Bokashi, Books and Broody hens

 It was time to bury another bucket full of Bokashi today so I took it up to where I buried the last lot on August 29, almost a month ago! My how time flies! I was curious to know how well the last lot I buried had broken down and I remembered saying on my blog that I would let you all know how it went. If you recall I said in THIS POST That I gathered up windfall citrus to bury with the bucket full of citrus peels, vege scraps, eggshells, and other waste from the kitchen mixed with Effective Microoganisms to help it break down. 

I started to dig where I had buried the last lot and was very surprised at how soft the ground here was. I turned over a spadeful of the most delicious smelling compost! It's kind of fruity and sweet smelling and very moist.

 For the most part, the scraps and peels had broken down completely, although there were still some little bits of citrus mixed through.

Citrus in the compost

I think that the bits of citrus that had not broken down yet might actually be from the whole ones I put in that I picked up around the yard. Anything that had been cut into small pieces and processed in the bucket prior to burying was gone!

I am really very pleased with this.

The vege patch continues to thrive, despite the potting mix we planted it in being quite hydrophobic and not holding moisture very well.

We have Roma Tomatoes coming on nicely!

 We actually put some soil on some of the veges, from the bokashi compost pit, to see if it helps at all with moisture retention. We won't be doing the 'no dig' gardening method again, though. It hasn't really saved us any work because of the time involved in trying to keep the roots moist.

I am reading a good book at the moment called Frugavore: How to grow your own, buy local, waste nothing, and eat well by Arabella Forge. I'm really enjoying it and will post a review once I have finished it. Sandra is reading Changing Habits, Changing Lives by Cindy O'Meara and I want to read that after she is done with it.

Broody Update: Bertha sat all day again, today. I think she may have been up for some food and water early in the morning, but hadn't stirred again all day. It was a very warm day and I was concerned about her, so I went and tried to put some water on her beak to tempt her to drink from a little bowl I had with me, she told me where to get off! I left her alone after that, but when I took a wet mash up for the other girls this afternoon, I offered some to her in her own little bowl and she ate about 1/4 cupful. That is food and water mixed together with some egg added so I am content that she won't starve or dehydrate. I've left a small bowl of water and a little bit of mash next to her nest for her as well. She must think this is the life. No egg laying, a comfy secure box all to herself and room service laid on!

Banksias, Bokashi and Birds

I had a very busy day in the yard, today. Actually, because I have limited abilities, I had a very busy couple of hours, that felt like a whole day. LOL.

It started out with the Bokashi Bucket springing a leak on the kitchen counter, which meant that I had to deal with the contents of the bucket in order to fix the leak, so I decided that since it was pretty nearly full anyway, I would bury the contents in the backyard, in the place where we intend to put our composting bins when we set them up. So out I went with a spade and a hoe to dig a suitable trench for the bokashi.

Since I was digging anyway, I also decided that I would gather up windfallen citrus and bury them along with the bokashi compost so that the EM (Effective Microorganisms) from the Bokashi would help to break them down underground. So I grabbed a bucket and went around the yard, collecting up all the fallen cumquats, mandarins and oranges. I also pulled a few spoiled lemons from the lemon tree. (our orchard produces far more than two people can eat!).

The chooks came over to see what I was up to, "Wha-wha-what?" they cooed to me as they pecked at the ground under the trees where I had picked up the fruit. They found some tasty grubs in the still damp earth and were well satisfied, wandering away again once they'd eaten them.

I paused for a while, standing near the plum trees and watching soft white petals drift like snowflakes on the playful breeze.  A pair of kookaburra's chortled and guffawed in the Eucalyptus tree at the end of the yard. In the branches of the plum trees, a plum headed finch dodged his own shadow and flirted with me and my camera as he sipped nectar from the blossoms. The air was filled with the heady scent of jasmine, hinting at the warm spring and summer to come.

Image from Wikipedia.com

But dawdling under the plum tree was not getting my work done, so I carted my bucket of citrus over to the composting area and started to dig a trench.

The earth was soft, rich, alive, and smelled delicious, like rich chocolate in the warm, springlike sunshine. I started to perspire as I worked and the thought of sweet, ripe mandarins on the tree was tempting me to stop for a break.

I kept at it though and finally had a trench spade deep, ready to put the fruit and the Bokashi into. It only took a few moments to bury the fruit and I went to pick one of those tempting Mandarins, carrying it down the patio to eat. It was every bit as delicious as I'd anticipated and did a lot to quench the thirst I'd worked up.

 After a little while, Sandra came outside, taking a break from her studies and we decided to dig out a dead banksia tree from in front of the aviary. This is a job that has been on the list for a while, and why not get it done while the tools for the job were already out of the shed?

It took a while, but we eventually broke off the stubborn roots and got the old, dead tree up out of the ground.

It was time for a well deserved lunch and an afternoon spent on the patio with a glass of chilled apple juice and a good book.

Litter Systems in my chook pens

There is much discussion amongst 'poultry keepers' about the best type of flooring for chicken coops and that has been the case recently on the Backyard Poultry forum I chat on. I use two slightly different methods of flooring for my chicken pens and I thought I would post about them here in case anyone actually reads this blog and is interested.

Here are photos of the two different systems I've got going in my chook pen. The first one is of the deep litter I use in the roosting area.



This is leaves and sticks that I have raked up from around the yard when the weather was dry, and scattered into the roost over sand on top of a cement slab. It is dry and crisp and gives my heavier fowl a soft landing when dismounting the perches.


This one is the actual run and is done slightly differently. It has a dirt floor, again over a concrete base, and I scatter mulching straw over that, and add in weeds, vege scraps and some garden cuttings. I scatter left over laying mash from the feed hopper over this to encourage the chooks to scratch and peck at it. Every few days, I rake it over to get poo to settle into the lower layers as well, because the chooks can't turn it all over by themselves. This system keeps the chooks' feathers and feet beautifully clean and I am really pleased with it.

All of the food and water is either hanging from the ceiling, or otherwise elevated to keep them from kicking litter into it. It works really well and is low maintenance. The chooks are only in there from about 4PM-10AM each day and spend most of the time free ranging when the weather is fine. If it is wet weather or I am going out, there is an adjoining run the same size with a dirt floor that I open up so they can dust bathe and have some space to move around.

I've got one chook in moult at present, so there are also a lot of feathers in the mix.