An Early Spring

Timber

Many years ago, timber from the Brisbane Valley was highly sort after.  In the 1800’s there was three local sawmills in operation. With the nearby Coominya sawmill being adjacent to the railway station.  The mills are now long gone, and the bush has regenerated.

Today at HoneyDale we have eucalypt woodland with a shrubby wattle understory.  We have some beautiful tall trees, in particular - Spotted Gum, Narrow leaf Ironbark, Narrow leaf Red Gum, Pink Bloodwood and Rusty Gum.

In building our little Bush Retreat, we want to showcase the bush by highlighting the beauty of the local wood.  We will use salvaged logs to make benchtops and trim.  But to get to this stage, requires some hard work.

Selecting a nice straight log

After selecting the fallen logs, they must be slabbed using a chainsaw with a slabbing attachment. Then cut to size using a table saw and dressed using a thickness-planer.

So far, we have slabbed enough wood to make 2.5m of bench. Quite a lot more to go yet!  

But we do have a lot of fallen timber on the property, which would otherwise be left to rot.

Setting up

First slab from this log

Slabbing - its dusty work

Well camouflaged

Tawny Frogmouth

I could not find any Koala's this morning - but I did spot this bird soaking up the sun!

First Crop for Autumn 2018

In QLD we have been enjoying a very mild Autumn, with Daytime temperatures in the mid 20's and night time rarely dipping below 10 degrees.  As a result the garden looks a delight.  Below photo's are of our first pickings - fresh greens and the odd strawberry for breakfast.

Plenty of beans and peas

Ready to pickle

The Okra is starting to flower and we have planted plenty. So soon we will be adding Okra to our Autumn harvest.

A flowering beauty

Planted out - Red & Green Okra varities

Each season we experiment a little - and learning heaps along the way! 

Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

What we have learnt about growing veggies

We have had good success in growing tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, peas and beans in Brisbane and so we thought it would be easy to transfer this success to Honeydale.

The previous owners had a small garden and we started by ripping the ground, applied gypsum to break the clay up, spread lots of compost we made using our mulcher and gave the garden a good working over with the rotary hoe.

During our first growing season we had plenty of Zucchinis and tomatoes but no eggplants or capsicums.

We found that growing tomatoes in the shade housed produced a large amount of foliage but no fruit.

Last growing season we had much more success growing tomatoes, eggplant and capsicums on outdoors with a trellis for support.

Our first planting of rhubarb went gangbusters but got root rot and died.  We replanted rhubarb in raised beds and we are have had several good harvests.  The crowns are splitting so we will be digging them up in the dormant seasons for replanting.

Rhubarb

Last year we planted a test bed of broad beans and we had a good crop.  This year we mass planted broad beans and have been rewarded with masses of flowers. Hopefully the flowers will turn into a bumper crop of broad beans.

Our best success appears to come from using heritage climbing beans and peas.  We constructed a trellis and planted older varieties of climbing peas and beans.  The purple climbing variety did not take well the green variety more than made up for the short fall.  We have had four pickings from the green beans and they are still flowering.  The beans are slower growing but they have plenty of pods and we are not too far away from having fresh peas.

Climbing Beans

When the climbing peas and beans have finished we plan to rest the soil, put down some fertiliser and use the trellis for our summer tomatoes.

Climbing Peas

Pea Pods

Okra is a hardy vegetable used in African and southern US cooking.  Last year we had good results with a test planting.   This year we planted a larger garden bead and have been rewarded with sturdy plants with lots of flowers.

Okra Pods forming

This year we planted a test bed of soya beans, soya beans can be used for a variety of dishes but we plan to take the pods and boil them to eat as edamame to have with drinks or as a side dish.

Soya Beans

We still grow herbs and lettuce in the shade house.  However, the shade house is slowly being taken over by strawberries, there are now have two rows of the plants and we get a steady crop of sweet red berries to have with desert or on our breakfast yogurt.

Fresh Strawberries

Last year we over ordered garlic and it got off to a great start.  The year wore on and not a single bulb formed.  We researched the reasons and found that we had planted cool weather garlic, it needs cold weather to form bulbs.  This year we got two varieties, one sourced from far north Queensland and another from south east Queensland.

This year's garlic

One of our resident Koalas on the job!

Nothing beats home grown!



Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

An Autumn Day on the Rail Trail

The fickle weather of Autumn had a full bag of tricks in store for today's ride - 52km from HoneyDale to Fernvale and back.

At morning's dawn the heavens opened and let down a soaking downpour, which delayed my start. Waiting for it to clear meant an extra cup of tea. Eventually pushing off the sky looked uncertain as to whether it would be a clear day ahead.

By the time I reached the beautiful Lockyer Creek bridge a sunny day seemed more certain.  How wrong was I! Just a few kilometers down the trail I felt the gentle sprinkle of rain.  Passing by the Clarendon Dairy, the girls were wandering down from the milking shed.  Some meet me at the rail trail gate and with their gentle kind eyes they seemed to wish me well for the ride ahead.

Coming into Lowood and cruising by the native gardens planted along the trail, I felt a breeze picking up and the skies appear to clear again. Pushing on towards Fernvale the breeze started to stiffen and turned nasty.  I consoled myself with beautiful views of the Brisbane River and the knowledge that the wind would aid me on the way back.

I enjoyed the ride entering Fernvale, skirting around the oval and slipped by the old Uniting Church, which is the second oldest building in the area.

Here I turned around, retracing my steps and eagerly anticipating a quick return. The wind assisted me to Lowood, taking no time at all to cycle past the old railway station, where many cyclists were taking a rest.

I pushed on wanting to make the most of the favourable conditions. However, by the time I started the 4km rise up to Coominya station the wind was only teasing puffs, the sun was again shining and the day was heating up. 

From Coominya the trail now enters bush, it was great to find the shade. Passing by an Orange orchard, I was happy knowing that HoneyDale was now close at hand.

I wanted a long day in the saddle and this was what I got - the 52.5km took 3hours and 45minutes - and more importantly the weather toughened me up.

BVRT - Climbing up the Range

After a late start we arrived at the historic and picturesque village of Linville - to cycle along a very scenic section of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. 

From Linville Station the trail climbs up the Blackbutt Range at a steady 3 to 5 degree ascent with magnificent valley views.  Along the way there are a number of steep creek crossings, with lush bush surrounding little rockpools.

The track passes through a variety of scenery, initially travelling through rural landscapes and slopes covered with grass trees. Climbing higher, beside the track lies a small hut, rail worker camps and fettler's rest area.

Upon entering the Benarkin State Forest the bell birds called out as we rode between subtropical rainforest, eucalypt and sections of hoop pine plantations which were established in the 1920s.  From Bernarkin the trail continues climbing onto Blackbutt.   

After a morning of pushing uphill (a total climb of 22km), it was now time to turn around and enjoy a wonderful downhill.