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| Landscaping taking shape |
In the last half a year we have been very busy establishing our Spurtopia Homestead. It is ever so exciting especially when you do something you are absolutely passionate about – materializing our vision and creating a beautiful reality and future for our family.
It has taken a lot of planning, sketching and thinking to get it right and make it work. So far we have:
- Installed solar power on the roof (6kW system);
- Solar hot water system ($700);
- Self-watering planter boxes to quickly start growing our food;
- Established several garden beds;
- Planted 25 native trees;
- Landscaping – created a stone retaining wall and levelled a part of land close to the house, prepared a pad for a shed, built swales on contours (about 500 metres) for an orchard and food forest;
- Set up rainwater harvesting – 5000L (five IBC tanks) for a garden irrigation and we are in the process of installing 50Kl of rain water tanks for home use;
- Three free range chickens, 3 beehives as well as 2 worm farms are our day-to day companions;
- 8 large compost bays for preparation of nutrient rich soil;
- House face-lift such as decoration, renovation of a bathroom, laying tiles etc.
We have used a huge amount of materials to improve our unfertile and very poor soil:
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| Capsicons in Self-watering boxes |
- 6 truck-loads of crusher dust and decomposed granite – minerals for garden and fruit trees;
- 2 truck-loads of wood chips, four truck-loads of soil;
- 70 cubic metres of horse manure;
- three ute loads of cow manure;
- and grass clippings and palm leaves from local garden maintenance guys.
As a result we already have an abundance of greens, tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants, squashes, sweet corn, capsicums and rosellas. In our opinion these are very good results considering such a hot and dry summer (while writing these lines the thermometer shows 42°C in the shade!)
Our home production is in a full swing, making yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, sourdough bread, raw cakes, home brew beer, ginger beer, lemonade and absolutely delicious mead from our honey.
On a day to day basis we do natural parenting and home education of our two daughters which gives us a joy and meaning of life.
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| Vegi garden |
Also establishing a local community in our neighbourhood is essential for us so we share our experience and produce which is starting some very nice relationships.
We already have a lot of people coming to see how we have been transforming our one acre property into a sustainable paradise. This year we are planning to have our place open to the public for visits, education, workshops and internship programs. We do what we are passionate about, we live our dream and in that way we’re creating our reality and shaping our future in which we want to live. 2017 will be another amazing year, full of joy, prosperity and happiness.
Your Spurtopians
