I’m taking the time while I have Dylan around to shake off the thick layer of digital dust my photo archive has been gathering. I have so many moments to share it’s hard to pick what to tick off first.
Baby is in a feather light sleep next to me which involves a lot of dummy sucking and arm flailing, but let’s see if I can finally post these photos of what was happening in the food forest as spring turned to summer. Today a scorching hot day, so I imagine it will look a lot different when we next visit. So glad we have a watering system!
Things were too hectic with the new baby to capture the apple blossom in all its powder pink glory, but we were organised enough this year to net the apricot and peach against fruit fly and the red apple against the birds. The billowing white nets are actually quite beautiful in a way, they float above the thick carpet of yarrow like a mist of benign ghosts.
Last year the feijoa had its first two, maybe three flowers. Now it is covered in red Christmas bauble blossoms. The jar of parsley seeds I saved from home and lazily broadcast months ago has also come good. The umbels are beautiful under the trees and promise we will have parsley this coming year too without having to resow. The nasturtiums and pepinos had withered in the late frosts, but their massive amount of regrowth following has smothered all competitors.
The food forest was looking a bit grim in November and I thought it just couldn’t cope without my attention, which had been elsewhere while I was pregnant. Turns out all it needed was a good water after a dry winter and a broken timer on the watering system. Drip irrigation operational and some heavy downpours saw the food forest lush and green in a matter of weeks. The weeds also awakened though and we had to do quite a lot of grass pulling.
The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast.
No time to obsess over paint swatches for the nursery, my nesting was all about gardening.
Normally winter hits me hard. It’s cold, it’s dull and leaving work when the street lights are lit, deflates what little spirit is left in me. The weather is not conducive to plant growth or a sunny disposition. This winter was different though. Perhaps the promise of our little babe softened its chill. Definitely the addition of a bedroom heater made mornings a little less spartan; the outrageous power bill was a problem for spring me to deal with. Of course, those frigid days make it the perfect time to plan and prepare the garden for the spring. However my activities were limited as our baby rapidly cycled through the fruits and vegetables from poppy-seed towards watermelon. By the time she hit cantaloupe size I had great empathy for hedgehog “trying to get out of bread”. I was able to do the dreaming, but needed to call in some physical philanthropists to do the doing.
Time was running out before I popped and I feared, quite justifiably it turns out that after she was born I wouldn’t have time to get anything done. Less than a month before giving birth, saw me join the rosy-cheeked group of permablitz volunteers to completely renovate the Farnham St Community Garden.
The design
Key features
5 seat height wicking beds
5 standing height wicking beds
2 large communal garden beds with drip irrigation
4 reused corrugated metal garden beds
Mulch paths
Existing features
Adjacent to neighbourhood house, food forest and playground
Water tanks connected to roof
Worm farms
Hot compost bays made from recycled pallets
Compost bins
The Problem
The garden had a lot of heart, but only the hardiest gardeners ever stuck it long enough to see multiple summers. When our little one starts toddling I want her to have a beautiful space to learn about growing food, surrounded by a passionate community. We needed to reinvigorate the garden to attract and keep the young professionals and families who to this point found the upkeep too hard. Accessibility needed to be improves as well for the stalwarts who have kept it running. It had to be a joy to maintain not a chore.
The existing garden was shaded and sucked dry by the towering eucalypt. It demanded a twice weekly watering roster in the summer holidays when everyone would rather be relaxing at the beach. The low sleeper beds with their narrow paths between also excluded people with back issues or disabilities from enjoying the garden. We warred a hopeless battle against Kikuyu grass which was continuously invading and pillaging nutrients from the gardens, it was hard, demoralising work.
The Plan
The invasive grass needed to be completely removed. We suggested it be replaced with mulch paths that could manage the water over flow from the garden beds. Near the gum tree, raised wicking beds in two different sizes were custom-made by MODbox to suit our geometric design. These beds will only require fortnightly filling of their water reservoirs once plants are established. The layout is as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional. The paths are wide enough for a wheel barrow and even a pram, something I never would have thought about before being pregnant. I am really grateful for this now!
The tops of the beds are capped to allow them to double as seats with sustainably harvested cypress used instead of merbau on special request. The L shaped border beds will be connected to the food forest’s drip irrigation system. This is where we will grow communal crops that can be harvested for use in the houses’ cooking classes. Hopefully soon the less than charming chain link fence will be covered with lush pumpkin vines, ripe strawberries dripping over the edge to be plucked by little hands.
It is exciting to have the opportunity to breath new life into the garden. All this was made possible by the tenacity of Pip from FSNLC who had the unglamorous task of securing grants. Let’s hope that this new garden will encourage more community members to invest some time into the garden.
The Permablitz
Every great cause needs a tireless leader. Pat made sure the day was a success, not only by facilitating the permablitz, but spending weeks beforehand coordinating: the deconstruction of the existing garden, re-use of resources and the inevitable mountains of gravel, sand and soil that wicking beds require. Besides, it is no mean feat to keep a motley crew of blitzers happy, hydrated, sated and on schedule!
The MODboxes arrived on pallets and once we got our head around the instructions it was great fun putting the beds together, like adult lego! We were lucky to have some tradies attend, and they were good-natured enough to let us bully them into setting out all the beds to make sure they were level. The layout is the moment when installations by volunteers can veer from wonky charm into a hot mess. I’m not going to lie, having some experts involved took the pressure off considerably. We could confidently leave them to work away while we instructed the other volunteers to build up the layers. By the end of the day it looked amazing, leaving us itching to get planting.
It is always astounding the amount of work blitzers can accomplish in a day, that magic moment when a sketch becomes a reality. By lunchtime it always feels like you will be left with piles of unmoved soil. Then suddenly, perhaps reinvigorated by lunch, the crew shovels, and barrows and the garden in transformed. How beautiful to have such a fantastic bunch of people sacrifice their weekend to make this happen.
Removing grass and levelling groundSlotting timbers together to form baseBuilding up the layers
Attaching the liner Installing the overflow
Checking depth of gravel reservoir Food grade liner Geofabric and fill with soil
Adding the cappingPlanting the communal beds with salvaged strawberries
Big thanks to the volunteers and Nola for her amazing photos from the day!
The food forest has flushed green after a harsh summer that stripped the ground bare. The survivors: those born hardy or who retreated to the shadows of apple trees.
It was clear that we hadn’t quite gotten the balance right in terms of perennial plants, I blame the nasturtiums, they make everything seem so lush in spring but when it gets hot they are gone over night abandoning their companions to bake and burn. The same thing can happen in winter when a icy wind dislodges the last of the orange leaves and herbaceous plants tick their faces under the soil until next spring, it ends up looking like a forest of twigs and dirt, not ideal. That elusive perfect blend not only of the 7 layers of a food forest but of evergreen, deciduous, semi-deciduous, herbaceous and annual, a continuous dance of seasonal succession.
But thanks to a surprise donation from some nuns (I just love the randomness of that sentence, thanks ladies!) we were able to have a “take two” with our planting plan. And what a turn out! Despite our number limit, facebook invites are always a game of chance – is a yes a yes? what does maybe mean? This time Yes Yes Yes. Overwhelming at first, but once we got into our groove everyone worked together so well and we got so much done. We cheekily extended our boundary into an overgrown tree planter that the council’s gardening henchmen had neglected, it was a nest of grass and my hat goes off to the brave souls who bravely hacked back the jungle.
The most exciting part of the day was seeing our special flip top signs oiled and installed. Tom and Pat are the superstars who made my sign designs a reality.
Next food swap/permabee will be 2-3pm on Saturday 27th June! I hope to see you there to finish putting up the signs and adding the laminated “treasure hunt” style plant descriptions! It’s going to be so much fun! Check out the Flemington Food Swap facebook for information. (No facebook? Just comment on this post and I’ll add you to the mailing list) We will be having a potluck afternoon tea/food swap afternoon tea afterwards at 3pm! Hope to see you there!
The food forest a month earlier in need of some drought tolerant plants!Drought tolerant plants are concentrated around the edges whilst moisture loving plants are sheltered in the “natural swale” of the land near the fence which is supplemented by drip irrigation.Hardy indigenous bush tucker that was once eaten by Victorian Aborigines and is accustomed to our harsh, dry summers.Signs are made from off-cuts from Tom’s renovation! Can’t get much more sustainable than that!
Sign posts in! Thanks Tom!shop discount beach wedding dresses UK at prombee.co.uk
Taming the jungle! It is important to control grass at the edges especially fences and under trees where it is hard to remove once the garden grows up.
Running grass gone! Looking so much more spacious!This was a beautiful, fun and productive day. Activities like Permabees are a fantastic low stress way to build a sustainable community. I’ve tried organising other social community building events like picnics and food swaps, but when the main attendees were my friends and my family I realised two important facts: strangers are shy and won’t show up to “social” events without a “pack of friends” as a buffer, I’m shy and organising these things stresses me out too! You just can’t force these things. And after repackaging the food swap as a permabee, it made it clear if you make it attractive they will come and if it involves and activity rather than talking you’ll have 30 people there without even trying and it will be a blast! We’re already planning our July Food Swap as a documentary night. I’ve learnt my lesson.Below is a little brainstorm about the highs and lows of building a community, the things that make it worthwhile and the pitfalls to avoid. Maybe you can help me add to the list! At the end of the day if it’s stressful and isn’t fun for you, the organiser, then it’s time to rethink the path you have taken or perhaps you just need to find more people to support to make the going easier. A highlight of the last Food Swap Permabee was that one of my uni classmates showed up who I hadn’t seen for about five years! We hadn’t actually spoken much at uni, but we soon found out we had SO much in common and it was exciting to discuss possible joint ventures and remember that Architecture can be holistic if you can shake yourself free of all that convention spouted as truths.
Attractive
Activities and workshops where you can meet like minded people without social pressure.
Sharing knowledge, learning a new skill.
Swapping tools and food
Supporting each other, banding together for or against an important cause
Making hard tasks easier by delegating and utilising individuals’ strengths
Building friendships, combating the loneliness of the city and the isolation one can feel when fighting the sustainable cause. Connection.
Being re-energised by other people’s passionate and determination
Having fun, celebrating and eating amazing food other people have brought along
Mentally and physically healthy alternative to sitting alone on the computer or watching TV.
Unattractive
Awkward social situations
Burning out because everyone relies on you (or a small group of you) to take charge and organise everything
No one showing up to your events
Stress of organising events where a lot of people come
Insurance and oh&s associated with community events
Pressure to come up with ideas
Pressure to instigate other people’s ideas
Lack of privacy when you have one of those yuk days when you don’t want anyone to recognise you and you run into about 5 acquaintances on the journey. (don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean)
Dylan installing drip irrigation along the fence. We wanted to minimised irrigation so we have concentrated plants that need moisture like berries along the fence leaving outlying areas for drought tolerant herbs, shrubs and bush tucker.
It’s been six months since we had to say goodbye to our old house and garden. It’s sad to lose all that productive space, anyone who has bought or built up beautiful new soil will know how it feels, but I guess the positive is that it has really driven me to pour my heart and energy into the community gardens I’ve designed.
I had a lovely email from Annelies asking me to answer some questions for her research project on backyard food growing and I thought this was a good chance to share my last thoughts and photos of our garden which six housemates could get a salad out of for every dinner and a lot more in peak harvest season. It wasn’t going to replace farming, but with nearly every baby spinach encased in plastic nowadays it sure cut down on our garbage, water waste and pesticide ingestion. We’re not going to cover our wheat and rice requirements in a 9x9m backyard but salad is easy, and everyone, even an apartment dweller can do it and be a lot healthier for it.
It was actually really therapeutic to reflect on our first permaculture garden journey and I’d like to thank Annelies for the idea. I had forgotten how much we actually got from that garden and it has given me the inspiration to transform our new garden! I hope it inspires you too!
I love reading your comments and enjoy responding to your questions, so keep them coming! 🙂
From humble beginnings
Earth bag raised garden beds filled wit herbs and salad plants.
How much of the food you eat do you grow on your property?
SALAD NOT STAPLES
– know your gardens limits & understand your climate
We didn’t grow staples such as rice, wheat, lentils, chickpeas or corn. We have experimented with them, but with our climate, space constraints, time required in ground and their nutrient demands it just wasn’t feasible.
We concentrated on growing greens and fruit. We were about 90% self-sufficient in greens (e.g. lettuce, spinach, chard, bok choy, tatsoi, etc). We grew almost all our herbs including bay, rosemary, oregano, thyme and chives. Our fruit and nut trees required a few years to fruit productively but by the time we left we were getting: bananas, avocados, apples, nectarines, peaches, almonds, plums, babacos, strawberries, lilly pillies, oranges, lemons. We also had kiwiberry, currants, pomegranate, elderberry, passionfruit, goji berry and lime trees that were yet to fruit. In a few years this would have easily been enough fruit for the year, but not enough nuts.
Other seasonal treats such as tomatoes, cape gooseberries, eggplants, broccoli, pumpkin, zucchini etc were enough for 1-2 months of the year when they were in season, but there was not enough to preserve for the rest of the year.
How have you managed to grow this quantity?
PERENNIALS, KING OF THE LOW MAINTENANCE POTAGER
We had raised garden beds for annuals, but from experience you can get a greater yield with less maintenance from a food forest system primarily comprised of perennial edible plants.
GROW UP – make use of vertical space in small gardens
Where space and light is limited using fences and other vertical space is important.
KNOW YOUR MICRO CLIMATE
Careful analysis of miroclimates on your site is important, for instance our garden was south facing, but one corner in the south west got sun all day and this is where we planted out cool banana.
– save time, water and grow more resilient deep rooted veg
The most effective annual garden beds are wicking beds as they require less time for watering in summer and plants in them are more resistant to extreme heat which were are getting a lot of in Melbourne.
We practiced a four year crop rotation to reduce the risk of disease and keep proper nutrient balances in our soil. Plants from the same family generally have different nutrient/pH requirements as well as propensity to fall victim to the same soil borne diseases so letting the ground have a rest from a plant family for three years helps avoid issues. Green manures and legumes help fix nitrogen in the soil and improve its quality.
The tropical corner, a microclimate warm enough for a ‘Cool Banana’ to fruit
AVOID CHEMICALS
Chemicals are a quick and dirty fix that lead to long term problems. Killing pests will stop beneficial insects immigrating to your garden to take care of the job for you and might even harm the good guys you already have. Likewise herbicides & fungicides damage the delicate balance in your soil not only getting rid of weeds but killing off the good bacteria, mycelia fungi and earthworms that contribute to rich beautiful soil.
It might take a few years to get your garden in balance and some plants might be sacrificed, but once it is filled with soil life, ladybugs, birds and bees you’ll never look back.
COMPANION PLANTING
– nurse maid plants, beneficial pairings and alleopathy
In Australia we have plenty of light so the English way of planting in neat little rows with a halo of dirt around in unnecessary. Grow plants tighter so they shelter each other and use a mixture of plants to confuse pests with silhouette and smell. Some plants work especially well together such as carrots and onions. companions-planting
RETHINK WHAT IS A WEED
Nutrient filled, hardy, self-propagating, edible, when is a weed not a weed? Instead of pulling out those dandelions why not try the leaves in salad and the peeled root in a stir fry? Nettles make a tasty pesto and attract butterflies and protect their larvae. edible-weeds
WORM FARMS & CHICKENS
– garden helpers to improve your soil
These permaculture pets area great source of manure and soil conditioner without the need to increase your lettuce’s food miles with the bought stuff. Worm castings also help your soil retain moisture and both are great way to quickly process food scraps. diy-worm-farm pascoe-vale-permablitz
MULCH
Protects your soil from drying out and adds nutrients as it decomposes. Why note try 1. Living green mulch – ground covers such as clover, 2. Chop & drop, 3. Seaweed. seaweed-mulch using-seaweed-mulch chop-drop
Bamboo & bananas need a lot of water, but can tolerate the salts and soaps grey water. They also grow very fast and are great for screening out neighbours to the southIn our garden edible flowers are fixed with vegetables, not just to add colour to a salad but as bee forage.
– support small business rather than the duopoly supermarkets (people versus corporation)
We also support our local Foodworks grocery store where the owners know us and we feel loyalty towards them. For staples we visit various organic grocery stores and buy things in bulk and use our own containers. Some include: friends of the earth, Ceres, Lygon organics
BUY IN BULK
(affordable organics, dried staples, less packaging)
Organic food is more expensive and as backwards as it seems things made in Australia can also be! If you buy dried instead of tinned and buy in bulk organic is a lot more affordable (about the same as the small packets of non organics in the supermarket. Plus there is the added bonus that you use your own containers so you don’t have to feel guilty about packaging. wholefoods friends of the earth ceres grocery
What changes have you had to make to your diet to source food sustainably?
ETHICAL MEAT
(reduce over consumption of meat, degradation of land, animal cruelty & trawling)
We now eat mostly vegetarian with the exception of fish/seafood we have caught ourselves or sustainably sourced. Dylan also has a little bit of kangaroo or beef from the Farmer’s market where you can talk directly to the farmer about how their animals have been raised. fishing adventures
BUY AUSTRALIAN GROWN & MADE
We limit tofu and soy in our diet and try to get bulk NSW rain fed rice and Tasmanian quinoa. This is starting to sound a bit Portlandia so I might as well go all the way there…we eat a lot of Australian nuts, seeds and berries. (Yikes what hipsters! ha!)
Affordable, fresh, local, nutrients not lost, well-rounded balanced diet
David Holmgren’s wife Sue told us how one year she didn’t eat tomatoes all winter because she hadn’t grown enough and couldn’t bear to buy any. She said she felt really good, better than she had felt in ages and although she would preserve tomato for the coming winter it illustrated how even good things should be eaten in moderation because toxicities can build up. It’s good to give your a body a break every now and then like we would have before cheap oil made all year tomatoes, bananas and strawberries a thing.
I try to limit packaged foods to reduce waste and plan on trying a rubbish free month this winter which hopefully will help me develop better habits.
We try to eat as seasonally as possible and buy organic preserves such as canned tomatoes if we can.
(don’t get caught out when your at your most vulnerable – tired, hungry, under pressure)
Being prepared is a must: soaking dried pulses for future meals, making excess so we have meals to take to work makes a huge difference so we don’t end up having to head out for a sneaky takeaway too often. We try to make eating out a fun treat not a lazy convenience (but we haven’t perfected this one).
I work full time and Dylan is at uni so our blender has made a huge difference in making it possible to quickly and painlessly make pasta sauces and soups from scratch come dinner time.
Has there been an impact on your wider lifestyle?
With only a small shady backyard there has been a real incentive to actively contribute to local food security. The Flemington Food Forest I designed with the support of The Farnham St Neighbourhood learning centre has morphed from a fun community garden in a local park to an education tool with signs for school students and I get a lot of joy from it. I have also taken over organising the Flemington Food Swap which my housemate set up, I am really trying hard to develop a nurturing sustainable community in my suburb to bring together like minded people and make sustainability fun and social. Someone’s glut is someone else’s zucchini brownie after all.
What are the groups/networks that you utilise to source your food? Both formal and informal.
Flemington Farmers Market
Racecourse Road Foodworks (if you ask them to get something organic or ethical they are always happy to oblige)
Organic Wholefoods Brunswick & Flemington
Friends of the Earth
Ceres
Natural Tucker Bakery
What food items have you found difficult to source locally and/or sustainably?
Coffee
Tea
Fish/seafood
Chocolate
Coconut
Monocultures – corn, rice, wheat, etc
Bananas and other tropical fruit
Sugar
Cashews
Pine nuts
Brazil nuts
Pepitas not hulled overseas (many are grown here then exported to China for processing)
Dates
Are there any alternatives to this?
We use a lot of beans for our main staple as we can grow some at home and they add nitrogen to the soil.
Almonds are the main nut we eat and we occasionally make almond milk as it is not so easy to find milk such as Elgaar where they rest their cows and reuse their glass bottles. No soy milk!
Honey instead of sugar and maple syrup, we keep our own bees. We are also growing yacon as this is meant to be a great sugar substitute. We grow stevia, Dylan likes it, but I don’t.
Peppermint and other herbal teas
Dylan likes his coffee but he gets it from Streat where it is Faritrade and they hire & support local homeless people.
our beloved chooks, more trouble than they’re worth, but lovable all the same
