Bromeliads are common here at Xanadu — here are a few examples. Many are considered noxious weeds in Florida because of their mosquito breeding potential.
More on Bromeliaceae at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromeliaceae
A relatively mild day here at Xanadu – temperature 250 C, humidity only 65 per cent, no rain but threatening so ideal for some compost movement. Emptied two bins and moved contents to a staging area for it to dry out for eventual sieving and then moving to the next stage prior to distribution. Here’s a pic of the bins – black tub at bottom-right is the new worm farm – uber productive.
The bins take a mix of kitchen scraps, garden refuse such as leaves, shredded paper and larger soil that won’t pass through the sieve. To keep the mix moist, I add litres of fish water from the twice-weekly change. Takes about two months to fill a bin and another two months to mature. With six bins and three staging slabs, space is no problem. The snap below is fresh from two bins.
This one is a staging slab for oversized sievings and greens such as hedge clippings. As it breaks down I remove the woody pieces and recycle the residue into the compost bins. Despite this process, we still put out a green recycling bin every two weeks.
And here is the final manufactured soil, rich in earth worms, ready to distribute on the vegie garden (a bit late for sowing but we’ll get something to eat).
A single, subtle bloom outside the back door.
Something clicked in both of us this week and gardening has resumed – principally weed clearing from the vegie bed. The worm farm is producing many litres of ‘worm tea’ and weeding precedes distribution. And there are barrow loads of manufactured soil from the compost bins to be spread.
Light rain overnight and early this morning, and we have our voracious frog calling for a mate. As it becomes warmer, the chorus increases in numbers until we get the annual complaint from a new neighbour about the peculiar noise. This morning’s caller:
The original tadpoles came from Garden Art in Five Dock and took three years and a number of return trips before Beryl coaxed them to maturity. Cooked lettuce was the successful tadpole food. We didn’t know what they were until I took a recording into the Frog and Tadpole Society meeting at the Australian Museum (worth attending to observe very keen frog lovers). Soon we noticed a dramatic fall in snail numbers – this frog will attack and eat anything up to its own size. Marrickville Council established a Golden Bell Frog sanctuary at their nursery – wiped out by the Striped Marsh invasion. During my early morning summer dog walks I hear them, spreading wider and wider, and have been told it is a very favourable sign that our local ecology is encouraging a return of fauna and flora species that were wiped out in the 20th century.
A large wetland-dwelling frog and voracious hunter, this frog eats almost any animal smaller than itself, including small frogs. Its distribution extends along the east coast from Queensland to South Australia. It is most commonly associated with wetlands and permanent water and shelters among reeds and other debris. Males call from the water concealed in vegetation or sometimes concealed under the egg masses. The call is a single short soft explosive note … a “tock” or “poc” with similar inflections to a hen’s “cluck”.
Male frogs of many species do fight, particularly in species where good calling or breeding sites are more likely to result in success. Males also tend to fight more often when females are uncommon at breeding sites. Many species of marsh frogs (Limnodynastes) are known to engage in ‘male-combat’- and that might be the reason that male marsh frogs tend to be larger overall, and have much bigger, more muscle-bound arms compared to females. Larger individuals tend to be more successful in these wresting bouts, and the puffed up bodies many be an attempt to look as large as possible, and hence maybe scare off the competitor.
I have begun clearing some of the over-growth and intended to work on our vegie bed this morning but too wet. Maybe tomorrow.
I was interested in yesterday’s SMH Good Living recipe for ‘Tomato and chickpea soup’ and came across this comment:
Q. I am having trouble finding fire-roasted crushed tomatoes for a recipe. What can I substitute?
A. Oh boy, can we relate to that! Just the other day we were looking for some 4.36-ounce, malt-infused, wasabe-scented, sliced-on-the-bias, free-range, southern-Washington-state, line-caught, hand-massaged salmon fillets for a special recipe, and in the end, we just used salmon. We suggest you use crushed tomatoes. (It drives us crazy when recipe writers specify foods that are all but unobtainable — and act like it’s the most reasonable little request in the world, and that your food won’t be worth eating unless you kill yourself trying to do just what they say!)
You could also roast a few tomatoes in a pan on a grill, slip them out of their skins, and crush them yourself. Or try the following recipe from one of our favourite new cookbooks. If you’re competent to follow a recipe that absolutely requires fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, you’re certainly competent to roast a few tomatoes yourself.
From Not Afraid of Flavor: Recipes from Magnoila Grill, by Ben & Karen Barker. Preheat oven to 250°F (120°C). Cut tomatoes in half, toss with olive oil to coat, and place, cut-side down, on a baking sheet. Roast for 1-1/2 hours, until the tomatoes are soft and have just begun to exude their juices. Cool, remove the skins, and pack into a container. These are delicious tossed with roasted or grilled vegetables, in soups, and with simple pastas and risottos. They keep for several days, refrigerated.
Are singing again after the rain last night — a sure sign that summer is approaching.
Striped Marsh Frog (not working — has bombed out and can’t find the original file — will rerecord)
The Azaelias burst into bloom on the weekend.
And the fish have become more lively. Nice to be back to digital video after the ‘archived’ 8mm movie.
The red 'A' marks Xanadu.
What are we doing to reduce our environmental footprint?
Water consumption: Our imported water decreased 10 per cent from 2008 to 2009. In February I am attending a Rainwater Harvesting Technical Workshop run by Marrickville Council and it appears that we can have three tanks; two harvesting the water from the garage and sheds, and a bladder under the house. If we plumb in two toilets and the washing machine and convert the garden irrigation from imported water, we should be able to cut back another 20 per cent.
Energy (electricity): All lighting is by energy saving bulbs. We don’t have air-conditioning but this summer the upper floor retained considerable heat so we are considering turbine ventilators (whirlybirds) in the roof to move the hot air out of the ceiling. Last winter we used the fireplaces burning surplus wood from the renovations.
The Australian Greenhouse Office has stated, “in terms of limiting net greenhouse gas emissions, firewood is generally more favourable for domestic heating than other non-renewable fossil fuel sources of energy” (http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache%3AIROGmHDXTGQJ%3Awww.homeheat.com.au%2Fpdf%2FHeating_Greenhouse_Gas.pdf+wood+fires+greenhouse&hl=en&gl=au).
And when this stockpile is finished we will probably convert to LNG.
Transport: Two people and two vehicles. One is a reasonably efficient Subaru but the other is a gas emitting disaster that:
I have been cycling less this summer due to the heat but anticipate this will change with autumn.
Sustainability: In 2009 we had time to work in the garden and had excellent crops of snow peas, rocket, basil, mint, tomatoes, and capsicums and chillies still to come. I walk to Borsellino Brothers for our F&V and am gearing up to preserving tomatoes after Easter (when the best are cheap).
Meat is an issue. We can’t determine if our beef is grass-fed; we buy cheap frozen chickens that are probably retired battery hens; who knows where the lamb comes from but the goat is halal. I have stopped buying pork due to concern about the treatment of pigs and the antibiotics used. And until recently, did not buy fish because of the dwindling populations of wild fish and the pollution caused by farmed fish. However, since discovering the Nature Conservation Council of NSW “Nice Choice” web site (http://www.nicechoice.org.au/) we have resumed buying the sustainable varieties.
Recycling: Our wastage is minimal; today our neighbours and ourselves put out one red bin (non-recyclable) and two green bins (recycled into mulch); that is for six people. Next week, it will be the plastics, glass and paper pick-up. I see that the Visy paper mill in Tumut converts our cardboard and newspaper into pulp but haven’t tracked down the glass and plastic recycling.
The compost processing is successful (see post on 23 September 2009 for photos of the compost factory). And last year I converted two cubic metres of clay into friable soil by mixing it with gypsum in the compost.
Micro-environment: We have considerable vegetation on three sides of Xanadu (see the satellite photo above) which is very bird-attractive. This has developed over 30 years; the grounds were lawn when we moved in.
This review over four days has been useful. I cannot see the negative aspects of reducing our environmental footprint and our greenhouse gas emissions. I constantly hear or read about the costs of change, economic and social, but they seem to be slight compared with the benefits. I want to see leadership, bi-partisanship politics, moderation of attacks on each other’s viewpoints and some meaningful and practical legislation to move us forward.
Peter Cosgrove, “Lecture 6: Australia’s Future: Paying it Forward”, Boyer Lectures, 13 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures/stories/2009/2725189.htm#transcript
…I am very conscious of the huge change in direction and the expense and the turmoil and the impact on jobs, entailed in a radical move to non-carbon energy for Australia. But if we don’t do it, a country with our values, a country presently in the top 20 wealthiest countries in the world, a country depended on by millions of people who are our powerless friends and neighbours, how can we expect other nations to act and thus offset our lack of action.
…We can’t have governments and oppositions daily scrapping over the concerted and co-ordinated action we need to take across the national community, if on a balance of probabilities we need to start our action now to avoid the climate change ‘noose’ sometime later in the century….
“Your Home Technical Manual”, Department of the Environment, Water Heritage and the Arts, http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html
