Episode 331. More Evidence and Solutions
Following on from last week’s dire indications re: La Nina/El Nino phases comes a week of truly spectacular weather on the mainland.
I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Now here’s a headline to send chills down the spine: Australia can expect an El Niño weather pattern bringing extreme dry hot weather now La Niña is over.
That’s from the ABC News site, dated 11 March 2023. And like it says on the tin things are headed for drought, basically.
A quick refresher on the dreaded La Nina/El Nino phase swap. When the eastern Pacific equatorial waters are cooler than normal, the western side is warmer, this is La Nina and leads to droughts in Peru and Chile and rains in eastern Australia. The reverse holds for El Nino. For the past three years we’ve been under a La Nina event hence the three years of flooding in eastern Australia. The la Nina has been decaying for a few months now so areas have been receiving the last few flooding events and some areas have already started to dry out. In far north Queensland floods have destroyed townships and a bushfire has burnt out some 18,000 hectares near the gold mining settlement of Hill End. Indeed a land of droughts and flooding rains. Continue reading →
The long two months of dryness have passed, it would appear. The last two weekends we’ve had the first rains of Autumn and they are very welcome. The air was looking dirty. We have a Mediterranean climate here or we have had, patterns are changing and, in this region, becoming more extreme in their patterns. Whilst we haven’t had the 38+ degrees of the mainland we have had 26 here in the North West of Tassie and that’s been difficult. So for my USA listeners that’s over 100 and just under 80 for 38+ and 26. As it turns out not all of Australia is an oven. The tail end of the current La Nina event has seen more flooding across the top end of the continent and it has been heartbreaking to watch. Quite a number of indigenous communities, particularly the out lying ones, have suffered terribly. Indeed the weather has hit this place hard for a few years. There’s still people living in tents after the summer of 2019-2020 Black Summer fires, towns that have never flooded since white colonisation have flooded and others have been hit repeatedly. We know this is related to climate change and the warming planet even if we can’t attribute any one particular event to that. I have my doubts about that statement but it comes from climate specialists so I’ll go with it. Continue reading →
I heard a great podcast clip today and I recommend you have a listen, link in the show notes. It was an interview with a Ukrainian orchardist. Asked about how he was doing his response was a laconic: We have adapted to current conditions.
When probed a little further these ‘current conditions’ were as follows. Continue reading →
A big shout out and even bigger thank you to Jeay Love for the coffee you sent me through the “Buy Me A Coffee” link on the website and in the show notes. The notification came through as I was queuing to purchase one such beverage so the timing was perfect, thanks again.
Late mid February and there’s a tinge on the paddocks around these parts that hints at an early Autumn. It could be the week or so on south west to southerly winds blowing over this part of the apple isle but it really does feel like an early Autumn. This is probably a good thing. I’ve come to terms with the mediterranean climate we have here by not growing much over summer other than perennials. Pears, apples, raspberries and some persistent blackberries. Continue reading →
Way back in the dim dark past of 2016 in those halcyon pre-covid days, on the first of that month, this feed first hit the interwebs in all my naive, open eyed wonder. A full seven years, that number so beloved of Celtic heroes and their times in the wilderness, the time required to develop a given itch for those of us of a certain age. For the younger listeners, I have provided a link in the show notes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch) In the interests of accuracy, it was released a full six years before I first burst upon this planet but still a part of my cultural milieu but I digress. Continue reading →
I’m going to focus on the three principles of the Fukuoka method, as I have applied them in my systems. I’m in process of changing homes and so a review is helpful for both your narrator and I hope, my listeners.
The three principles are:
Back on episode 17 of the Organic Gardener Podcast, I was being interviewed by Jackie, the host, and I brought up the idea of no dig gardening. This was something new to her and, I suspect, to many of the listeners. Continue reading →
This week begin with a piece from Iowa Learning Farms entitled: It’s alive! Scientists get closer to identifying what lives in our soil.
The importance of soil life cannot be overstated. That we know so little about this complex web of life is not surprising. Soil science has focused upon the most easily measured properties of soil, its chemistry and the physics involved in compaction, ploughing and so forth. Continue reading →
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
There were a couple of posts this week on the gentle topic of weeds.
And they got me to thinking about my own journey to my current understanding of the little buggers and how they don’t bother me anymore.
My first ever garden as a child was a small one metre square attempt at growing wheat from my Irish neighbour’s chook feed.
Without knowing it, this was the first time I would re-enact the Neolithic. Making stone tools at uni many years later as part of my degree in archaeology, was another but that’s an entirely different podcast episode.
With the wheat garden I barely got my seed back. Continue reading →
This week’s episode was a replay of Mark Rathbone’s interview on biodynamics.
Well worth a listen here.