Our farm, once home to grazing animals, sits on 200 acres; 150 of pasture and 50 of natural timbered hills. Currently home to kangaroos, deer and wild goats, the land paints a picture of tranquility, inviting us to explore every nook and cranny. As soon as we drive through the front gate, the stresses of city life melt away.
With so much land it can easily get overwhelming so we have decided to start planning from the homestead out. Our focus of self sustainability and our apiary are the key considerations when planning. We’re still maintaining the “do nothing” mantra but planning allows us to deeply contemplate what we want with our land.
Starting at the homestead…
The homestead sits in front of an old horse shed and small paddock which we are planning to turn into a vegetable garden and garden shed. This paddock is well fenced and therefore offers protection from wildlife. Behind the horse/garden shed is a row of trees, i believe to be boxelder maple. These are deciduous trees which are perfect for sheltering beehives. Because they shed their leaves in winter, they provide shade in summer and sunlight in winter. The horse shed will also provide shelter from wind and rain. So 4 hives will go back there. This serves an additional purpose of pollination for the vegetable garden and orchard.
In front of the homestead is another small paddock that we think is perfect for an orchard. Some fencing will probably be required and the use of a tractor to cut the long grass and dig holes. We are also considering purchasing the trees asap so we can get a jump on the growing season.
Just a bit further out is the delapidated chicken coop. When we first visited the farm prior to purchase, there were two chickens living there. Its definitely a fixer upper but it has potential and we’ve always wanted chickens. A nice big coop to protect them from dogs and fox would be perfect. We’d also like a chicken tractor to help turn clear some paddock and turn the soil a bit. Chickens do a great job in turning bugs and green waste into a soil improver. Composting is fun but chickens are way faster!
Moving a bit further out, there is a very overgrown fenced off area with a dam. I haven’t spent much time in here but my idea is to have this planted with native trees such as banksia, tea tree and bottlebrushes. These trees do very well in poor soil and thrive in our harsh australian climate and soil. They provide an excellent food source for bees as well.
We also have large paddocks which were previously grazed by cows. Given we are not full time at the farm (yet) we can’t have any cattle, but we plan to spend as much time (and money) as possible improving these paddocks.
Lastly there is the acres of timbered area. This is the quintisenntial Australian bush. Fun to explore with a creek to follow and open areas perfect for camping, hiking and enjoying nature. I just love it out here.
Farm structures..
There are also the following structures to consider
1. A very large shed
This lovely enormous shed has one small problem.. when it rains, it floods. This is fine if we just store vehicles or items in the middle, but this isn’t really feasible. What we’d like to do is bring a lot of pallet racking that we already own and use the shed for storage, machinery and doing any fixes, diy or messy work that we would like to do under shelter. Ideas on how to shore this up to stop the water coming in are in the works.
2. A second large open front shed
This one is just going to be used to store the tractor, water trailer and any vehicles we want to give a bit of cover too.
3. A shearing shed
This is an interesting one as it has so much potential! The shed is half timber, half grated metal which seems a bit delapidated and i dont have confidence to walk across it to see if its structurally sound so for now it will remain there. The timber side is beautifully sound though, so this section has so much potential. Possibly a woodworking shop, an storage area for our apiary equipment or even an aquaponics set up.
4. An extremely dilapidated woolshed
Not far from the shearing shed is a timber woolshed that appears very structurally unsound. This may have to be pulled down, but if it is, we will reuse all the timber to make things like garden beds. Hopefully this is not the case, but further investigation is warranted.
5. A grain silo
It is unlikely we will ever use this for grain, so we’d love to turn it into a little library or something fun and whymsical.
We love our farm, and we have so much to explore, plan and do. Join us on the journey..
