Creating a Sustainable Sunshine Coast - Nambour to Mooloolah

Spring is here and so is Peak Egg!

After a massive rain event heralded the end of winter (in which we received more than 300mm in a few days, and many areas on the Sunshine Coast were flooded and suffered significant damage) the air now has a definite feel of spring to it.

It’s warmer, the plants are livelier and the chooks are on the lay – big time!

I think we are approaching Peak Egg. Almost 100 per cent capacity and we have more eggs than we know what to do with.

We have Pekin and Australorp bantam hens and Standard Australorps too. Almost all are producing yummy orange yoked beauties every day.

It’s warmer now so we haven’t had the fire on for the last week or so which is a shame as we are still harvesting beautiful big Sebago potatoes from the garden and they are delicious baked in the wood fired oven and lathered in butter and cheese - yum.

And the frogs have come to life with the warmer weather too.

The first night we spent here, we were kept awake with the symphony of frog calls coming from the garden – it was very noisy and we considered using ear plugs to get to sleep.

The most common frog we have is a small green tree frog, tiny little emerald green frogs everywhere in the garden, some even make it inside nestled among lettuce leaves.

The native birds have up the activity too. We have King Parrots starting to prepare for their next generation – they usually nest in the top food forest each spring and completely demolish the plum tree.

Whip birds have made this garden their home too. The other day I saw a Pacific Baza, a really unusual looking bird of prey near the house. Rail birds are well established here with several little colonies across our two acres. Purple Swamp Hens are trashing the lined dam and keep trying to sink my fake crocodile head I have floating in there.

The Noisy Miners are kept busy trying to keep all the other birds out of the garden, but they are also good alerts for when there is a snake about. I saw one of our regular pythons stick its head out for the first time after hibernation just before the rain fall, haven’t seen it since though!

We are eating most of our meals from the garden this time of year and have been for quite a while now. Broccoli, cabbage, cauli, zucchini, silverbeet, kale, lettuces, potatoes… and of course eggs and coffee.

We just buy bread, butter, tea… those types of things. It’s always a shock when we have to go back to the shops after this peak season and to see all the prices of fresh food! Unbelievable!

Compost, compost, compost… that is the mantra of organic gardeners around the world and we have heaps this year. After the local Garden Show we went along and brought home all the demonstration materials and stacks of straw which all went into massive compost piles.

The humus from these will be used in the vegie patches and around fruit and nut trees for their spring boost. It’s also time to be mineralising the soil too.