It was a big one this weekend: we planted the mulberry tree. Weeks ago, Beloved dug the hole and we buried the first load of bokashi so that it would turn into nice soil to plant the mulberry in. Sadly this did not go exactly as planned. When we (and by “we” I mean “he”) dug into that wonderful bokashi-rich soil we found…a whole bunch of mouldering veggies and not nice, rich soil at all. Was it because our soil is so dry at the moment? Don’t know. Anyway, we figured that the mulberry would just have to fend for itself, and planted it in there anyway. It’s got to benefit from all those wonderful bokashi organisms around its roots.

Here it is in its new home. It looks a little droopy in this picture, but we’d had a couple of windy days and its leaves had got a bit bashed around. It looks a whole lot happier today, no doubt helped by cooler weather and lots of rain which we had yeasterday. Also, I’m sure by all those fabby bokashi organisms.

I learned several things about bokashi on the weekend:

it takes longer than 4 weeks to turn into nice soil. I will wait 8 weeks before planting the mango tree.

do not pour liquid fat into the bokashi bucket. It is okay to put animal products in there, like bones, and I’m sure you can put solid fat in there, but the liquid fat just seeps through and clogs up the little tap at the bottom.

Thank you for all the lovely comments about the frog pond. I did a bit of reasearch and found that the main frog I hear is this one:

This is the Southern Brown Tree Frog. They call all year and have tadpoles practically all year. I’m just waiting for the moment when they find our pond and start making a home there. Soon, I hope.

The other local frog we have is:

the Common Froglet.

Maybe I can use the frogs in a metaphorical, metamorphical sort of way.

Well, it’s phase II of The Book starting from tomorrow. I have been doing it for approximately one month, all that visualising, it has to be doing me good. I’m going to write up my plan for the next step, now. I think it involves a lot more visualising, and still listening to the CD. I don’t listen to the CD during the day because it makes me so relaxed, I tend to fall asleep.

I was very proud of a slice I made on the weekend, to take to a friend’s place. It had no sugar in it, instead using a sweetener called  xylitol. Like most stuff I’ve never heard of before, as well as being better than sugar, it seems to cure everything from dental caries to osteoporosis and earache. Don’t give it to your dog, though. It has a very low GI and is just as sweet as sugar. I also used organic peanut butter in the slice. It was yummy.

More tomorrow. Take care, everyone.