1st of July Oranges

It’s the first of July tomorrow and mid winter in South Australia. Today I gave the Washington navel oranges a gently twist each and 3 of them came off the tree without any force. They are medium size, seedless, easy to peel and sweet and juicy.

The tree is only young and has about twenty oranges drooping from its slender branches. Currently standing about 6 foot tall and 3 -4 foot wide, it is planted in the chook yard in a sheltered position.

TRIAL/SUCCESS : As another one of my experiments, I only prune my fruit trees during the warmer months. This year I pruned my young citrus trees in summer, shaping them so they will grow to umbrella shapes for easy picking from underneath while providing shade and shelter for the chooks and chickens.
My reasoning for summer pruning is the sap flows more freely and the cuts heal much faster. I believe they are then less inclined to getting disease. 

The garden shed

MULTI PURPOSE: My 8m by 3m shed is made from recycled materials. It faces North and is bermed into the slope with the soil 600ml up the back. 

PURPOSE 1 : The right third of the shed is a chook house. It is basically passive solar for the chooks, allowing warm winter sunshine in through the perspex (laserlite sheeting) from the North and then the cooling summer breezes from the south, which actually blow in around the hill behind it from the east. The western window is an old shower screen run horizontally, that lets a lovely late afternoon winter sun in from the north west. Shrubs planted outside the garden prevent the summer sun entering from its south west evening angle. This photo was taken in early Spring showing the 400ml wide verandah starting to provide shade on the walls.

PURPOSE 2 : The front of the shed is a great place to start off seedlings in Autumn and Winter in the old cement laundry tubs. They get the warmth of the sun, and shelter from the cold south winds, but also being up off the ground and under the small verandah, it keeps the frost off them.

New Silkie chicks arrive

Just before our Winter Solstice in June, my white Silkie bantam hen hatched 8 chicks in the old duck house. The ducks are long gone but the big old wooden potato box was her nesting spot of choice. Not wanting to disturb her, I brought the brooding box (on the left) and placed it up against the entrance of the spud box and added the small circular fence to keep them enclosed. The spud box has a corrugated iron roof and is sheltered on two sides by the garden fence and a rainwater tank on the third.

This small enclosed area is a North facing sun trap and my spot for growing citrus. It is approx 6m square and is terraced into a north facing slope. Our climate is temperate/Mediterranean  with cool wet winters and hot dry summers.

GROWING CITRUS: I was told by a 96 year old lady that citrus grow better when they can touch each other.

The small tree in the photo is a mandarin, which will one day touch the Washington navel orange and a Meyer lemon.  The chooks travel through this area from their chook house to the larger orchard. The blue tree guard serves to 1). stop the chooks scratching the citrus tree's roots which are close to the surface and 2). provides a catchment for watering during the summer as I hand water the whole garden.