Where We’re At and Where We’re Going

BLOG  22 May 2011

Arriving home from holiday we were immediately struck by the explosion of weeds on our block. The long dry summer was just perfect for nightshade, inkweed and pampas grass to proliferate.

Stanley’s paddock alone seemed to have disappeared under a sea of the stuff.

It took about 5 hours over a couple of weekends to dig and drag the weeds into large compost piles.

Prior to our holiday I had spent many hours in the baking sun trying to dig the stuff out of rock hard dirt and clay in Mabel’s paddock. Now though, the ground is wet and soft and one dig and lever with a thin spade is often enough to lift even some of the biggest plants out of the ground.

In short, it’s fairly easy work and as Aaron says, somewhat therapeutic. The compost piles get satisfyingly big very quickly and the paddock soon takes on more and more of its original grassy look.

I’ve been well impressed by the worm activity in the soil surface. Every large weed seems to yield 2 or 3 worms just around the root ball. I’m not saying the soil’s perfect but it seems to me to be a good indication that overall we’ve been doing things right.

The southern paddock that Stanley is currently in was a grotty little paddock when we first bought the place. There were completely barren patches of rock hard ground and seemingly more clay in places than dirt. But over time, the natural manure of grazing pigs, cows and sheep and the laborious hours we spent hurling buckets of seaweed-rich, liquid compost around, seem to have done wonders for the paddock.

Today, like a couple of Saturdays ago, it was a still morning and so we took buckets of Rok Solid and lime into the paddock and spread it around. 2/3 of the paddock has now been fertilized and perhaps if it is fine and still next weekend we will finish it off.

I have a sneaking suspicion that more barrels of liquid seaweed fertilizer might be even more beneficial but I’m not convinced the time and energy factor is entirely worth it. Next summer I think will be a telling factor. We’ve been spreading the Rok Solid and lime around over the last 9 months or so and I would expect to see some benefits from this in about 6 months time.

Both last weekend and this weekend we have also been up in the bush paddock pulling a similar amount of the same weeds out.  Bit by bit the paddocks are returning to their former glory. There’s still hours of work to do before we have cleared all the paddocks but if we follow Aaron’s suggestion and only spend 1 or 2 hours a weekend tackling it then it won’t feel like the weeds are taking over our life.

I’m happy with this. The idea now is to factor more ‘me’ time into our lives. I now need to see myself as caretaker of the land rather than a slave to it.

It’s amazing how such a simple change in perspective can be so liberating. We’ve done 5 years of hard graft and to carry on as is would clearly be unwise financially and physically.

What we do need to focus on right now is paying off the mortgage. It’s a bit of a bastard really to realize this when I’ve been part-time for the last 6 months. Going part-time was all about making this block pay for itself and giving me a rest from a relentless work schedule here and at the office. Now it’s become apparent that the block is never going to pay for itself anytime soon and if we don’t work so hard on the land then working fulltime at the office is not so bad.

I’d be quite happy to go back fulltime now but of course I gave half my job away to someone else. However, life circumstances have just changed dramatically for my workshare colleague so I suspect (and let’s be honest, hope) the opportunity will arise in the next 12 months for me to take back the other half of my job. The fact is, I can wait and in the meantime I’ll spend my weeks at home concentrating on the vege garden and working on land projects that cost nothing more than time.