I gots me a tractor!!

Look how cute my new toy is!!! It's my first piece of proper farm equipment. It even comes with a slasher and a rotary hoe. At home we have 13 acres which includes a couple of paddocks and a bit of bush. This little baby is just the right size for us. My father in-law was generously given it to be used at our place.

If you know about my veggie garden and working for Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison you might have also guessed that i have a keen interest in self sufficiency as a future goal. I do my bit by having the chooks and my veggie patch but i would really like to go the whole way and with solar power and greater food production.

I have started mapping out my food forest in the unused patch at the front of my house. I want to plant a whole multitude of fruit trees and other edible plants but i think i need to start with the soil first. I am going to plough up the scrubby/grass stuff and plant a nitrogen fixing green crop, then plough it back into the soil after a couple of months. The area has gumtrees on it and sandy soil so i really need to fix that first.

The second step will happen quite quickly:  i am going to plant potatoes and pumpkins and just let them grow wild. This will not only break up the ground a bit but be two crops you can store long term.

So fingers crossed we can support our family for nearly a year just from that first planting. The cute little tractor will take a lot of the work away from us and i really don't think i will have to spend that much time to get so much product.

By the way i would love to hear any suggestions you have for a name...its so cute it HAS to have a name!!!

Mxo