Let it be

After 18 months of not doing anything in my garden, it is flourishing.
Due to many factors affecting my ability to put the regular time into my garden, I have done virtually nothing to it for the past 18 months.

Yet it has still provided fruit, herbs, minimal veg and plenty of habitat for the insects birds and occasional blue tongue lizard.

All the self seeding greens, herbs and even parsnips have provided wonderful habitat for the hoverflies and other small pollinators.

ADD:
A month after this post we sold our property. We had a massive garage sale and sold, gave away or donated all our belongings and began life living in a bus full time on the road travelling Australia.
Our nomad lifestyle website is:  www.finchysaustralia.com

I do miss my beautiful abundant permaculture garden  but still have the opportunity to garden when house-sitting around the country. Our new life on the road is a big adventure and just another chapter.
I am forever grateful for the knowledge I gained from doing a PDC with the Food Forest in Adelaide in 2005 before we built our property. Hands on learning and being creative are two of my all time favourite things to do.

Pigs protect fruit from birds

Protecting fruit from birds is difficult. I have tried the usual deterrents but have turned to rodents recently with great success. 

In my orchard I have a variety of fruit trees, all of which the birds enjoy eating the fruit when they can. I run my chook's under the fruit trees which helps with bugs, grubs and fertilising, however my latest experiment of running my guinea pigs under the trees too has worked a treat.

The guinea pigs attract the birds of prey, which then deter the fruit eating smaller birds. We have Wedge-tail Eagles, Nangkeen Kestrels, Black-shouldered Kites and Kookaburra’s near our house and garden regularly. The larger birds circle or hover over head and the parrots and smaller birds stay away.

The guinea pigs have plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in, and houses and tunnels throughout the garden for their safety. After the guinea pigs started to chew the trees themselves, I made small-gauge wire guards at the base of the trees for protection.

The guinea pigs and chooks get on fine together and my “sacrificial” pigs are safe. The circle of wire on the left of the photo is where I put treats for the guinea pigs so the chooks cant eat the food and the pigs are safe from the birds.