For those of you that met us in the challenge last year may remember how we blundered our way through the season facing lots of rural challenges we never even thought about. One of those being ducks .. Well - they were another one of my great ideas because they are so cute as babies!!!.
We kind of popped them in the orchard and thought they would stay down there but they became giant pooping machines on the patios.
We also had a really low success rate of any babies and only ended up with 2 out of about 100. My dad has helped me build a duckling house (Which was meant to be the size of a rabbit hutch) so we can help the survival rate. One mumma duck has even start laying in the duckling house so a tick of approval from her.
Emily my 8 yr old is the duck queen and absolutely loves them. She really wants to train a few ducklings this year ..... they already follow her around like she's the Pied Piper.
We spent a big weekend in the orchard a few weeks ago weeding and adding compost around all the trees. In turn they have rewarded us with lots of blossoms and new growth. We had a pretty good yeild last year for very young trees. We all gathered around to share one lone plum between 5.... But we did get enough peaches for 1 in the lunch box each and apples for a crumble.
In this area we have the ducks, 46 fruit trees ranging from avos, pears, apples, peaches, plums, Loquats etc and Brandon (the husband) has his chilli garden down here too. photos are from one of his giant chilli hauls last season.
The rabbits have been a real problem in the orchard and we are onto plan 54. I have planted nasturtiums seeds all around the bases this year as hear they are a natural repellant so will be interested to see how successful they are.
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