Hey, I have some ideas!

Probably the thing I am best at is having ideas. It is up to others to decide if they are wise or otherwise! Lately I have been spending more and more time sitting at a little round table by the big, sunny window in the lounge. There are several reasons for this.... I am lazy, I can see lots of the garden from here, it is one step from "Deb's" verandah where I am heading but don't quite make it, and I sit here taking in the vibes of this place, wondering what to make of what I see.

A previous owner made this part of the garden from everything she found washed up on the beaches nearby but this is her personal perspective and really has no relevance to me. It is a nice, triangular space, almost a walled space.... edged as it is by the high, curved slope of the dam wall and the driftwood fence, the side of the house, and the perimeter fence which is going to be screened with edible bushes and small trees.

For many years I have had a postcard of Heronswood - the home of Diggers - showing this circular vegetable garden, surrounded by vertical spaces for climbing fruit and veg... Also, my friend Kathy from Bridgewater, SA has a gorgeous circular herb garden and small, shady arbour, which I have admired for a long time.... and so I am thinking of doing something circular with my triangle!

 

 

Here is a sketch... please click to enlarge and read it..... a herb circle of about 6m in diameter in the wide part of the triangle.... surrounded by bushy fruits and nuts..... mostly.... but incorporating a strip of flowers and natives and just some other plants I think would be suitable. North is to the right and evidently this is also where a fierce wind comes from in spring, so I am keeping this in mind too. I am open to any suggestions.

 

The only problem is that there is a huge, strappy-leafed plant in that area and I am not sure I can dig it up by myself.... anyone want a little holiday in Tasmania?

Poa grasses

In South Australia I often heard people talk about the old days when they had a poa grass lawn, before everybody watered their lawns. Poa is a group of grasses native to parts of Australia and some are drought and/or frost hardy, ranging in location from river banks to alpine regions. I have never seen a poa lawn, however, and wondered why nobody seemed to sell the seed.

At the food forest here in Cygnet one of the first jobs was to remove all the poa grass which at one time somebody had planted. Everybody seemed to know what this was except me but I soon understood.... it was those huge clumps of dead looking stuff! This must be different to the SA poa grass, surely! Like the others, I threw the clumps into a big heap as Celia told us to..... but later I discovered her plan. You see, the long, brown, dry, reedy grass can be harvested regularly through the year, simply by giving the clumps a hair cut, and used as an excellent, fine mulch which does not break down as fast as straw. They were almost a metre high when we cut them.

So, at the end of the gardening session, we each cut and left the mulch to use next week, and took the clumps home, with soil attached, to plant in our own gardens to give a supply of mulch for next summer. Here in the photo are my shorn clumps, all planted. Well, why aren't we doing this in our gardens in SA?? I know there are grasses in the nurseries but I did not know much about using them.

 

Already the poas I planted after the first garden session have sprouted new growth and I look forward to having a border around my lawn before long but more, I look forward to harvesting my own mulch when I need it.

 

 

Both of the photos below have links that will take you to the source of the photos and to wonderfully interesting native Australian plant nurseries.

Poa Labillardieri or 'Large Tussock Grass' is a clumping species to nearly 1m with grey-green leaves. Hardy, frost tolerant and drought tolerant this Poa is great for borbers and landscape plantings. Poa australis or 'Blue Tussock Grass' is a smaller growing species approx 30cm. and like all Poa is attractive to birds. Poa sieberiana is the 'Grey Tussock Grass' and is found in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

The S.A.State Flora Nursery at Belair has an incredible range of plants including the poa labillardieri, on page 34 of the extensive but not very user-friendly online catalogue.

Cygnet Permaculture Food Forest

There is a patch of land hereabouts that is just yearning for help. Once upon a time it had been planted with some fruit trees..... apples, feijoa, elderberry and even a pine nut tree. I am not sure what happened but it has been neglected and become an overgrown tangle of grass, weeds and rocks. It is this patch which has formed a link for me, with Celia and Liz, two very committed community-minded women who have managed to secure a grant to develop a permaculture food forest on this site, in conjunction with a movement called "Green Gym".

The deal is that anyone can come along on Thursday mornings and participate in creating a food forest, as designed by Celia..... so far there are about 8 of us. In the process, we learn a lot about permaculture and growing food, all the while meeting local people, getting fit and doing something for the community. It is a great idea.

A food forest is a complex ecosystem, just like a natural landscape, incorporating multiple layers of food production, each supporting the other. I will write more on this later but, for inspiration, watch this video and imagine your food forest being handed down through 28 generations......

The Chooks Are In!

Today I adopted 4 young hens, all of mixed parentage, but from a good home of layers. What is even better is that, due to their instinct to find a cosy, dark place to roost for the night, and my persistence in throwing bits of grain from behind them to in front of them to show them the way, they are all in their new home, jostling over roosting positions as I write this. 

 

 

There is one all black, 2 black with brown collars and one "variegated" and with unruly hair and a perpetually startled look in her eyes. They will have the run of the very back section of my block, under all the fruit trees and what was a pumpkin patch. I bought them from a woman in Kettering who replied to my ad in the local paper.

 

Over Easter Erica, Brian, Kristy and Emma took the "water view" site in my front yard, with their camper van and kindly spent 3 days helping me with jobs like finishing the fence for the chook yard. Luckily I found this gate, attached to the little piece of trellis at left, in another part of my garden so we put it into position as the entrance to the chook yard.

 

It was nice to go for a walk along the shore one morning and I look forward to getting to know this estuary better and to recognising some of the wildlife. It is so different here, where there are quolls and bandicoots as well as native hens and plovers, amongst a lot of others.

I am still picking plenty of tomatoes from the glass house as well as scarlet runner beans, silver beet, carrots and potatoes.

 

But the best thing is the mushrooms! I wrote that piece about buying the bag of mushroom compost and then I promptly forgot all about it, after putting it in the sauna room! Well, here is what happened. The biggest was about 5" and they are still "germinating" or whatever it is they do. We ate  lots over Easter and it was obvious that freshly picked mushrooms are way ahead in taste and texture to anything I have ever had before.... they are almost crisp, very juicy and have a complex aroma and taste. Iam going to see how long this keeps producing, if I leave one to drop its spore each time.

As we enter autumn, my garden obviously is changing and I am keen to see the transformation and be a part of it; gradually making it mine. This is how the main future vegetable garden looks today. As these flowers finish, more vegetables and flowers will be planted. So far I have sown or planted mizuna, chervil, carrots, broad beans, kale, lettuce, chicory, bok choy, celery, parsley, coriander, Laksa herb, broccoli and lemon verbena.

There are more photos here. 

Driftwood

I have a dilapidated fence made entirely of drfitwood found washed up on the shores nearby. One section of my garden is home to flotsam and jetsam collected by a previous owner after winter storms; fishing nets, ropes and floats, shells and corals and pieces of bone, old bottles and glass stoppers, rowlocks and treasures from dinghies and other boats.

So it is also with the people I have met; we all seem to have washed up at Cygnet for one reason or another. There are stories here, behind the faces; I can hear it in the twist of an "r" or the use of a word that tells me you are not from around here nor from Australia, originally. There are stories hidden and there are stories bursting to get out. A quiet moment shared sitting on a log, amongst the hurly burly of a morning in the construction of a permaculture food forest, reveals harder times and begins to add me to the web of Cygnet life.

Every greeting, every welcome, every handshake I have received has been warm and genuine. Within a moment of meeting there is an offer of time or goods or an invitation to join in a day's project or gathering. I am the glad recipient of 2 gorgeous big, blue armchairs and I am looking forward to receiving the bag of worms for my compost and a pine nut tree. Bob has taken a remnant kitchen chair, that collapsed with me on it and I had down to burn in the fire, because he says it can be fixed and would not budge from his desire to have a go at doing it for me.

If there is such a thing as finding one's place, I have found mine.

GOOD THINGS

The good things just keep on coming.... and I never cease to be amazed at how blogging has become such an integral part of the lives of some of us. You see, there is a lady at bakers8 who must have been reading along with us all for a while, but at the mention of me buying a house in Tasmania, was inspired to comment, as she too moved from South Australia to Tasmania, some years ago.

So, when I wrote "Why I don't want to be a cave man", Jan was at my door within a couple of days, with not only all the things I was finding it difficult to be without that I had written about, but a car full of other things she knew I would need! As if that was not wonderful enough, she brought me a jar of her delicious tomato relish (which is now almost half gone), jams, a bag of lemons and some leaves and fruit of her kaffir lime tree, as well as an assortment of cooking apples, tomatoes and pears!

Overwhelmed by her generosity and thoughtfulness, I completely forgot to give her the promised recipes I thought she would like and somehow we managed to go without lunch... Jan, I am so sorry!

The next good thing has nothing to do with blogging....yet! Today on my walk into town to buy some milk I came across a neighbour weeding in her garden. Now I had hoped to meet this lady as she has a quince tree laden with quinces.... so I called out hello and she came over to the fence. After the usual greetings, I commented on a beautiful little plum tree just beyond where she was standing. She exclaimed, as if she was mad, that she has a passion for heritage fruit trees and this little beauty was in fact a crab apple called Wychwood. Well, as you can imagine we got on like a house on fire and I promised to take her a recipe Vegie Gnome gave me for pickled crab apples as this lady just hates to see fruit go to waste, and Vegie Gnome's recipe is superb.

"Where do you get your fruit trees from?" I asked and she said "Old Bob Magus, who lives just over the hill, near Woodbridge". Well, this Bob Magus has been featured in several Organic Gardener magazines and is such a character.... I cannot believe I now live only a few minutes from him and all that knowledge! I once wrote to him with a query about something... I have long forgotten what.... and he sent me back a beautiful hand written letter in reply. He brings in cuttings from fruit trees, mostly apple I think, from all over the world in an attempt to keep the old varieties going. Jilly knows such a lot about it all..... and Bob was on Gourmet Farmer a while back; you can watch it here.

http://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/

Oh... Jan gave me the name of a man who sells chooks too..... now I think I will go and give him a ring and I could have chooks by Easter!

Blog links

I want to bring all the blog links over from the Hills and Plains Seedsavers blog to this one but I don't know how, short of copying every single one and there are a hundred or so of them! So, I am sorry if you are not seeing a link to your blog from mine, dear internet friends. Eventually I will do it.... does anyone know a way to copy them across?

Evidently this new facility on Blogger to customize your blog does not look good on Internet Explorer 6 or older.... so I am sorry if that's how you are seeing it..... but I have Google Chrome and it looks great here!

OK Hugh, I won't use that font you don't like. Ho hum..... back to being boring again!