, eating food and creating potential for disease transfer, we have netted over small runs.

Enclosing the whole run under net means we can broadcast seed without the whole neighbourhood reporting for eats.
The hens tend to go for the better, higher protein seeds, leaving the wheat.
With their 'scratch mix' spread on the ground, if the ground is wet by rain or human intervention,
wheat seeds scratched into the ground will sprout. At which time we can ease up on fresh feed until they have eaten the sprouts... wheat probably more nutritious and digestible as sprouts.

The provision of water is important. Rather than provide some plastic container, etc, we have a pond which runs from inside to outside the chook run. On the outside, plants, insects, frog, etc, which could not survive on the inside.

 

This chook run is squeezed in adjacent to mini-rainforest with torii



And at another part of the garden, a new chook run awaits. With the netting over it, down the end there, we now have broadcast scratch mix (mixed seed) and covered it with straw mulch and kept watering. So that we now have a mini-pasture sprouting. This heals the soil and provides a nutritional start when the chooks arrive. More detail later.

this photo takes us into the kitchen mantra, regarding waste minimising: dog, chook, compost, garbage

 

 

strawberries by the bag

http://www.floridavegetablegarden.com/?p=902

I saw this on the web, via pinterest...
and realised it would be a good idea for us.

So with my gardener Renay this morning we made three bags today. We used produce bags, modest size. Even so with damp soil material inside they each way about 25kg (60lbs) at least. So not sure how we will place them in the end. Had had in mind stringing them along a cable, but it will be a heavy load for any cable system.

We are using produce bags which will decompose in sunlight. So after the soil and plants settle, and when they are in eventual place and not going to be moved again, we will put skirts of some fabric around them. We could use hessian but it's very expensive and we can find something bright at a charity shop.

I had learned from the discussion of other people's mistakes and adjustments at link. 
The internet is wonderful when people write openly about their oopses.

So we did this:   [click on any picture to enlarge all)

from experience I knew holes should be small

1. put about 20cm of cocopeat, expanded in water, in bottom of bag. I put this moisture retaining medium at the bottom of the bag, with no supplements added, so that  [a] the plant roots would in the first instance chase nutrients higher in the bag and [b] as nutrients wash down over time, this cocopeat layer will hold nutrients and not get toxically overloaded.
2. placed a 50mm pvc pipe in the bag, with cap on bottom, one small hole in bottom three small holes up the pipe. An adaptor from 50mm to 100mm on top to make it easier to add water Tamped the bottom into the peat layer, to make stable.
3. put had put the leg of an old pair of tracksuit pants around the pipe to slow water travel and prevent blockage of holes by roots. This task seemed to excite Renay.
4. made a mix of the following: 
1. cocopeat with water added, also compost tea from our compost tea bin in garden which accepts weeds, manures, volcanic rock dust, etc,
2. horse manure — which I am able to get from a source where it has been mulched
3. cow manure — complexity requires

   

   Easy to cut pvc pipe.

   
   

   more stuff
4. compost from our garden composter

1. We filled the bag with this mix, tamping down lightly. 
2. We added some volcanic rock dust at intervals. 
3. Sewed up the top with baling twine, as comes with the bags of horse manure.
4. Cut a total of six holes in each bag for strawberry plants. 
5. Planted the strawberry plants, all of which are runners from our strawberry patches.

The six small cuts for plants were made as follows:the cuts about 4cm + 4cm, slightly upwards to the centre, so when you pull the bag fabric it opens a little lip space and soil does not fall out.

• three cuts 120 degrees (evenly spaced) around towards the top at the shoulder level of the soil in the bag... the soil may settle, either the plant will grow out happily or we open the bag and add more soil.
• three cuts a bit further down, same 120 degree interval, offset.

These bags need to settle and the strawberries need to start growing in place now. July here is midwinter, no frost here, but close to freezing at the moment. I have places the bags in a row facing sun in a microclimate location with good sunlight. They are sitting on the ground with a half bag of manure front and back for stability. And a mirror behind to add warmth and light to the back of the bags. As the sun moves, the light shifts from bag to bag and also warms the manure bag.

  Three strawberry vertical garden bags in a row, mirror behind. 

When the soil is settled and roots developed and these are at their final destination, we will find smart tight skirts for these bags, both for aesthetics and also because the bags will disintegrate in sunlight over time. 

In any case, these are things for only one season or so, the soil will, as with soil in pots, need refreshing. 

Not hard to do. As runners develop from these six plants I may make holes for them or begin new bags, we shall see...

Now to find an old bench or such to rest them on, away from ground pests. Here we will also need defences from blackbirds and bowerbirds, for which a number of chopstick sized sticks coming out diagonally at the top with reflective scare tape dangling. Or maybe a net.

Helen's garden, January 2014

 click on any photo to enlarge all

Helen's garden has become luxuriant this summer.

• In part because the garden reaches towards maturity, more complex, more edge, diverse light and shade.
• In part because more work, more feed, more water. Water supply assisted by installation of water tanks and pipes and taps to distribute rain water from the roof.
• In part because more design work, more shaping of the earth with swales, which get water into the ground rather than running away off the sloping block. 

This is an urban engineer's view of swale building. Ours are simpler, simply troughs along a contour, more or less, above a garden or potential garden, to catch water running downhill and put it down where roots can hurry down to find it.

There is one departure from organic principles which will be evident in photos: limited use of glyphosate to control kikuyu at lawn edges. Seven years ago the garden was an even slope entirely covered in kikuyu, which constantly sends runners more than a metre ahead, underground, in seeking to dominate territory. Surface weeding of it of little value, also spreading seed. You will see the grassed area, the kikuyu area, much diminished.

Here are some photos taken on 7 January. Also a couple of photos 15 November with WWOOFer Tatsuyasan, who did lots of work on the swales.

Also, at the end, an accidental movie in the front yard 7 January. Taken ay 8am, this also includes the voices of rainbow laurikeets, feasting on Callistemon [bottle brush] flowers.

Here photos with captions:

This is the view from front steps, away westerly to hills and towards Kangaroo Valley. Callistemon trees with red flowers on left, hear rainbow laurikeets feasting there in movie below.

This is virtually the same photo, exposure to show foreground of garden, shadow line of house roof, sun behind house behind camera, 8am

This from the same step. looking to right. The chip on ground is area of slope levelled three years ago. The mulberry tree throws new branches up two or three metres each year, is pruned and placed in traction to provide increasingly more recreational afternoon shade in this garden area.

This slope beside the front driveway, facing west, has a history of being dry and killing anything planted in it. With great assistance from Tatsuyasan, we built a very simple swale, incorporated peat moss and compost into soil and added lots of seed from old seed packets. Into the swale we chopped nutritious trunks of banana from the backyard.  This photo 15 November, 8 weeks ago.

Approximately same location, see chook, photo 7 January. The sunflower population much increased this year by purchase of 5kg sunflower as bird seed for $8. Many of the plants potentially food productive, many as living or choppable mulch. New growth to citrus not so evident as have been pruned recently.

Actually a view from the backyard down the drive. With that huge passionfruit vine doing well now on north facing fence, it's possible to get out of the car and pick half a dozen passionfruit from the ground any day. Passionfruit are best picked up off the ground daily, rather than picked from vine. Nearer the camera a loganberry grows on the same netting, but is making a slower start, more in shade of house.

A garden is constantly developing. These mosaic steps have been in development for three years now!

In a busy garden there is a constant search for niches. To the right is a swale-aided garden bed, end of cauliflower crop evident, to the left three tamarillo trees, seedlings from Dennis's garden, which will do better when they get out of the shade of the fence. Very resilient and productive in this climate, likely to produce thousands of fruit over a few years of life.

from near point of last photo, looking back to house, via the Queen of Freedom as named by Hong Kong WWOOFer Julie, summer-swimmer clad by Helen, past one of the three paulownia slab gates, timber from former property at Reedy Creek, to work and front veranda.

Potting up these seedling papayas, seed from very tasty fruit eaten several weeks ago. Started in a mix of peat moss and the wonderful compost from zoo near Dennis's place. Note the bush basil seedling which has emerged from a hole at the bottom of the big planter. Wonderful herb which even grows from concrete cracks here, no doubt the seed was in the trough when I put the soil in it. The new pots contain peat moss, wetted and watered afterwards with a watering can soup of a couple of tablespoons of aged, composted horse manure in water, the manure from roadside purchase, left in bag for a long time in the sun, moist with seed hopefully long digested.

Mosaic work on table in shade of mulberry. Note goose in cage, one of the traction devices hung in tree to make branches stoop to provide shade. Helen's turtle mosaics middle of this photo and in last photo, Dennis's on sides in this photo. Every element in a permaculture garden serves multiple functions. The mulberry prunings are great as garden stakes. And–noting again the mosaics and other frivolous elements–it becomes worth doing if you pay attention to the aesthetics of fun.

Before we leave the front garden, tour again in the accidental movie! Click on the arrow doover between HD and vimeo for full screen viewing. Take carsick tablets if necessary  :-)

 

 ... and now to the luxuriant back garden.

This photo taken by the giraffe (photo above) looking uphill and east.

 The concrete living space behind the house lends itself to pots

... note the water tank down near the lion, some landscape work to come. Two tanks on this wall collect from roof; water pumped to tank at back fence, top of block, from where gravity fed to five outlets front and back yards. Also note the wall of herbs (and bush basil from concrete under table) and strawberries, also the Chinese elm, top right,  planted 1.5 years ago, needing constant shaping, providing increasing protection from harsh sun.

The arch, photo above, supports beans, passionfruit and pumpkin. Some shade and overwatering causing some leaf unhappiness on pumpkin, but if not set back a bit this plant might cover the house by next month!

View above the arch, looking north. As mentioned, some roundup used to control kikuyu. Nice slates from council tip, as also wire and steel supports for beans (and pumpkin)

view from the north. The fancy umbrella busted by Gerringong's notorious winds, function being overtaken by the Chinese elm. Fish cleaning sink in foreground. Back left is a self-sown shrubby wattle, behind the sunflowers. This is about to bloom, after which it will be cut back very hard, to make garden space, also because this is how we manage wattle in the garden. Like legumes, acacias fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, but where legumes lower pH, the wattles advantageously raise pH. And the prunings make good nitrogenous mulch, while the reduction of plant mass above ground causes death of comparable root mass below ground, adding to soil carbon and releasing much nitrogen deep in the soil the plant has ploughed.

Backyard swale, his labour produced it, obscured by Tatsuyasan, 15 November last, feeding water runoff to this new garden with some flowering annuals just planted. See wire mesh for beans, behind.

Approximately same location 7 January. Chicory went mad in swale, now about to flower, petunias thrive, lettuce finished; beans climbing, almost to 2 metres behind.

Still waiting for bananas to finish, compare 22 October. Slower ripening provides more taste than most commercial Queensland bananas, provided the season allows the ripening to finish. Well on track to good result this year.

...and finally, where's there's a niche, plant tamarillos en masse. Banana passionfruit to left.

Well, now we have a benchmark for the future. Gardens change, that's much of the fun, excitement from surprises and learning.

adding to spring report

Yesterday morning I mentioned the absence of asparagus. New shoots sprang up in the day, this morning six, more perhaps this evening. But the six there now are abundant for dinner. Absolutely fresh, so no cooking required. This is now the third spring since planting the crowns. This is the first year of harvest. The crowns have established themselves sufficiently. Constant quick harvesting will now encourage more shoots to come up, and the crowns to become more complex.

This is a useful information page on asparagus growing. A month ago, I scattered well rotted manure over the asparagus patch and covered that with mulch, as shown (product of our own mulcher, garden prunings plus waste paper and cardboard). More recently I have scattered blood and bone. While I have done these things in early spring, I also favour fertilising with natural fertilisers during winter. It is true of chemical fertilisers that if applied during the non-growing period, they are lost. But the natural materials are food for worms and worms work closer to the surface in cooler weather and thus we can expect, applying manures, compost and blood and bone when worms are coming to the surface, that it will be consumed and the soil with be loaded with the ultimate plant food, worm castings.

Moisture retention is important in this bed (as in nearly every other plant bed, of course). The keys to moisture retention are:

• mulch... whereas compost breaks down relatively quickly and feeds life, mulch (high carbon levels) breaks down slowly, allows water in and reduces the drying effects of harsh sun and wind,
• high humus content of soil. The wikipedia article on humus and this page by a biodynamic organisation in India are informative. In simplest terms, you seek the development of soil that contains a diversity of life, that incorporates the wonders of micro-crystals of clay (which are arguably the closest thing in inorganic chemistry to organic life), that is naturally moisture retentive and that provides an optimal basis for cation exchange capacity (CEC), inhibiting erosion and moisture and soil value to lower depths, connecting intimately with plant roots. Pick up a handful of good high humus soil and squeeze it; compare with a lesser soil which falls apart and is relatively dry. Add chemical fertilisers to any soil, throw the whole population of humus into unemployment, lose soil variously.

Mineral needs and interactions in plants (on soil)

I am reminded by recent learning that I need to look carefully at mineral interactions in the soil and the needs of plants.

I have been adding dolomite (a limestone with high proportion of magnesium) rather than normal agricultural lime (limestone essentially calcium carbonate) to my soil.

I have focused on magnesium because the use of lime not dolomite in broad acre farming almost certainly contributes to a magnesium deficiency in much commercial food, there being a need for calcium and magnesium to balance each other in nature. In humans many problems arise from calcium coming away from where it should be, causing deterioration in bone and muscle and contributing to nervous and cognitive disorders and poor metabolism.And while pharmacies and supermarkets are littered with calcium supplements, you really need the magnesium to get the calcium back where it belongs and staying there. You can get lots of information from the web on this, it's a good exercise in wading through 'marketing science' for facts.

A recent email from someone in the US (curiously in a discussion about a lemon tree in a pot in the UK) drew my attention to the fact that calcium is more soluble compared to magnesium and in high rainfall environments calcium deficiencies can rapidly arise, as also is the case with other minerals which are highly soluble.

We've had a lot of rain, some parts of my garden good, some not so good... 

So... I need add calcium but also to check my soil pH, must get a pH test kit, lent mine to someone...

pH is critical (see this introduction): an industrial way to achieve it is to add stuff to try to get the balance right. On the other hand, achievement of a high humus healthy soil, crowded with life, should itself nudge the soil towards the right pH.

Source here, same link as above

But it is also important to have an awareness of mineral availability. There is a thing called Mulder's Chart which can be found in many places on the web. In fact two charts, for animals and plants. This is the chart for plants, which I have borrowed from this site. This is a particularly helpful presentation, with its text, explaining the nature of interactions. I wanted to report here who exactly Mr/Dr/Prof Mulder might be, but mainly I got links to The X-Files.

Click on image to enlarge chart. Go below the chart for a bit more...

borrowed from this site

This becomes relevant when you find problems which may be identified in plant leaves. Here is a citrus leaf from my partner Helen's garden.

 

 It is growing in red sandy-clayey soil on a slope, recent heavy rains, rapidly drying soil. The task ahead is to work out what may be ailing the tree, and how to ffix it. Ideally we just help the soil fix it. There are pictorial guides to deficiencies evident in the coloration of citrus leaves. Try this, or this, or this... see if you can find better on the web, if so use the comment box.

My opening perspective is this:

1. The tree is young, young citrus tend to struggle at times and much self correction is possible;
2. The rains and wind have stripped compost, manures and protective mulch, first leaching away soluble nutrients, perhaps drowning a lot of microorganisms, and then drying the soil severely;
3. When roots go deeper, the problems may reduce, as the tree gets bigger and feeds from more damage resistant levels of the soil... but under the tree the soil is pretty shallow because of the slope;
4. So start simple: 

• Use a broadfork and use carefully at and beyond the drip line, lifting soil, enabling water and nutrient entry to lower levels of soil;
• Check the pH, as appropriate then add lime and Epsom Salts (giving the tree magnesium and highly soluble sulphur) and a bit of dilute urine (see earlier blog entry on urine in garden) for nitrogen and much more;
• Throw in some rusty nails for possible iron deficiency (citrus love iron);
• Add compost and well rotted manures;
• Re-mulch (the protective layer, high in carbon, slow to rot, resistant to weeds coming up. Plant  bushy legumes (peas, beans) into the mulch and
• Water well, deeply and not daily, allowing water to go deep and roots to follow, not spread near the surface.

May sound complex but not really that hard, and a good support like this should help for some time, as the tree finds its feet.


All this arising from discussion about a neglected lemon tree in a pot in England... Stimulus from small issues drives on to wider thought!

winter solstice, adjustments with raised bed and mirror

The northeast corner of my garden is a difficult place to grow, especially in (southern hemisphere, June etc) winter. There is a wooden paling fence to the north and the east, and with low sun angle, there is no light on the ground, plants here bolt quickly to seed.

I have now adopted a two pronged strategy:

1. raise the garden bed, with the raised bed away from the northern fence
2. place a mirror to add light.

Here are photos taken at 7.40am on 18 June, almost the winter solstice, shortest day. 

yes, there are tree shadows too

Sun on mirror, beginning to sweep over raised bed
(will continue to left in photo above, right in photo below as sun moves).
Old lace curtain (or net) may be used for blackbird  and bowerbird problems.
Blackbirds  are interested in macro-life (worms etc) in soil more than plants.
Bowerbirds can destroy winter leafy gardens very quickly.

the raised bed is indeed a steel sofa bed base, with chicken wire and hessian and other fabric lining,
then bark and mulch mix (see earlier entry) manures, compost and 150cm of soil from below
(chooks previously ran on this ground).
In the enlarged photo (click) you may see egg shell around bed foot to deter snails.

mulch to compost

We recently bought a 7hp electric start mulcher.



I had become tired of travelling to the tip with prunings, to pay for leaving them there. Though it is possible at the same rubbish tip to bring trailer and shovel and load as much green chipped material as you want, this is an irksome thing and the product uncertain and pretty rough cut.

The new mulcher has enabled us to reduce prunings up to 75mm (3 inches) in diameter to fine chip via a chute to a blade on the side of the flywheel. There is also a top hopper feeding to a hammer mill, which is producing an astonishingly fine product.

harshest editing!

We have learned the first lesson in managing the mulcher: check constantly to see that you are not overloading the mill. If you feed at a sensible rate, and mix brittle stick with softer material, the mill product is cleared fairly swiftly. The height of the machine allows an easy peak over the rim of the chute. Lid lowered when brittle sticks dropped in.

On rubber tyres, weighing 70kg or so, it is easy to tip and trolley the machine around the garden. And the garden small enough to bring material to it. The mulcher uses a little petrol: but I no longer need a petrol mower and I will not need to take stuff to or from the tip. The electric start is wonderful, having had great problems with a pull start mulcher in the past.

Our garden is hungry for good soil. compost, growing material. This especially the case, of course, with raised beds, which are large to fill and will require replenishment often enough. We can now make a lot.

The mulcher also relieves me of the grief caused by the modern accumulation of packaging and paper. The first thing in this category that it consumed was its own cardboard packaging. We have a weekly garbage collection and a fortnightly collection of recyclable material: paper, plastic and metal. With two dogs, three hens and composters, we have little 'garbage' to send away. I have now been able to radically reduce our contribution to recycling by removing the paper and cardboard from the bin to the mulcher. And we are getting an amazing product.

Glarey winter day makes for difficult photography.
In the middle, the mulcher.
Right foreground, paper and cardboard left out in the rain to soften and open, plus some plant material.
To the left, a mound of mulcher product: paper -> big confetti, cardboard -> fawn fibre.

Also added, some old rotted palm trunk material, see below what wonderful
material like peat moss it makes.

Product:
fine brown, almost like coffee grounds: rotted palm trunk
stick and shred green: plant prunings
tattered squares of white: paper
(at the top/back) fawn, fine, hairy, fluffy—like stuff from a vacuum cleaner bag: cardboard

This shredded mulch material includes an array of minerals and has a very high carbon content. Composting requires carbon and nitrogen in a ratio near 4:1 to work quickly. We will add manures and existing compost (rich in micro-organisms from bacteria and fungi to bugs and worms) to produce a high grade soil from this. And try some short cuts. Winter seedlings have sent petitions asking to be planted out very soon. 

Black and coloured ink have been suspected as possible chemical problems in gardens. My recall is that Max Lindegger established in the 1990s that the amounts of chemical likely to be involved are potentially beneficial rather than harmful in mulch.

..into autumn: sobbing after a death, lots of rain, pecking orders

An Indian friend commented on how wonderful the weather looked in my first blog entry, with the baseline photos. It was indeed beautiful, with mild temperatures, though with only very scattered showers, the ground was starting to dry. I was pleased to see that there was (according to my inserted finger) good soil moisture in the raised bed gardens.

With a rush, the cooler weather has arrived. First with misty mornings, in this photo from in front of my house you are not looking at snow but at fog falling off the nearby hill early in the morning.

Now, suddenly, cold weather whirling in from the sea, and early yesterday 80mm (over 3 inches) of cold hard rain. 

I have been away and yet to see if any damage from the heavy storm. In any case a good follow-up: the day before I had planted seeds of rocket and snap peas in the garden and raised bed, and brussels sprouts in a seed tray. Of these, the rocket my own collected seed, the other purchased. I hope to use a higher percentage of own seed over time.

That day, Friday, was marred by hearing, as I went into the garden, sounds of weeping from the chook house. Where I found one sobbing hen beside the other of two, cold and dead below perch. The deceased went into the compost (my experience of this is that the hen vanishes completely over a time as worms multiply). The compost is closed to all but air. 

The survivor was very much alive and spent the day sobbing and digging. I can only describe it as sobbing, it was different from usual clucking sounds. She dug as if possessed, perhaps heading for China. This was, to me, something in the way of evidence [a] that chooks have feelings [b] that chooks have memories which last longer than 5 seconds.  See this wonderful article about these clever creatures.

I went to the excellent produce store in town and bought two cross-Leghorn (the English 'grand tour'-ists could not pronounce the name of the Italian city of Livorno, so town and the local gracious chooks get to be Leghorn in English). See Wikipedia. These birds bred by the store owner. They may not produce as many eggs per year as the Isa Brown they replace (also available in-store), but the egg productive Isa Browns are relatively short-lived and unfortunately if they take in too much protein they can produce eggs of a size that get stuck in the cloaca. I did not perform and autopsy to check that (I have done so in the past, it provides a view of the succession of eggs growing in order, eventually when full -size each egg given a shell, in the tubework inside) but there was no sign in the chook (or partner) of disease. My suspicion of excess protein mixes with some sense of guilt. I had gone into the large chook run and put a quantity of blood and bone around a banana tree and a cherimoya. To discover later that this industrious hen had had a rich feast from this fertiliser. Some people feed their chooks blood and bone, but this may have been the cause: I am not trained in stomach pumping fowl, which might well cause death if tried. And would certainly achieve a hostile attitude on the part of the chook. Chook stomachs contain lots of bits of rock, etc, for grinding what they eat. Try to remove at peril. Anyway, enough of the guilt trip...

In the afternoon I left the newcomers in their cardboard box near the chook house, within ear- and nose-shot of the incumbent, calling the latter over to hear and smell... but even with separation of heavy netting and cardboard she was standing off. I then waited till after dark, when chooks become very easy to handle, and placed the newcomers with She-Who-Will-Seek-to-Remain-Chief-Chook together in roost. I left a good supply of water and food and locked their house (photo first blog entry) so they could have a couple of days sorting out their 'pecking order'. They seem all to be of fairly gentle disposition and good health, so hopefully when I get home to see them, having been away since, they will have the social order settled without too much bloodshed or flown feathers. 

As regards metaphorical pecking orders, someone reported research last week, derived from riding elevators, with findings about how men and women (at least in those buildings in Adelaide) behave in elevators. I have a spare mirror in the garden, I will have to place it among the chooks and report.

I do have a social science degree, but this kind of ephemeral stuff offers some insight into why angry conservatives acted to take money away from social science in the cutbacks to the United States budget. This piece of research, indeed much of what many students seem to have to do in the endless search for niches unresearched, demonstrates well Edward O Wilson's use of the term hypertrophy, beginning in On Human Nature 1978:

I interpret contemporary human social behavior to comprise hypertrophic outgrowths of the simpler features of human nature joined together into an irregular mosaic.

Butterfly wings, birds of paradise, the pope's getup, the curiously not-privatised funeral of Margaret Thatcher, glamorous birds in elevators in smart cities: all exhibit hypertrophy in their elaborate forms, gone beyond function to glory. My dowdy brown hen has gone not to glory but compost. The last hen to go into my compost was a barnevelder, which never was at home with the two browns. Little do they know, those who enjoy my tamarillos, how many ex-barnevelder atoms they contain.

More from garden soon. I plan news, chook pics and issue reporting.  This is getting hypertrophic... but then, I'm only human!