Winter Soil Prep

By June 19, 2013

Photo by Milkwood Permaculture

Photo by Milkwood Permaculture

What on earth happened to winter? It started out just like a classic Downs cool season, with cold fronts sweeping through, followed by blustery winds direct from the Southern Ocean. Today (Tuesday 11/06), as I write this weekend’s Secret Garden, it feels more like late summer than winter. It’s been overcast for days, and a misty drizzle (or as the Scots say, “mizzle”) is falling making the garden not as much saturated as annoyingly drippy.

The official line from the BOM is that a big “blocking” high has been sitting out in the Tasman, pushing moist easterly winds onto the Queensland coast. This, combined with a warm Indian Ocean feeding moisture across the continent from the north west, is creating persistently damp conditions and as a consequence, a lack of cold nights. To date, I’ve recorded just three very light frosts. By this time last year I’d recorded nine.

What I’m hanging out to see are some crisp nights and clear days so that I can get started on a major revamp of the garden. We’re planning to grow some fruit, vegies and herbs commercially here at Thistlebrook, and to be ready for spring I really need to get into some soil prep. But the weather has put the kybosh on that so far.

Winter is the traditional time for preparing soil in our part of the world. In a typical season the clear weather and just-moist soil provides ideal cultivating conditions, helped along by some frost, which does a good job of splitting apart large clods into a finer tilth. The problem with persistent rain in winter is that the soil stays wet for an extended period of time, and wet soil is worked at your peril. When heavily cultivated, tiny air pockets within the soil get broken down to the point that the structure collapses and the ground sets rock hard.

But enough about what’s wrong with the weather. My Russell family creed, “Che Sara Sara” (yes, like the song) reminds me that what will be, will be. But while I have zero control over whether it rains or not, I can hope for some drying weather, and a few weeks spent outside in some glorious winter sunshine. If, per chance, this happens in the next month or two, my first task will be to drag the rotary hoe out of the shed and set it to work.

As far as cultivation tools go, rotary hoes have copped a bad rap in recent years. In my view the criticisms are partly justified. If they get used too frequently on the same plot of ground, their rotating blades can damage soil by: (a) whipping it up to such a fine tilth that it becomes saturated with oxygen and causes overly rapid decomposition of organic matter; and (b) creates a “polished” hard pan at a depth of about 20cm that can cause waterlogging and inhibit root growth.

But when used with care, rotary hoes can save hours of back breaking work without compromising soil quality. They’re excellent for incorporating green manures into the soil, and when used to till just a few inches deep, create a beautifully receptive bed for vegie seeds or seedlings. Two tips for using a rotary hoe wisely are to avoid using it too often, and to always break up any hard pan that forms below the machine’s tines.

For this job, nothing beats a broadfork. This a specialised piece of market gardening kit that originated in Holland, is used widely around the world on small scale vegetable farms, but is equally at home in good sized backyards. It looks a bit like an oversized digging fork, but with a few important differences.

A broadfork is wider than a traditional fork (mine is 600mm wide), which allows the user to cover the ground faster. Secondly, a broadfork is easier to use. You push it into the soil with your arms, drive it deeper by standing on it with one or both feet, jump off, and push down on the handles to gently lift, and aerate, the soil. You then slide the tool out of the ground, move it back about 20cm and drive it in again.

Being designed for “non-inversion” tillage, a broadfork simply loosens the soil instead of turning it. As a consequence it preserves soil structure and is much more hospitable to micro-organisms than more destructive tools. I purchased my broadfork through Allsun Farm, a clever market gardening operation down near Canberra (www.allsun.com.au or 02 6236 8173). After using the tool extensively in my vegie garden over the last couple of years I can suggest with confidence – if you’re half serious about growing vegies, get a broadfork. It’s a brilliant piece of gear that I hope to put to solid use this winter.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 15th June 2013.

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Avo go ya mug

By June 1, 2013

AvocadoTree

As a young bloke living with my parents on Rowbotham Street (Toowoomba), I used to enjoy taking our dog Aussie for a walk around what was then bush and farm lined back streets. One loop I’d often take took me past a new housing development, and I distinctly remember one winter seeing a huge old avocado tree absolutely dripping with fruit.

I haven’t been back to see whether the old tree is still there, but my guess is that it’s gone. Avocados were once grown commercially in outer Toowoomba and the trees were a common sight in suburbs across the city. Sadly, most have since been removed to the point that there are few mature avocado trees left.

The recent controversy over the butchering of a fruit laden tree in Newtown to clear powerlines should serve as a case in point. Some avos grow to be reasonably large trees, attaining heights of around 10 metres with an equally grand, spreading canopy. This makes them magnificent edible shade trees for a big backyard. But in our risk-averse society, people who grow and cherish big trees in suburbia are made to feel like social pariahs.

Apparently the poor avocado loving bloke in Newtown committed the ultimate sin – he let his tree grow over the fence and get a bit close to powerlines. God forbid that a fruit laden tree might cause a potential blackout or worse still, land a hard fruit on an unsuspecting pedestrian’s scone. So in come the electrical company’s tree fellers, whose handiwork is on show across Toowoomba (Hume Street camphor laurels, anyone?) to bring the tree under control. What do they care if the tree is laden with fruit or not. Why respect a gentlemen’s agreement that might have been in place. The tree was deemed risky and in the power company’s narrow view had to get the chop.

I heard people advising the avo grower to plant a dwarf Wurtz tree, suggesting that this would solve his problem. I have a couple of issues with this suggestion. For one, mature trees of any species cannot be replaced, only anticipated. Secondly, Wurtz might be dwarfing in relative terms, but still has the potential to get to four metres tall and at least that wide. Third, the flesh isn’t as prized as most other avocado varieties. And fourth, unlike the Hass variety, which is usually self pollinating, a Wurtz tree may need a second (much larger growing) variety for effective pollination.

So what’s the wash up? Let the gardener grow whatever he chooses and work with him to produce a well grown tree. The power company should have allowed the fruit to reach maturity before wielding the chainsaw (avos are selling for nearly three dollars a pop at the moment) then prune it judiciously. Don’t just hack off any limb that encroaches on public space – work with the tree’s owner to shape it properly, and keep it at a more appropriate size. And honestly, the risk of someone getting conked on the head by a falling avo is pretty minuscule. The fruit famously hangs on the tree for months, giving the owner ample time to harvest his crop, and besides, a Hass on the head is no match for the larger variety Reed.

Here’s how I know. Every spring some friends over at Ravensbourne have a communal harvest day, where a group of people get together to pick the fruit from their avocado orchard and enjoy a social occasion to boot. Last spring we picked Reed avos, and the simplest way to get the job done was for one person to climb the tree (avos make brilliant climbing trees for kids, and adventurous adults), pick the high fruit, and throw it down to a catcher on the ground.

On this occasion, Kylie was playing the role of climber, and I was the catcher. All was going swimmingly until someone nearby asked me a question, at which point I took my eyes off what was happening up in the canopy and missed seeing Kylie launch a fruit in my direction. It clobbered me fair in the chest from a height of five metres, and let me tell you, if you’ve ever been struck in the chest by a falling Reed avo it’s like being hit by a cannonball. Thought I was going to suffer a coronary.

I obviously lived to tell the tale, and I don’t share people’s paranoia about large fruit trees. In my view they’re a vital part of our suburbs, and that’s the key point. They’re our suburbs. Not the power company’s. So go ahead and plant an avo or two in the back corner of the garden, and when the fruit’s on, offer a bag full to the tree pruners as a reward for their common sense.

First published 25th May 2013. Photo by Justin, ripening avocadoes in a Hampton orchard.

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Seasonal Living

By May 23, 2013

Autumn Colour

The north American term “fall” has always struck me as the perfect descriptor for autumn, and though I don’t use it personally, I absolutely appreciate the sentiment. At the most basic level, it refers to the leaves of deciduous trees, which are falling to the ground. But fall also refers to temperatures, and to the light. If you hadn’t noticed, the sun is now setting at around 5pm and rising at 6.30am. Daylight hours will keep reducing – falling – until the winter solstice on June 21, after which they will start to increase.

No doubt the winter solstice will pass by with very little fanfare. Such is our disconnection from natural rhythms that unless you’re a pagan, a sufferer of Seasonal Affective Disorder or a dedicated food grower, you’re unlikely to give the date a second thought and business will carry on as usual. Most people, especially those living in the city, will wake up, switch on the air conditioner or the heater, head off to work, see out the day, arrive home in the gloaming, eat dinner, watch TV and tuck into bed.

Some say that we disconnect from seasonal living to our detriment, but its worse than that – to live a life severed from the seasons is to make yourself the major player in a modern tragedy. For thousands of years humanity has lived in harmony with natural cycles, celebrating every seasonal milestone together as a community with a shared sense of wonder and humility. Seasonal living wasn’t just a lifestyle concept. The seasons were life itself. Fail to live seasonally as a medieval peasant and you die. Fail to live seasonally in contemporary Australia and the consequences are that life isn’t as rich as it might otherwise be.

Look how far we’ve fallen. The two major seasonal events remaining on the modern Australian calendar – Christmas and Easter – have been almost totally stripped of their religious and natural significance (the two once went hand in hand) and have instead become little more than consumerist orgies. Instead of using the events to reflect on our place in the scheme of things and to celebrate the turning of the seasons, we’re encouraged to throw open our wallets for the good of the nation and buy the crappy contents of millions of shipping containers imported from Asia. And we wonder why, at the end of the day, our lives seem so utterly hopeless.

I believe that the seasons can infuse our lives with purpose and motivation. But we have to reconnect. Realign. Get back to the old ways and learn some new ones. We ought to re-establish annual harvest Sundays in our churches and give the donated crops to the poor. We should adopt something resembling the Japanese Hanami festival, the yearly celebration of spring blossom. We should wassail our orchards in mid-winter, rediscover midsummer bonfires and celebrate the wheat harvest with a Lammas inspired bread feast.

In gardening terms, I suggest that people get away from very formal gardens that remain static throughout the year and embrace intense seasonality. Plant lots of deciduous plants, spring bulbs, summer perennials, winter flowering natives – anything that has well defined seasonal characteristics. Arrange plants so that they flower in waves throughout the year. And if you really want to get in touch with natural rhythms, grow food. Nothing is as seasonal as a vegie patch or an orchard.

To get a small taste of what I’m talking about, come and along and say hello at tomorrow’s Hampton Food and Arts Festival (www.hamptonfestival.com). My wife and I are running the Community Produce Stall. We’ll be stocking a wide range of seasonal produce, nearly all of it grown locally and picked fresh, and most sourced from small farmers, market gardeners and backyard food growers.

It’s only a small gesture in the scheme of things, but to me initiatives like the Hampton produce stall are an observance of the season, a kind of merry, modern day, harvest celebration. The same could be said of April’s Felton Food Festival, which has more of a focus on autumn bearing, broadacre crops. This was celebrated not only in the stunning vistas across the Felton valley, but in the beautiful demonstration plot at the entrance to the festival site that featured soybeans, sorghum, sunflowers and other cereal crops.

It’s worth remembering that life is short. And in my view, its beautiful. We only get to enjoy a limited number of seasons in a lifetime, yet we fritter them away by hiding indoors and doing everything possible to make our lives bland and mundane. Embrace seasonal change, because the day will inevitably arrive when your life falls and fades as surely as the autumn leaves in May.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 18th May 2013.

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Swap and Share

By May 9, 2013

Harvest Basket

Among the great myths of home food production is the notion of scarcity. Non-gardeners see a vegie patch or a backyard orchard as a hardscrabble way to put food on the table, but as every experienced home grower will attest, it’s actually the complete opposite: Producing food in the home garden is the path to abundance. In fact the abundance is often so great, there’s usually an excess of produce that either needs to be preserved for later use, or given away to neighbours and friends.

Some crops are obvious candidates for this gift economy. Zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes and citrus trees spring to mind. In good seasons, all are capable of producing a glut, and let’s face it – one cannot live on zucchinis alone. American novelist Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle writes a chapter titled Zucchini Larceny:

“It didn’t help that other people were trying to give them [zucchinis] to us. One day we came home from some errands to find a grocery sack of them hanging from our mailbox. The perpetrator, of course, was nowhere in sight. ‘Wow,’ we all said – ‘what a good idea!’.”

It was with this idea in mind – abundance – that myself and a group of Hampton locals came up with the idea of holding a regular produce exchange. The concept was that we’d get together once per fortnight during the main growing seasons to swap whatever home grown produce we had in surplus.

This original idea morphed a bit. Some of us started buying cases of apples and pears direct from a grower down at Stanthorpe, who was happy to deliver the fruit to us once per month on his way to Brisbane. So the fortnightly idea was canned and we decided to meet monthly. One of the local gardeners took on the responsibility of organising the group, out went emails to interested people, and a venue was secured at Hampton Blue, our local berry farm.

We recently celebrated our first anniversary. The first exchange in April 2012 met on a Monday afternoon and comprised a small network of keen gardeners and farmers. It’s fair to say that the group has grown a bit. In the last 12 months we’ve swapped everything from locally produced olive oil to boerwurst sausages to duck eggs (even live ducks!). During early autumn, my family arrived with cucumbers, salad greens, herbs, grapes and blackberries. We left with eggs, walnuts, potatoes, blueberries, honey, watermelons, and squash. I drove home thinking “hurrah to local economies!”.

As many as 50 people have attended an exchange, including retired couples, singles and young families. The exchange is the perfect excuse to socialise with friends and neighbours. We’ve held the event in farm packing sheds, in gardens, on verandahs and most recently, in the local Perseverance Hall. This exchange culminated in the viewing of the Oscar winning documentary Food Inc (a must-see for anyone interested in the industrialisation of food and farming), and has resulted in the formation of a local permaculture group. This time I drove home thinking “hurrah for local communities!”.

If you’re interested in starting a produce exchange in your neck of the woods, the process is pretty straightforward. The Hampton group started with three of us chatting in the carpark after a committee meeting for the Hampton Food and Arts Festival. One person decided to get the ball rolling. She started an email list and invited a core group of people to get involved. Thereafter the word has spread among the community. You could easily start a group within your gardening club, church or school community – anywhere an existing network of home food growers already exists.

Choose a venue that’s central to most people, and don’t be afraid to rotate it around if need be. Consider parking and basic safety, but to be honest, the important thing is to get the event up and running without getting too bogged down in logistics early on. As for timeframes, a monthly meeting schedule has worked well for us at Hampton, but very keen gardeners might want to meet fortnightly during late summer and autumn (when there’s lots of produce available), scaling back to monthly during winter and early spring.

Finally, be brave enough to let your produce exchange evolve. That’s the approach we’ve taken with ours, and it’s worked beautifully so far. The group is still very informal, but people are attending regularly, we have a diverse range of produce on offer, and the monthly meetings are generating creative energy in the community to the extent that the Hampton Local Produce Exchange has already spawned a spin-off group.

Local economies are the future. Actually, they’re already here. Always have been. It’s just that people are finding new ways, like produce swaps, to help them thrive. Grow local.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle May 4th, 2013. Photo by Justin.

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Captain, we’ve sprung a leek!

By May 2, 2013

HarvestedLeeks

It might have something to do with my Welsh ancestry, but I’m a stark raving mad fan of the leek. That’s right, the leek. My grandpa spoke Welsh Gaelic and my great-grandmother was from a town in Glamorgan called Merthyr Tydfil, which in the mid 19th century was such a hardscrabble, working class place that the Scottish writer Thomas Caryle described its inhabitants in less than glowing terms: “Such unguided, hard-worked, fierce, and miserable-looking sons of Adam I never saw before. Ah me! It is like a vision of Hell”.

Carlyle was obviously prone to hyperbole, because my great-granny, Mary Rees, wasn’t a fierce looking woman at all. She was short, chubby, and had a kind face. And I like to believe, gave me my taste for leeks. After all, the plant is a national emblem of Wales. Legend has it that during a 6th century battle in a leek field, the Welsh had trouble distinguishing themselves from the English. Saint David suggested that his troops wear leeks on their hats as identification. They obliged, and won what was sure to be a bloody, and no doubt, fragrant battle.

WearingLeeks

Welsh schoolchildren, St David’s Day, 1957. Image courtesy of the National Library of Wales.

 

To commemorate the occasion Wales celebrates St David’s Day on March 1 each year. It’s tradition on the day to wear a leek on the lapel, and school kids gain status by wearing the biggest leek, and being the first among their peers to eat it raw. Another tradition is to eat cawl, a hearty soup made from leeks accompanied by beef, bacon and seasonal vegetables such as potato, carrot and swede. We make something similar in our household and it is right up there as one of my favourite winter meals.

To have leeks ready to pick by late winter, it’s vital to get them started now. Ignore northern hemisphere advice to plant leeks in spring. In our climate the plants tend to bolt early once the summer heat kicks in, but started now, they’ll have plenty of time to grow on while theirs still warmth in the soil and produce beautiful fat shanks ready for harvest in about three months.

You can sow leek seed directly into reasonably rich, slightly alkaline soil. It’s a good companion crop with carrots, liking similar conditions and helping to deter carrot fly. The more successful option, at least in my experience, is to plant seedlings. You can start these yourself by sowing seed into punnets, then plant the seedlings into prepared ground when they’re about 20cm tall. An easy way to plant out the seedlings is to carefully tease apart each plant, make a hole about five to 10 centimetres deep with a dibber (conical garden tool), and place the seedling into the hole. Don’t worry about backfilling. Simply water the plants in and wash some of the surface soil into the hole. Deep planting like this also helps to create a blanched shank.

What on earth is a blanched shank, you ask? The shank is the stem of the leek below the leaves, and blanching creates a white and tender shank by excluding light during the growing season. Some people go to extreme lengths to blanch their shanks. The traditional method is to hill up the soil around the plant as it grows, leaving just the leaves exposed to the light. Others slip a cut-off milk carton over the plant, or wrap cardboard around the shank. It’s all a bit of a beat up, to be honest. The blanching process makes only a minor difference to the texture and flavour of the shank, and it’s something I never get around to doing in any capacity beyond deep planting. My leeks still taste superb.

There isn’t a huge range of of varieties to choose from in Australia. ‘Musselburgh’ is a famous old commercial variety from Scotland that forms very thick shanks and has a mild onion flavour. ‘King Richard’ (sold by the Diggers Club), is an early cropping, long shanked variety that is almost self-blanching. My favourite is ‘Giant Carentian’ (or Carentan), an old European leek that forms thick, white shanks and has a sweet and delicate flavour.

Whether that flavour is sweet and delicate enough to be worn on the lapel remains to be seen, but gently caramelised in butter over a medium heat, home grown leek is a taste sensation. You don’t need to be Welsh to enjoy this outstanding member of the onion family.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 20th April 2013

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In Flanders Fields the Poppies Grow…

By April 25, 2013

An old article on poppies, written on Remembrance Day 2008, but just as applicable to the 25th of April, 2013. Lest we Forget.

Flanders Poppy

I’m writing this week’s Secret Garden at about 11am on the 11th of November, and my thoughts have turned to war, peace, and poppies. The eleventh of the eleventh is of course Remembrance Day, and to mark the 90th anniversary of the official end of the Great War, people from across the Commonwealth and beyond will be wearing red poppies on their left lapel as close to the heart as possible.

The poppy is a plant soaked in symbolism and myth. By the time Canadian Colonel John McCrae wrote his famous poem In Flanders Fields, the red poppy already had a long association with eternal sleep. In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, the red poppy was associated with the goddess Demeter. Deeply mourning the loss of her daughter Persephone to the underworld, Demeter (Ceres) was given a red poppy by Hypnos (Somnus) to assist her sleep. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companions fall asleep in a field of poppies.

The most obvious botanical connection with such symbolism is the Opium Poppy, Papaver somniferum. This species has a long history of use as a narcotic in China and the Middle East, and by 1905, more than a quarter of China’s male population was addicted to opium, the plant’s main derivative. Afghanistan is the now the world leader in illicit opiate production, exporting 6600 tonnes annually, while India, Turkey and Tasmania are the leading suppliers of legal opiates for use in western medicine. Morphine and codeine are two widely used derivates of legal opium.

Unfortunately, the Opium Poppy and its subspecies including the Peony Poppy, are strictly regulated in Australia and banned for ornamental use. It’s a shame really because the opiate levels in ornamental cultivars are very low and the species is one of the most flamboyant and brazen plants known in cultivation. Despite the ban, incorrectly labelled Peony Poppy seed is widely available, but I am compelled to advise you to resist the temptation to grow an illicit drug, as exciting as the notion may be.

Instead go for something legal like the Iceland Poppy, widely used as a bedding plant in Toowoomba. Better still is the Oriental Poppy, Papaver orientale. While not very drought tolerant, this species and its cultivars are soundly perennial, flowering in spring, dying back in summer, producing a second flush of leaves and flowers in autumn, and finally becoming dormant in winter. Papaver orientale is available in some stunning forms. “Drunken Choir Boy” is a particular favourite because of its classic name and huge black and white flowers. “Patty’s Plum” is the sumptuous designer favourite you see in all the English gardening books, while “Karine” has icing sugar pink flowers with a rich wine red eye. Lambley Nursery in Victoria sells as decent range via mail order, and owner David Glenn grows them in his vegetable garden where they are well fed and watered.

But for all the poppy’s ancient symbolism, it is to commemorate the 1918 Armistice that the plant is most widely revered. Wartime legend states that the churned up battlefields on the Western Front were stained red by the blood of fallen soldiers, and from these blood-soaked fields sprung millions of blood red poppies. The Flanders or corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas, now serves as a reminder of those who died in the Great War.

If you’re keen, you could have a go at growing Papaver rhoeas at home. The Flanders poppy is a hardy annual to 50cm and is best grown from seed sown directly into the plant’s final position. All poppies resent being transplanted. Prepare a bit of well drained ground that’s not overly fertile and sow the seed on Anzac Day, watering occasionally to encourage good leaf growth prior to flowering in spring and early summer. After the bloom period is finished, allow the seed pods to develop and dry out, then collect the seed in a brown paper bag. It can be used to decorate baked bread or re-sown the following autumn. One word of caution, though: the plant has the potential to become weedy, so take care planting it if you live near farmland or the bush

Like the enduring memories of World War 1, the Flanders poppy is a remarkably resilient plant. Each flower produces around 17,000 seeds, and the 3,000 or so that are viable can lie dormant in untilled ground for up to a century. When the soil is disturbed and the seeds are exposed to light, they germinate and burst into flower. My hope is that as future generations plant poppy seed and brighten their gardens with blood-red flowers, a respect for those that went before will also burst forth, accompanied by the resolve to avoid the mistakes, and horrors, of the past.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle November, 2008. 

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Genius Loci

By April 19, 2013
BoyceGardens

Boyce Gardens, Range Street, Toowoomba. A classic garden of the Toowoomba escarpment with a powerful sense of place.

 

The best piece of garden design advice I’ve ever come across isn’t from a designer. Nor is it from a gardener. It is a line from an early 18th century poem by the third most quoted writer in the English language, Alexander Pope. In his Epistle IV, to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, Pope writes the immortal words, “Consult the Genius of the Place in all”.

In doing so, the poet laid the foundations for modern landscape architecture, but the principle can be traced all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. They believed that certain places were inhabited by protective spirits, which they called genius loci. Pope’s interpretation of the ancient concept was more along the lines of what we might call the “spirit of a place”, that unique sense of atmosphere of a given place that is determined by a combination of factors including climate, geography, geology, and culture.

Professional garden designers worth their salt will make a point to “consult the genius loci” every time they begin a new design, but for reasons that are mostly beyond me, the same is rarely true of home gardeners. Instead of looking to the surroundings, home gardeners tend to consult magazines, books and websites, the consequence of which is that the landscape is peppered with cookie cutter gardens that attempt to transplant the spirit of a different place. England and Japan are popular options, but these places have little in common with Australia, let alone the part we call the Darling Downs.

Nurseries have become so generic that they exacerbate the problem. Most retail nurseries these days are resellers, that is, they buy in stock from wholesale nurseries (who themselves may purchase stock from production nurseries) and sell it at a premium to customers. I’ve got no problem with the retail model, but the issue lies with the fact that big wholesale nurseries tend to have the cheapest prices, and get the bulk of the business. Small, specialised players are often overlooked. The consequence of this is that the range of plants being sold in nurseries throughout South East Queensland tends to be very similar.

I’m not trying to denigrate the nursery industry in saying this. I know many nursery owners across the region, and apart from the odd rogue, they’re good people doing their best to run family businesses in a difficult economic climate. I wish them success, not failure. But the truth is that, almost without exception, a customer can walk into any nursery in Toowoomba and buy an identical bootload of plants.

As recently as 15 years ago there was more specialisation. The number of retail nurseries was greater, more nurserymen and women propagated their own stock, and the giant plant factories that dominate the wholesale market today didn’t really exist. In other words, there was far more diversity, both in terms of the plants available for purchase, and in the way they were used in local gardens. Today, you can drive through a new housing estate on the Toowoomba fringe and be bored witless by the “blandscape” before your eyes. In fact, you could be in any new estate in south east Queensland.

Rant over. Here’s what I’d love to see more of: A diversity of gardens that reflect both the diversity of their creators, and the diversity of the land. I long for more gardens that feel absolutely at home in their locality. An East Toowoomba garden should be quite distinct from a Glenvale garden. A Hampton garden should be different to a Pittsworth garden. A Westbrook garden unique to Westbrook, and so on. This should even be true when growing generic plants such as vegetables and fruit trees. Why? Every locality is unique, with its own genius loci, its own “spirit”.

To consult the genius of your place, I suggest doing a few things. First have a look around you, not necessarily at neighbouring gardens (although in some cases this is a good place to start) but the landscape. Try to get a feel for it’s geography and native flora. Check the elevation. Get to know the native soil. Find out what the prevailing weather patterns are. Learn to read the land.

Do your best to select a range of plants that suit your place, and that you like. Try not to plant exactly what your neighbours have planted, and if you do, find unique combinations or grow the plants in unique ways. Propagate. Keep an eye out for nurseries that specialise. Use locally available materials in the garden, rather than importing them from far afield.

Finally, get to know yourself. As an individual, you are a one off, a single edition, and in my view it is only when we truly know ourselves, that we can start to understand, love, and conserve the places we inhabit.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 30th March 2013. Photo by Justin.

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The Mountains are Calling

By April 11, 2013

NewEnglandNationalPark

Last weekend my family spent Easter camping beside the Little Styx River at New England National Park, east of Armidale. Kylie and I pitched a tent in the same campground during the same long weekend when we were first married 15 years ago. I look back on that trip as one of the defining moments of our life together, so it was with a sense of anticipation that we passed by our planned campsite in another national park, and decided to share our special place with the kids (and lots of grey nomads, who kindly cut us some firewood with their chainsaws!).

StyxRiverCampsite

The weather was far from ideal. It started raining soon after we pitched the tent, and kept raining for most of the time we were there. Being almost 1400m above sea level, it was also a bit fresh. The temperature ranged from about 6 degrees overnight, to 10 or 11 during the day. A breeze on the third day made it feel even colder. But we rugged up, got the fire going when the rain eased, splashed about in the river and soaked up the highland atmosphere. The kids had a ball. And so did I.

MarlzMontFuzzPointLookout

In my head the whole time was a couple of lines from the old Scots-American conservationist John Muir. A tragic for the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, Muir was instrumental in establishing Yosemite National Park, a landscape containing some of the most picturesque scenery in the world.

NewEnglandWalkingTrail

A frequent visitor to Yosemite until the day he died, Muir wrote “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees”, and in a letter to to his sister written in 1873, “The mountains are calling, and I must go”.

Suffice to say, I heard the call, went, got more than my share of good tidings, and despite the weather, nature’s peace.

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Away With the Birds

By March 28, 2013

SuperbFairyWren

Eight years ago when I was designing gardens for a living, I had an interesting exchange with some friends. I was at their Middle Ridge home consulting with them on the type of plants they were keen to include in their new garden when one of them assured me that they didn’t want anything that produced flowers. Why? Flowers attract birds, and my friends were adamant that they didn’t want birds hanging around their garden making a mess. I nearly choked on my coffee.

Sometimes our interactions with the natural world are based on pure, uninhibited arrogance. No flowers and no birds! I was tempted to end the consultation there and then. The notion of a sterile, wildlife defying garden is completely abhorrent to me, but because I was working for friends, I persevered, and managed to sneak a few plants into the design that most definitely flowered, and most definitely attracted birds. How pleased I was a few years later to see a rainbow lorikeet sucking nectar from my friends’ flowering grevilleas.

I believe very strongly that gardens are habitats, not just for people, but for native plants and animals. If we clear woodlands, bulldoze grasslands and drain wetlands to build our brick-and-tin fortresses, we have a responsibility, at a bare minimum, to provide a home for birds, reptiles, mammals and all the other organisms we’ve displaced.

I’m pleased to say that at last count we’ve recorded 51 individual bird species on our little acre and half, and there would be at least half a dozen more we’ve been unable to identify. I’m even more pleased to say that we’ve yet to spot a feral. That’s right, not a single Indian mynah or sparrow has been spotted in the garden. Instead, we play host to many useful birds including willy wagtails, finches, swallows, and most significantly, colonies of Superb Fairy Wrens.

When we purchased the place it was called “Wren Cottage”. Sometimes I wish we didn’t change to Thistlebrook, because the number of wrens that flit about the garden and rear generation after generation of offspring make the former name entirely appropriate, and unlike thistles, wrens are actually handy to have around. They spend all day gobbling up insects, and love jumping about the vegie patch as I work, in the hope of spotting a meal.

The most I’ve counted in one place is 30, and to watch them all whirl about in a feeding frenzy is a breathtaking sight. Not half as breathtaking as seeing a wedgetail eagle take out a rabbit in the neighbour’s paddock. I was out in the garden one afternoon when a big female, dropped from the sky, landed on its quarry, and before the unsuspecting bunny knew what had hit it, heaved its bulk back up into the air to return the prize to a clutch of hungry chicks. Wedgies are feared by farming communities because they’ve been known to take newborn lambs, but I love having them around. They’re simply magnificent animals, and the reality is that more lambs are killed by foxes, dingoes and crows than the much maligned wedgies. In fact birds of prey have a significant impact on vermin populations and should be welcomed for their role as apex predators.

Attracting birds to the garden isn’t rocket science. Like the line from the movie Field of Dreams, build it and they will come. Create the right kind of habitat and birds will take up residence without fail. Our garden contains the three elements for bird habitat: shelter, water and food. We grow lots of native and exotic shrubby plants, which provide sites for nesting and cover from predators, water is provided with bird baths and dishes scattered around the garden, and food is plentiful in the form of seedheads, nectar-rich flowers and insects.

Occasionally a species or two become an annoyance. Half-tame king parrots like to eat fruit and crows make the occasional incursion into the garden. A sharp clap and a yell usually keeps them at bay – they’re smart enough to get the message. Likewise, currawongs are easily scared off and haven’t ever returned in great numbers. As for parrots, we net most of the fruit trees against fruit fly anyway, so the king parrots and lorikeets aren’t a major issue.

I suppose you might say our garden is a complete contrast to that of my flower-hating friends. It’s diverse, teeming with life and has become a habitat for a broad range of useful species. This reflects a philosophy of humility. Human beings are not the centre of the universe. The sooner we learn to live in harmony with the rest of nature, acknowledging our dependence upon other species and our responsibility to be good stewards, the better off the planet will be.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 23rd March 2013. Photo by photobitz via flickr.com.

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Gardening on the Box

By March 21, 2013

CostaGeorgiadis

With autumn’s arrival comes a change in habit. Cooler weather means more time spent indoors, so it’s just as well that two of my favourite TV shows are back after their summer hiatus. ABC Gardening Australia kicks things off at 6.30pm on Saturday with the return of Costa Georgiadis and his knowledgeable crew of presenters. This show has been a staple in our household for 15 years, and since our daughter Marley was born in 2004 we’ve sat down every Saturday night to eat dinner in front of the telly while we had our fix of gardening goodness.

As the family grew, the kids would do a silly dance to the theme music, and while they’ve grown out of that phase now (and a new theme is being introduced this week!), they still view people like Peter Cundall and Costa like heroes. I do too. Cundall is, for me, a long-time gardening inspiration and it’s a genuine privilege to be able to share space with the great man in ABC Organic Gardener magazine. If I can be going as strong as Peter is when I’m 85, I’ll be doing very well indeed.

Costa has grown on me over the years. I know some people are put off by the beard, but let’s face it, we need more quirkiness in what’s become a “blandiose” Australian society and characters like the self proclaimed “half man, half hedge” have a time honoured place in our culture. Look beyond the facial hair and you’ll find that Costa is the real deal. He’s a serious advocate for sustainable farming and throws his support behind causes such as food security and school gardening.

I believe he brought a new energy to Gardening Australia last year, and while the focus might have changed slightly from ornamental plants to edibles, the change is simply a response to what’s happening in society. I plan to write about this more in the future, but for now I’ll put it this way: The new generation of gardeners isn’t interested in growing roses, it’s interested in growing food. As far as I’m concerned, Costa is a force for good and the ideal bloke to show people how. If you’d like to meet the man in person he’ll be on the Downs in April for the Felton Food Festival – visit feltonfoodfestival.org.au for details.

The second gardening related show that returns this week was Gourmet Farmer on SBS. The style is more documentary than how-to and the focus a bit foodier and farmier than Gardening Australia, but like Costa, presenter Matthew Evans is the real deal. Before his foray into TV, he worked as a chef and wrote restaurant reviews for the Sydney Morning Herald. Likewise, Evans’s merry band of foodie mates, including cheesemaker Nick Haddow and charcuterist Ross O’Meara, are similarly genuine, lending the show an air of authenticity that similar offerings lack.

What I like most about Gourmet Farmer, beside the bucolic Tasmanian landscape, is that Evans was willing to take a punt, change his life, and learned how to produce his own food without prior experience. In series one he was very green. By series two he was competent. Now, in series three, the former novice graduates to a larger property and gets serious about commercial scale farming, but with a place-based, and sustainable edge. If you watch the latest series, which is on Thursday nights at 7.30pm, keep an eye out for a wooly-haired bloke named Pavel Rusicka.

A timber man, sawmiller, and passionate gardener, “Pav” was one of the most interesting characters I met during my trip to Tassie last November. He and wife Penny Wells own Crawleighwood Nursery and Garden in the Huon Valley (crawleighwood.com.au) and helped Matthew Evans harvest some timber from his new block. Pav and Penny’s garden is the most fascinating in the Huon. It contains a diverse collection of cool climate plants, with species ranging from the full suite of Tasmanian conifers to a rare erythronium from the headwaters of the Feather River in California on display for visitors and sometimes for sale in their little nursery. Crawleighwood has a special atmosphere, so if you’re ever down in Tassie, check it out.

One final comment about gardening on the box (i.e. flat panel). Why are there so few TV shows on gardening? I know River Cottage Australia is on its way and will have food growing components, but surely there’s a place for proper, inspirational, how-to gardening fare on all of the free-to-air networks. Not so long ago we had Burke’s Backyard, Ground Force, Backyard Blitz, Costa’s Garden Odyssey, and Vasili’s Garden in addition to Gardening Australia and the now vacuous Better Homes and Gardens. In the UK and America, they’re spoilt for choice, but not here. Might be worth a letter to your local network executive?

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 16th March 2013.

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