Garden Archives - Page 7 of 32

community rehabilitation garden – stage 1

November 2, 2014 5 Comments

Hidden away, just off busy Mount Alexander Road there is a little community with a patch of lawn that dreamed of being something more.

After months of life-affirming moments: fly-fishing with a reconstructive surgeon in Oregon, building Earthships in New Mexico, green woodworking in the Sussex forest, wild camping in Napoleon’s pine forests; it was hard to find inspiration touching down into the old rhythm. After weeks of work, eat, sleep, finally a project brought me out of my stupor and gave colour, energy and meaning back into my world. I hope it touches others as deeply.

The residents of Norfolk Terrace are coping with long-term serious mental illness and disability and we were asked to design a permaculture garden to engage them in growing their own fresh food. We hope as well as turning a bland patch of grass into an edible garden, this becomes a place to building connections and community.

6am awaking with a start to a downpour, 3 years to the day since our own Permablitz was a near wash out, who says Melbourne weather is unpredictable? 8:30 ticked over and the rain had eased so…what the heck, let’s just go for it, if only a hand full of people show for two hours it would still accomplish more than us slogging to complete it by ourselves (and more importantly the sausages and vegetarian delights were already prepared and waiting)!

The residents hadn’t slept well, what with the hot night and the storm, they might not be roused to show up, Greg, a staff member, informed us with an apologetic grimace. We’d heard it before, don’t expect too much, wandering enthusiasm, and the like, but in my honest heart a Permablitz without the residents would be disappointing. Oh well, our volunteers (those undeterred by rain) were pouring in and there was a promising crevasse in the clouds, we threw ourselves into the business of making a permaculture paradise!

It only took a few minutes for Tony to prove him wrong, rocking up to observe, joke and water when required despite his tricky heart. Then another shy smiling resident came to tuck our pile of turf into bed, our main man when it came to covering grass with hessian to stop it sprouting. Tony pointed out it looked like the grave of someone with a loooong body, a boa constrictor a volunteer suggested.

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To the delight of the workers the rain restrained itself to only spitting and that only after we had worked in warm sun long enough to need cooling off. Smiles were wide and laughter was easy, everyone was excited to construct raised garden wicking beds, despite having to do some tricky levelling off the ground beforehand. Elsewhere the brick laying gang finished their pretty angled edging of the no-dig gardens and were rewarded with a little planting. Although unplanned the CERES donations of punnets and punnets of corn and white cucumbers meant we could try out the three sisters’ method of planting: hungry/thirsty corn, with trailing vines to keep the soil moist and beans to climb up the stalks and fix nitrogen into the soil.

Lunch was ready just in time as hard working bellies began to growl. Sausages went down a treat with the omnivores who were also pleasantly suprised by the vegetarian fare of beetroot burgers and delicious quinoa salad with grilled mushrooms. The work had been going along well so volunteers, residents and staff relaxed for a chat while everything digested.

After the last crumbs were brushed from beards and raincoats Dylan ran a wicking bed workshop, which I will paraphrase in a future post. Sand and compost went in and then those who had been pushing wheelbarrows for most of the day had a chance to finish it off with some onions and eggplant seedlings.

The sun started to halo our workers as the afternoon wore on just as the finishing touches were going into the second brick no-dig garden. It was planted with adwarf manderine, buddha’s fingers, tea plant, maqui berry and artichokes which would form an edible evergreen hedge to the south of the raised vegetable gardens. As the sand was levelled in the second wicking bed it struck 5pm and Dylan could only usher everyone off by promising a second Permabee to finish off the two other wicking beds this Tuesday. Now if having to bribe your volunteers with another day of labouring isn’t a sign of a happy and successful Blitz, I don’t know what is! Thanks to everyone who came and a special thank you to Norfolk Terrace and the Flemington Neigbourhood Learning Centre for making this happen.

If anyone is interested in attenting the Permabee on Tuesday 4th November contact us at info@thedesertecho.com and to be involved as a volunteer at the Norfolk garden please contact pip@fsnlc.net 9376 9088, we will be running workshops for residents every Friday morning and welcome volunteers to help out.

P.S. You might like to our Community Food Forest Permablitz post

enjoying-permablitz-vegetarian-lunch

norfolk-terrace-resident-shovelling-sand

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Craft + woodwork, Eco building, Garden, Permaculture design, Travel

barley runner

June 18, 2014 2 Comments

Tomorrow we would be riding the 30 miles towards Brighton, whenever we had spent an extended amount of time somewhere we were itching to move on, but not this time, I was missing it before I even left. I finished off carving some chainlinks around the fire that morning and then we finished off battening the roof ready for waterproof membrane and sedum. After some gorgeous days the sky grew temperamental and between bursts of sunshine it showered down upon us, no swimming today.

The end of the day approached and Millar got a text message, ‘free food from the wake’. We trooped down the road double time towards the holist. There is something about travellers and I guess poor apprentices in the woods that lights up at the words free food and we go into survival mode. We hovered up the leftover sandwiches on the bar, dips and pita gone, tabbouleh finished. the barmaid proudly told each customer how Sally had said the food would need to be thrown out if they couldn’t find someone to eat it and she knew who to tell “Millar free food, now”. We felt we had done them a service.

It was a beautiful golden evening, we trooped back to the campfire to make nettle pesto, a goodbye meal with Ben. My fingers burned with stings and good company and good food made it a memorable last night. We shared millionaire’s shortbread and as a final farewell, Barley did his routine disappearing act at dusk. Dylan ran after him calling and he returned half an hour later tail wagging, it wouldn’t be a late night for Ben waiting for the call to pick Barley up 10 miles down the road. A goodnight sleep for all.

Ingredients

saucepan of nettles
chard leaves
pinenuts
2 sorrel leaves
4 cloves garlic
6 garlic chive leaves
2 sprigs thyme
1 sprig rosemary
2 sprigs marjoram
butter

Nettle Pesto

Bring nettles to the boil in a saucepan full of water to remove stings. Add chopped up chard leaves to boil for 5 minutes longer, reserving stalks. Take off heat, strain and chop up finely.

Meanwhile toast pinenuts and set aside. Fry chopped garlic in butter until golden and add chopped herbs for a further minute. Add chopped sorrel and sliced chard stalks cooking until soft.

Combine with all ingredients and stir together until warm, add to pasta and serve with Parmesan shavings.

Garden, Permaculture design, Travel

changes

June 15, 2014 No Comments

I‘m lying between garden beds in the sun. I’ve spent the day weeding, whilst the boys got on with the bar roof, it’s been so long since I’ve been in a veggie garden even the stinging nettles and snapping roots of thistle can’t get take away the buzz. Being in the woods has made me realise how a well managed Australian Permaculture gardening is like a well managed woodland, a healthy mix of plants of all ages, things self seed when the time is right, survive if they have the sun or die off if there is not enough, the forester knows when to intervene or not. Bens veggie patch is very English beds of one thing spaced for sun earth between.

It’s all rather idyllic, fluffy white clouds and white chickens slumbering in the sun. I’m preparing the beds for their summer occupants, everything but the weeds in their English rows. Under the soil there are treasures: tiny self seeded potatoes, a frog that leaps from the dirt to give me a heartattack.

An email from Dylan’s mum has interrupted our fantasy, we knew it was coming one day but we are reminded that reality awaits us back home. The house is being sold, nobslipping back into the same old routine, we have decisions to make, big ones, I guess it’s a good thing. Where is home? This is our chance to rent a house in the country, just the two of us after years of 6 or 7, are we ready? We’ll be returning home with the change in our pocket, it’s time to take stock.

An orange butterfly floats into view. We must be mindful, look to the future, whilst still glorying in the present. For now there is sun, the sound of hammering and a row of leeks waiting for a weed.

Ingredients

15 rhubarb stalks, diced
2 granny smith apples, diced
1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 butter pat, cubed
3 cups spelt flour

I thought it might be fun to add some simple recipes I’ve tried backpacking. They will often contain harvested ingredients, be very simple and sometimes even only require a campfire or camping stove. This one we used a woodfire oven, but it can easily modified so you cook the rhubarb in a pot over the fire with the addition of some water and the crumble toasted separated in a pan and sprinkled on top.

Rhubarb crumble

Mix the rhubarb, apples and sugar together in a baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes at 180C, or until soft.

Meanwhile use your hands to combine the butter, sugar and flour until it is like breadcrumbs, but more on the lumpy side.

Cover top of cooked rhubarb mixture with crumble and bake for a further 30 minutes, until browned.

Serve with ice cream!

Craft + woodwork, Eco building, Garden, Permaculture design, Travel

extraction

June 14, 2014 4 Comments

I was standing ankle deep in mud with oversized bright orange overpants, bright blue raincoat and a green bike cap, I looked like the lovechild of Mario brothers and an oompa loompa. It was raining and we were putting chains around logs, attached to a pulley around a tree attached to Ben in a 4wd. We slogged up the hill guiding the logs out of the way of stumps and ruts, throwing a fluoro vest in the air when we hit a snag, Paul throwing up a yellow hardhat further down the road for Ben to see in his rear view. It sounds awful, but it was actually kind of fun. For a day that is, we had our hats off to Paul and Millar who did this all winter.

Up and down we went, by the end the logs had dug themselves a trench and as Paul said it looked like we were just taking a log for a walk. It would have been a sight to see, mud from head to foot. At the end of the day we had 16 logs at the top of the hill and we were relieved to know that today was shower day. The day the fire was stoked and the apprentices invited in to Ben’s house for a shower and a meal.

It was nice to see the house in the flesh, actually lived in. Ben was running an experiment, that being letting the house age without maintenance to see what would happen. He said that things that use to annoy him because they were mistakes are now his favourite parts because they remind him of the people who helped him build the house. An Australian who had never done a tenon joint before (it wasn’t that good, but it didn’t fall apart), the squeak upstairs because some other fellows put all the joins in the same place, did they ever build their own house? It was a lovely attitude to have.

Clean and ravenous, a feast was delivered. Every dish had something from the woodland. I never knew how delicious crispy chard stalks with capers could be, I vowed never to throw out the stalks again. Then out came more delicious cider and Millar returned with tales from the welsh border. Then my rhubarb pie fresh from garden to oven to table was devoured, a nice comforting meal after a long day.

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