New adventure - Dorothy and I have taken a leap of faith and purchased some land to restore its ecology and create a garden of our rural dreams. We will still be providing our services to urban green infrastructure through www.evolvement.sqsp.com and www.greenlook.com.au based in Sydney.
It took us some months to find our dream block, and we had to go a little further than we planned. Around 6 hour’s drive from our current home in Sydney was where we ended up. Its 131 acres with 50 acres of rainforest and 80 acres of pasture. The farm is located outside of Dorrigo at 800m above sea level. The rainfall is high of around 1500mm/yr, mostly in summer and its a little cooler than the nearest coast at Coffs Harbour. Temperatures can get as low as -3 Celsius in winter but overall the tropical north makes it warm and wet. Up until now the property has supported 30 cows. The pasture is in relatively good condition and has had a recent dose of lime and superphosphate. Ph of soil is currently around 7 in the pasture, not so good for endemic species. Generally soil is fantastic, basaltic and deep. Our excavator dug 3 meters deep with great soil all the way. The rainforest has high biodiversity value. Looking at the soil, I believe our farm was once covered fully in rainforest.
In terms of facilities on site there is little, bar fencing and an old large shed. I always say that the land is more important than anything else, although home comforts can be more important to some. Priorities include making the block habitable for us and visitors. Water, power, shelter and access are most important. To this end we are converting the old shed and modelling a section of land for use. From a sustainable point of view, I am happy to be remodelling and existing building. We are heavily insulating it, and my builder friend said its an easy job to pull off all the steel and place Sarking to make sure insulation works well. You Tube taught us all we need to know about cutting holes for windows and doors. We will now have great views from the shed.
We have 3 spring fed creeks and 2 large water bodies. Upstream is a vast forestry commission area. So far I have seen a Quoll (run over) Wallabies, plenty of snakes Pythons and Red Bellies, and the array of birds is magic. On trees, I have already identified 100+ species. Some incredible trees I’ve found on the property include Dysoxylum fraserianum (Rose wood) and Alloxylon pinnatum (Dorrigo Waratah).
We have a lot to learn about farms and country life. In Australia, over a beer in the pub is a good way to learn about resources, equipment and skilled people. One surprise to me was that what to me seemed to be a large piece of land, it is only capable of feeding 30 cows. Walking around the farm also soon becomes a problem, with a 3.5km fence line you can only do this once or twice in a day. The tyranny of distance makes a lot of difference in getting supplies and help too. Its early in our adventure and we have already had a hard lesson when a hire truck broke down. My advice here is to make sure you carry water everywhere, on this occasion I was very lucky to get the truck to limp into the one local shop. It was 35 degrees and we were thirsty. Mobile phones do not work everywhere and when a hire truck breaks down it is very hard to explain your predicament to a call centre overseas! Another challenge is that a piece of land like this needs a larger than average tractor, and they are very expensive.
Immediate ecological priorities - removal of a small pasture weeds like Fire weed, blackberries and Parramatta grass. Creeks have large Privet trees, up to 20 metres in height, these I will start to remove. One water body has erosion on the banks from cattle and this needs to be remedied.
We have decisions to make about what we will do but the land is tremendously productive in terms of grass and rainforest, so many horticultural endeavours are possible. Options include agistment for cows and fencing off rainforests and water bodies. Another option is to turn the whole block back to rainforest. We will also establish a large landscape garden appropriate to the climate. We also hope to establish a nursery.
After assessing the rainforest I have discovered that recent fires have given me a diverse range and abundant plant material. Millions of seedlings are sprouting and I have been madly potting them for restoration tasks. So far I have propagated a few hundreds trees for the rainforest and gardens.
Much more to come…….. and Merry Christmas to all.