There are certainly obvious signs of autumn. Cooling nights and the changing colours of leaves on the trees. But there is one sign I particular like and its the reappearance of fungi and the spreading of mycelium as increased moisture levels now allows. I'm always amazed at the variety of fruiting bodies that are around. They are often colourful but can be more subtle coloured like those pictured. Nature at work - cycling nutrients to feed the soil and our plants. I'm hoping the mycelium in the last photo is that of King Stropharia mushroom which I have inoculated into the wood chip paths of the veggie garden. It's a delicious mushroom and I'm looking forward to a plentiful harvest down the track.
For me another sign of autumn is the need to prune and mulch my productive trees out on my swales. In addition to the chop and drop of the support trees and using the biomass as a mulch I've also been moving some manure from the pasture area to fertilise around my fruit and nut trees. While a compost would probably be better I just don't have the time to make that much so using the manure is the next best option I think. Hopefully with some rain the nutrients will be washed through to the soil and the organic matter will also be great for retaining moisture and keeping the grasses at bay!
Out in the veggie garden my blueberry tomato has kicked in with lots of fruit being produced. I've been busy using onion greens to make salt and I'm discovering how far seeds can fly with kale volunteers appearing beyond the garden beds and now in the lawns. I'm sure the chickens will enjoy eating these when I move their coop through this area. I'm excited to find some decent sized cantaloupes growing in my wild pumpkin/cantaloupe patch. Last year my cantaloupes were a little bigger than tennis ball size but this year they are definitely more than a feed for one person. My afternoon tea yesterday consisted of melon and figs! The fig tree too has increased production with quite a few fruit ripening at once. It's little rewards like this that make all the hard work worthwhile!!
An exciting happening this week was to have hit 1000 subscribers with my YouTube channel!! My recent onion video has been my most successful so far. Last Sunday night the views just took off and by the next morning I had 80 extra subscribers. While it has since slowed the subscriber numbers have still been climbing. So what does this mean? It means I can apply to become part of the YouTube Partner Program and receive payments from the ads played during my video. It's no fun watching ads I know but if you can let them play when watching one of my videos it means that I may get a few extra cents to help support me making more videos!!
Well once again that's it for the moment. Enjoy your week
Cheers
Linda
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