Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

BigG10

Ok...well in that front...I'm a massive foodie and also enjoy the odd truffle (not the chocolate kind)!!

Generali

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Doesn't it take about 40 years for an olive tree to start bearing fruit? Better get started!

Maybe if you grow them in the UK but over here, where the climate is perhaps more suited to them, if you put decent sized saplings in you'll get fruit in commercial quantities in 4 years and a fullish crop in 10. After 10 years you'd get about 80kg/tree. At a 250 tree/Ha planting over 10 Ha thats about 200 tonnes of fruit in year 10. Olives typically sell for something under $3,000/tonne in Europe so more like $1,500-$2,000 here .

The yield figures come from a test planting that was done by the Govt in Mildura.

Generali

lostinrates wrote: »

Could you not run your surface water through a klargester to clean it? Link it to the house grey water? You would need to scale up (fwiw, despite being convinced otherwise at the time I wish we had gone for a bigger klargester, but it's not an expensive solution to grey water and water recyling both.

A mate of mine collected the water off his roof into a tank and was living off that quite happily. He was out near Canberra so not even along the wetter coastal strip and they are a family of 6 not of 4 like us. That was enough for all washing, cooking, drinking plus irrigation for a 1/2 acre plot that produced most of the veggies the family needs and a few chooks for meat and eggs.

I think he just used a physical filter to keep out leaves and possum poo.

Generali

BigG10 wrote: »

Ok...well in that front...I'm a massive foodie and also enjoy the odd truffle (not the chocolate kind)!!

I like both sorts of truffle myself. I met the chef that got the sack over a £10,000 truffle that got left out of the fridge over the weekend if you remember that story.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

I plan to force my family to do it although it is possible to do the ride just buying stuff from the roadhouses in the desert. Most of the ride is near the beach so they can go to the beach while I flog myself half to death and play dodge the road train.





Yup, I'll use the main road. 10 litres a day is about right plus you need 1g of carbs for each kg of bodyweight per hour while riding. I usually get that from muesli bars and sports drinks (sports drinks cover off the water and energy requirements) so I'll be consuming about 6,000 calories a day.

Happy 2013. It's a lovely morning here in N Norfolk. Sun is shining, and the sky is blue. A bit like Sydney, but 25C cooler.

I looked at the main road on Google StreetView, and there seemed to be a distinct lack of anywhere to pop in for a quick cuppa.

If you were to try it without support, I'm guessing that you would need to carry a couple of days worth of water with you. Plus you'd be pretty dependant on the bike not breaking down at all. On the plus side, you wouldn't be wearing out the brakes, as you could do 1000 miles without braking at all.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

Maybe if you grow them in the UK but over here, where the climate is perhaps more suited to them, if you put decent sized saplings in you'll get fruit in commercial quantities in 4 years and a fullish crop in 10. After 10 years you'd get about 80kg/tree. At a 250 tree/Ha planting over 10 Ha thats about 200 tonnes of fruit in year 10. Olives typically sell for something under $3,000/tonne in Europe so more like $1,500-$2,000 here .

The yield figures come from a test planting that was done by the Govt in Mildura.

Sounds almost too good to be true. 20 tonnes x $1500 to $2000 = $30k- $40k per hectare.

How much pruning, spraying, fertilising etc is required? How do you harvest them? What happens if the local wildlife becomes partial to olives?

I don't know the price of agricultural land in Mildura, but it sounds like a stupidly good return. Too good to be true, IYSWIM.

silvercar

Friends of ours have bought a second home in the UK that is only 40 mins away from their home. Near enough to visit frequently, but far enough to feel away, in their eyes. They gathered some peeps for NYE! Very jolly, very beautiful home with character and curiosities and loads of land and views. Downside is it is over a mile down a dirt track with pot holes.

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Sounds almost too good to be true. 20 tonnes x $1500 to $2000 = $30k- $40k per hectare.

How much pruning, spraying, fertilising etc is required? How do you harvest them? What happens if the local wildlife becomes partial to olives?

I don't know the price of agricultural land in Mildura, but it sounds like a stupidly good return. Too good to be true, IYSWIM.

As you point out, that's turnover not profit and as with so much farming the cost of borrowing the money to own the farm is huge. In addition you have to finance 4 years of ownership with nil return and then another 5 years perhaps with negligible profits.

People want to make money today, not in a decade. Also, farming is blooming hard work.

There is a lot of pruning in the first few years so you can harvest mechanically. Spraying isn't really needed as there aren't any native pests. Fertilizing and mulching needs to be done and there is a lot of weeding, olives hate to be around other plants. Olives also aren't especially salt tolerant as a rule so irrigation needs to be done carefully.

StevieJ

Wishing you all a Happy 2013 :beer:

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd bought 18 eggs and a loaf on Thursday/Friday .... not touched either so far, so decided to make a 3 egg scrambled eggs on toast.... using the toaster I was so scared of a month ago and the microwave I was so scared of until earlier today. Go me.... I might even bake some bread before the end of the month or something bizarre.

Progress! Go PN!

lostinrates wrote: »

...ultimately we asked dh and he said 'no'. Because he doesn't want the inside of our home over tvs and he doesn't want our finances discussed and quite rightly pointed out I would not be happy with cameras about these days.

I'm with foundinrates on that. I would not want my life on TV in that way.

BigG10 wrote: »

Hello all,

I am new to these forums and thought I would say hello. I also think I'm nice!! Some points about me....

- hopefully about to become a landlord!
- terrified about house prices and interest rate rises. Would put our landlord plans up te spout.
- find these forums to have a wealth of information but hate it when people get shouted down.
- hate our current govt but they were landed with a right mess. They have bodged up the education system - I'm a teacher!

That is all!

Welcome to the NPT BigG10. What do you teach? The NPT has a particularly wide ranging wealth of information, and nobody shouts anybody down. But then we don't usually discuss house prices in here. Think of it as the debate board's sitting out room.

I wonder if teaching/lecturing is another of those mushroom/Herts/Jewish things? We have me, missk and zag. PN's done some in the past, and IIRC so has lir before she got ill. Whom have I missed out?