My Grandfather's Hands

With each year since his passing, I realise more and more what an extraordinary man my grandfather was. Memories of him still run thick in my veins. His deep, melodic though gravelly voice. His cheerful grin, eternal cheekiness, his solidness. Solidness, in that he was the extreme opposite of flaky or unsure. He was a man who knew who he was, what his life was for, and where he was heading. A greater foundation laid by a grandfather for his grandchildren would be difficult to conceive. And in case you think I wax lyrical, or am looking back in time rather myopically, I will tell you more.

As a young child I would proudly tell people that my grandpa, as I called him, was a captain of a ship in the war. I don't think that is what I was told, but I'm sure it sounded adequately impressive. Yes, Ronald Stafford Martin was a sailor in WWII, but as a crewman on a supply ship. Retrospectively I'm glad he had a humble position on a non-combat vessel. I can't imagine my grandpa, a gentle giant, being able to raise a fist in anger, let alone kill another man. And evidently  the war spared him, and he returned to marry his sweetheart, Rose Mary Gordon Forlong. From what I can gather sailors had a bad reputation in conservative Christian circles in the 1940s, but whatever doubts my grandmother, or her parents, had, soon proved very ill founded. They were married, and subsequently had five children. My father, Selwyn, was preceded by an older brother, Wesley, and followed by two younger brothers, Carey and Lincoln, and a sister, Sharon.

My grandparents raised their children, "not too rich, not too poor". Grandpa lay linoleum for a living, assuring the family of a reasonably steady though humble income. Any extravagance was out of the question,but from what I understand, there was always food aplenty for the family and all those who gravitated towards their welcoming home.

One of my earliest memories of him is his hands. Calloused, ingrained with years of lino glue, and immensely strong, they were "human nut crackers". We, that is my sister and I, would take great delight in collecting walnuts from under their neighbours tree. He would then crack them open with a squeeze of his hands. We only stopped this when, after his first stroke, his ensuing exertion was met by disapproving looks.

The vehicle I remember my Grandpa driving was a mustard-yellow Toyota station wagon. Quite fitting for him in hindsight: practical, understated,  and ever so reliable. But it wasn't so much the car all his grandchildren remember well, but his driving. Approaching dangerously close to a fast walking speed, Grandpa would be upfront singing "My name is McNamara, I'm the leader of the band" whilst we gave long-suffering looks to the substantial queue of traffic behind us. But oddly enough, the older he got the faster he got. I remember catching a ride into church with him on Sunday evenings, and the short drive down Great South Road to the chapel in Newmarket was at times simply hair-raising. I still have flashbacks of one particularly wide turn into Ngaire Avenue, with hardly any use of the brakes. The only explanation we can give for his spotless, accident-free driving record is him having four angels permanently assigned to him, one for each corner of his car.

My grandfather took great delight in his grandchildren, and visiting him was always a treat, and never a chore. All of my cousins I suspect, share one particularly fond memory of both him, and Rose. In the summer months, on the hopelessly misplaced premise that we were there to "help", we would all climb into that mustard-yellow station wagon, and make the trip out to the Mangere strawberry fields. We would assist Grandpa and Grandma in their annual strawberry picking venture, but I'm sure not many of those sun-warmed bundles of sweetness actually made it into the basket. Grandpa, in fact, joked about the growers needing to weigh not only the baskets on arrival, but the children also. That way on our departure they could reweigh us, calculate the additional weight of the strawberries in our bulging stomachs, and charge us for those as well. Stuffed full, with juice-smeared faces, we would eventually pile back in for the trip home. Then, Rose and Ron would sit in the kitchen, preparing the berries to make jam. Ron would sit there, at the kitchen bar, shucking the strawberries, whilst some additional "product testing" further reduced the final number destined for the pot. He had a sweet tooth, and I inherited it.

Grandpa took his final years in the same manner he lived the rest of his life. Gently, without grumbling, deeply humble. His health failing him, my final memories were of him lying in his bed, dependant on others for his every need. I would call in,  and when  I timed it right it was my turn to do something for him - the man who spent his life so generously giving to others. I would spoon his evening meal into his mouth, the lukewarm custard slipping down easily into his now toothless mouth, and occasionally, if it spilt, down over his grey stubbly chin. Not much was said, but these final weeks I treasure as much as those sun-soaked days in the strawberry fields. Grandpa you were extraordinary.

In Memory of Ronald Stafford Martin 

28th May 1922 - 1 January 2005 

Thunder, rain, and hail? Must be time to get into the garden!

I'm a very stubborn gardener, and sometimes if my mind is made up to be in the garden, almost nothing will stop me. I suppose that's why my neighbours might sometimes see me, in the torrential rain, outside, getting soaked, weeding the garden. I actually like the feel of rain bouncing off my face, I like getting covered with mud from head to toe. It makes me feel alive. And sometimes one of my young children will join me in my madness.

One of these moments spawned the following blog, which I simply called "Rain".

http://faithfatherhoodandfood.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/rain.html

So winter doesn't reduce the time I spend growing food much - it just changes the weather and my clothes. Over the years we have trialled many winter crops. Some, like parsnip, carrot, and beetroot, effectively bank the warmth and sunshine of the autumn, packing it away into their nutrient-dense roots. These crops then simply sit there, in the giant-outside-refrigerator called winter, until they are needed. And a few other crops actually like winter weather. I find winter is the easiest time of year to grow salad greens, if you pick the right species. Tat soi, corn salad, and miner's lettuce thumb their noses at our cold wet soils, even germinating if sown in June and July. In fact, most of my garden is coming up with miner's lettuce like a rash, as a result of plants left to go to seed last summer.

On Friday I was on Radio New Zealand, being interviewed about our winter garden. Here is the link:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201803248/gardening-tim-martin

So if you haven't thought about your garden recently, it's a great time of year to plant garlic, miner's lettuce, corn salad, tat soi, and if you have a cloche or mini plastic tunnel house, lettuce and mesclun blends. And we are only eight weeks away from inside sowings of long-season summer crops, like capsicums. Summer is around the corner?

Till next time,

Tim

Small spaces, surplus food: how to grow a lot with a little.

Over the past nine years that I have been cultivating this little patch of ground, I have learnt how to cram more and more production into our limited space. Our whole property is just 350 m2, so with the house and a little lawn, our entire food growing space is no more than 100 m2. But it seems that each time I think I can't fit anymore in, I find a way, by going up, or multi-layered, or out. I have also discovered some lesser known crops that have become year on year staples. So it's a good time to share the knowledge, and perhaps encourage others who share my passion for food-growing, and the challenge of a small urban plot. Here are my top tips.

1. Think of every space and surface as potential food production. Vines and espalier on fences, fruiting ground-covers under clotheslines, chickens under fruit trees, choko and pumpkins over the tops of sheds. I recently had the epiphany I have the space to keep bees, if I can think of a way to get up onto our carport roof!
2. Some crops can be multi-layered, so two crops can be grown in the same space. I have summer salad greens growing in the shade of citrus, and tomatillo under the espalier apples.
3. Crops can be overlapped in time by starting a crop in seed trays while the previous crop is grown and harvested. I start growing the next crop in trays 4-8 weeks before the planting space becomes available. The next crop then goes within a day or two of the previous one coming out. 
4. As you learn what thrives in your garden, grow more of what succeeds, and give up on crops that repeatedly fail.  Try as I might, I can't grow melons, so any space I allocate to them is wasted. I might try again when I live elsewhere, as I'm not sure if the failure is due to me or where I live!
5. Each year try at least one crop you haven't tried before. Some will be outstanding and some you will never want to try again. But because of this approach I have a growing list of odd or obscure vegetables that to me are absolute gems (for factors such as flavour, reliable production, versatility, or winter hardiness). Tat soi, manglebeet, Dalmatian climbing bean, tomatillo, corn salad, mizuna, and miners lettuce are vegetables I wouldn't do without. 

   

   Myoga Ginger

6. Plant, tend, and harvest from your garden every month of the year. I know some gardeners do a burst of gardening activity in the spring, harvest during the summer, and then buy vegetables during the autumn, winter, and spring. But in New Zealand's relatively benign winters we can eat from our gardens through all of the seasons. It takes some forward planning but its worth it. For example through the winter months we eat parsnips and carrots sown in January, beetroot and broccoli sown in February/March, and salad greens sown in the autumn and winter. We also grow our own garlic, which when harvested in January will keep for a year when strung up in a cool, dry place. 
7. Japanese quail can provide an efficient supply of eggs in a tiny space. Our Japanese quail coop is 1.2 m long x 0.4 m wide and is home for three females and a male. Even city balconies can be utilised for egg production. 

   

   Our Japanese Quail coop

8. A surprising amount of fruiting plants can also be crammed in to small urban sections. As well as our vegetable garden, we have raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, rhubarb, espaliered apples and apricots, peaches, grapes, lemon, lime, and orange.

   

   Apples grown flat along the vegetable garden fence (espalier-style).

9. Plant in blocks rather than rows to increase production and reduce weed growth. Some crops are quite happy sown densely in blocks, with subsequent thinning to wider spacings as required. This will fit more plants into a small area, and there will be less soil exposed to grow weeds. Vegetables that can be planted in blocks include beetroot, garlic, carrots, parsnips, salad greens, kale, and lettuces.

   

   Block-planted beetroot (with some self-sown purple amaranth that we will use in salads).
   
   Learning how to grow so much with so little is a never-ending journey. Each year I find a way to produce more, either through my own trial and error or  learning from others. Please feel free to comment, or share what you have learnt, in the comments section below.
   
   Till next time,
   
   Tim  
   
   
   
   

The vegetable garden and the reporter

Hi everyone

Its been a long time but the garden has been continuing, I assure you. A few weeks ago a local paper published an article about vegetable gardens being enjoyable, but not worthwhile on an economic basis. I wrote an email to the journalist, Rob Stock, and he was keen to meet me and have a tour of the yard. The article and video linked below is the result.

Hope you enjoy it

Tim

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/73683788/families-can-make-a-mint-from-herb-vege-and-fruitgrowing

In my Grandmother's Kitchen

My daughter was sitting  in our kitchen the other day when she suddenly broke into song.

"Deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Saviour's love" she sang, in that sweet-yet-wavering voice of a young child. 

It instantly transported me back over fifteen years, as it was often sung by my grandmother. Her voice wavered too, though no longer with youth but the frailness of old age. I had the privilege of living with my grandparents as a university student (I will have to tell you more about my grandfather another day). Sometimes, lying in bed at night, I would listen to the homely sounds of my grandmother working in her kitchen. Then, as the evening grew late, she would often finish the day at her electric organ. Her soul would open up in song. Remembering it now, it's like the songs lifted her until she soared, age no longer a burden.

Back here in my kitchen, the remainder of this song flowed out, spanning the intervening years.

"I though so unworthy, 

Still am a child of his care

For his word teaches me

That his love reaches me

Everywhere"

She loved that song.

Most of my memories of her were made in her kitchen. The kitchen was at the centre of their house and home, and feeding and caring for people was at the core of her life. Almost invariably, that's where we would farewell each other at the start of the day, and greet each other at the end. And her face would light up on my return, as if weeks or months had passed instead of only a few hours. I know she valued people. She valued me.

As we talked, my grandmother would playfully chide me - we were a different generation after all. I can still hear her voice as she responded to accounts of my days. "Oh, Timothy! You couldn't have!" she would exclaim, with a look of mock disbelief.  "Oh, Timothy, you didn't, did you?", she would say, while sporting an all-of-face grin. At other times, she would expound, at length, on the evils of rock music, or abstract art. We didn't agree on everything, but I know that she loved me through and through.

One of my earliest memories of being at my grandparent's house is of their lolly jar. It was placed high up in the kitchen, but beside a step-ladder. My sister and I would wait until no one was in sight, and then quickly make our raids. But everything was as it was intended, and I remember my grandmother being very apologetic if it was ever out of stock. 

I also remember my grandparents making all their own jam. I  come from a long line of jam makers, each generation handing down the art to the next.  Grandparents, parents, then me. Commandered to 'help pick', we would pile into my grandfather's mustard-yellow station wagon and drive out west to the strawberry fields. Hours later, baskets and bellies brimming with fruit we would drive home, joking about how "pick your own" growers should weigh people on arrival and departure as well. Sitting on a stool at the kitchen bench, Grandpa would prepare the strawberries for jamming, and Grandma would take charge of the stove. The heat from the jam would warm the kitchen, the smell of hot berries wafting through the house.  Now, many years later, jam making for me isn't simply about home made spreads. More importantly its about preserving the memories, and my family's way of life.

My grandmother was extraordinary.

The embrace of her hugs, the size of them seemingly at odds with her  diminutive frame.

The skin of her hands, wrinkled yet soft. Kind.

Her saintly patience and grace. Her mercy.

Her mischievous streak, that in the last few months of her life, only developed more.

Her joyful spirit

And that radiant look on her face when you greeted her. Perhaps she greeted people as Jesus would - with the joy of seeing a long lost child, even if you had just seen her at breakfast.

I didn't know it then, but perhaps my grandmother's also gave me glimpses of what heaven is like. At the centre of her life, always close. A place of warmth and complete acceptance. Deep joy. The surety of knowing exactly who she was.

Till we meet again Grandma - I had better sign off to let the tears flow

Tim

Rose Mary Gordon Martin

Wedding Day 1945

Five Ways to Change The World (if you're a parent)

Parenthood. It's more demanding than my career. Broken sleep, school runs, preparing food, helping with homework, settling disputes, getting them dressed, tending to scrapes and bumps, and the list goes on. Not that I'm complaining. No, I wouldn't change it for the world. But sometimes I think that parenthood is putting the brakes on my desire to change this world.

Really, I keep on champing at the bit to get out there and do something big. Wherever "out there" is. I feel like I am ready to make a difference but unable to because of my circumstances. But then I am thankfully reminded of a critical truth, and it brings some much needed understanding and peace.

The best way for me to change the world is by being the best father that I can be. For if I change the world for the better, but in doing so forsake my family, then I have ultimately failed. And if I impart to my kids the faith and values that I see the world through, then I am helping shape the lives of another three world-changers. Everyday, I play a huge role in my children's world, be they one, two, or five years old. I know that I am closely observed by them, and every decision and action that I make can impact their physical, emotional, and spiritual development. These early years are so critical, and I for one need reminding of that. A lot. This is probably the only time in my life that I can have such a profound influence on other people. It's all about the importance of now.

So here are my top five ways to be a world-changer, if you're a parent.

1. Love them. The single most important aspect of parenting. Love them with a nurturing, unconditional love that lets them know that you are there for them, no matter what. If our kids know this, deeply, they are set to love well themselves.
2. Challenge them. Kids need healthy challenges. Like muscles, they need to push boundaries to grow in strength and character. Obviously, challenges need to be age-appropriate. At the age of two, my oldest boy stubbornly trudged up a very steep hill, just to get to the top. Later I hope he will climb mountains with me. 
3. Be present. This one is critical, and the one I find the hardest. With the many distractions of modern life (mobile phones, TV, internet, email, Facebook, and dare I say it, blogs), I need to consciously slow down and make sure I am being present with my kids. Just them and me, full undivided attention. It says to them "you are valued", "you do matter", and "I do love you". 
4. Pray. I believe in the power of prayer. If you don't, then maybe you can take this point as the 'power of positive words'. Sometimes, as my children sleep, I place a hand on them and pray for their growing relationship with God. I speak over them the values that I long for them to have.  Courage, compassion, justice, and mercy, to name a few.
5. Follow your dreams. It's up to  us to model this - how can we encourage our children to pursue what  they were made to do, if we are don't  do this ourselves? We need to lead by example, showing our children that anyone of us can lead a life that is more than the status quo. 

Till next time

Tim







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Stumble It!

Winter tomatoes: the gardener's Holy Grail?

If you had told me a few weeks ago that you were trying to grow tomatoes outside during the winter, I would probably have looked at you incredulously and wished you luck. It just can't be done, because tomatoes are a tropical crop that we grow during our summers like an annual. But perhaps I have been wrong.

Yet again our first tomatoes ripened in early January, and the plants were all but done at the end of March. That's only three months of tomato production in a climate that is reliably frost-free for nine months of the year! So in a quest to conquer tomato production  I went on a global research quest (courtesy of Google of course) to discover varieties that might significantly lengthen our tomato season. And the result of this was a crash course in tomatology, and some glimmers of hope for tomatoes in the cooler months.

The tomato is native to western South America and belongs to the genus Lycopersicon, which has around 10 species. Tomatoes are thought to have been first domesticated by the Aztecs over 2000 years ago, and tomatoes were widely cultivated in Mexico by the 1500s. Following the Spanish invasion of Central America, the tomato was then spread to Europe and the Phillipines, and subsequently, to the remainder of the world.

The existence of 10 species in the genus Lycopersicon is the critical factor that  allowed the development of the phenomenal number of tomato varieties that exist today. All species in the genus can interbreed, with new varieties arising from crossings and chance mutations. Wild tomato varieties are still being used  as a genetic resource to impart traits such as salt and drought tolerance (from a species native to the Galapagos Islands) and disease resistance. Specific varieties have also been developed to best fit the climate where they are grown, from localities as widely spread as Siberia, southern Canada, China, Ukraine,  Ethiopia, and New Zealand. Seed catalogues in New Zealand  list up to 166 tomato varieties (e.g.  www.bristol.co.nz) but globally, estimates range from at least 10,000 varieties, to a mind-numbing 25,000 (US Department of Agriculture). So surely, somewhere out there, is a variety that will extend our fruiting season.

Tomatoes can be red, green, yellow, orange, purple, white, or green, and round, oblong, turban-shaped, or pleated. Size can range from the size of a currant, to a whopping 3.5 kg (a variety called "Delicious"). The variety of names is extraordinary, reflecting the wide geographic  spread of tomato cultivation, and I suspect to some degree, breeder fanaticism. So step aside Beefsteak and Russian Red. Here's my pick for the best or most bizarre variety names (well, the ones that are for general audiences anyway...)

Stupice (maybe this tomato lacks intelligence?)
Stump of the World (absolutely no idea what was being aimed for here!)
Silvery Fir Tree (multi-use for timber?)
Amazon Chocolate (now that sounds good)
Green Sausage (sausage-shaped, and striped yellow and green)
Hawaiian Pineapple (massive tomato, yellowy green)
Missouri Love Apple
Heritage #624 ex Bob Lord (now there's a marketable name....)
Dancing with Smurfs (red with a blue cap)
Geza's Strawberry Potato (hey everyone, this year I'm growing Geza's Strawberry Potato Tomatoes....)

The most exhaustive list I have found so far, with links to further details of each variety, is on the website linked below:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Category:Tomato_Variety_List

For me though, selecting tomato varieties is not just about length of season, but also taste, colour, size, and disease tolerance. I want naturally-healthy tomato plants that produce lots of good tasting fruit over a long season. After pouring through a multitude of websites, and learning about everything from tomato festivals to online tomato forums, I came up with a short-list. I will be trialing these and with a bit of luck, I might be able to grow tomatoes in the winter too.

My top picks are as follows:

Siberian
Subarctic Plenty
Oregon Spring
Paul Robeson
Stupice
Sunsets Red Horizon
Red Currant 
Japanese Black Trifele (which hails from the Ukraine, of course)

So its now mid-autumn, and I'm sowing tomato seeds. Madness? I'll keep you posted.


Tim

................................................................................................................................

Current tasks in the garden (early-mid Autumn)

Harvesting now:
Capsicums
Mesclun
Swiss Chard
Strawberries
Raspberries
Rhubarb
White Welsh Onions
Apples
Peaches

Sowing now:
Lettuces
Tomatoes
Spring Onion
Mesclun

Transplanting now:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Beetroot
Brussels Sprouts
Lettuces

Stumble It!

The Weed Oxymoron

My garden has many weeds, which draws me to ponder just what they really are. Common definitions of weeds often revolve around them being "unwanted plants" or "plants without value", so what is a weed is heavily dependent on context. For example, a walnut tree could be a valued plant if it was growing in an orchard, or an unwanted plant, and therefore a weed, if it grew on a sports field.

So this makes me wonder just how weedy my garden actually is. The more uses I have for weeds, the more they are wanted, and the less weeds, by definition, I have. I can passively weed the garden by doing nothing but changing my philosophy.

So there are really three types of plants in my garden, species that are intentionally propagated, species that were originally planted but now self-seed to form sustaining populations, and species that, through neglect or oversight, grow there unassisted. Some of the latter are true weeds, unwanted in any form, whilst others I am discovering, are not actually weeds at all.

Its midsummer at the moment. Most of our salad greens have turned bitter or bolted to seed, and it takes quite a bit of foraging to harvest a salad - a few remaining lettuce leaves, tat soi, chicory, the last of last winter's corn salad, and some sorrel. Yesterday, while picking such a salad I remembered the edible qualities of young dandelion leaves. Sweet, and I was soon to learn, rich in a multitude of minerals and vitamins, including folate, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Calcium, and many others. Despite my best efforts, dandelions grow with wild abandon from the paths, garden edges, and forgotten corners of my garden. Tentatively tasting the young shoots I had the epiphany that this plant was actually an overlooked and under-utilised resource.  I successfully unleashed the leaves on unsuspecting dinner guests, and a new vegetable was born. Dandelion has joined the growing list of "self-sown" vegetables on offer, and another weed is gone.

So what 'wanted weeds' are there in your garden? 

Dandelion on the garden path

All of our swiss chard (silverbeet) is produced by letting them grow wherever they self-seed.

I wasn't planning on growing pumpkin this year, but nature had other ideas. This pumpkin plant germinated from our compost. 

Self-sown tomato "Gold Nugget". We often get our late tomato crop (March-May) from self-sown plants that germinate in November-December. 

A self-sown parsnip that will now provide the seeds for a self-sown crop in the winter-spring of 2014

Summer

Summer, my favourite time of year. The heat, the sunshine, the sudden downpours in the afternoons that drench the ground and cool the air. The garden is lush and burgeoning with food, and the kids spend hour upon hour playing in the yard. The sprinkler often doubles as a garden watering device and child coolant. 

Our tomatoes have rocketed up their stakes and now reach the eaves of our house. The beans are beaning, and the summer onslaught of seemingly endless courgettes has begun. The apple trees are laden, and we have a slow but steady trickle of strawberries and raspberries. Fresh-picked salads are a regular part of our diet, and we are working our way through the last of the potato crop. I delight in simple meals that have been completely home-grown and caught - early season potatoes, salad, and snapper caught off the west coast. We can even cook the fish in olive oil produced on family land in Northland. These meals may not cost much, but its dining that makes me feel like a king. Nature's riches are more profound than bank notes. 

Within 6 m of the walls of our home there are lettuces, sweet corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, rockmelon, rhubarb, tomatillo, strawberries, swiss chard, capers, raspberries, onions, blackberries, boysenberries, grape, apples, peaches, cucumber, courgettes, kale, mizuna, tat soi, lemons, limes, oranges, Jerusalem artichoke, potatoes, rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, basil, coriander, and avocado. Our yard is not large, but everything is crammed in, forming a visual riot of production. And whilst I yearn for a larger garden, our current home has taught me just how much you can do with what you have got. 

Courgette "Gold Rush"

Tomatillo - a Mexican fruit that tastes like a lime-infused tomato

Dwarf beans
 

Espaliered Fuji apples

For me, producing food from the land is a blessing and a real privilege.

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet."

  James Oppenheim

I write therefore I....

Blogging. I am often driven to wrestle my thoughts onto paper and send them off into the electronic ether. Sometimes, I admit, it simply acts as therapy. It allows me to take hold of random thoughts, to view them at a distance, and to make sense of them. At other times, I think I am clear and decisive about what needs to be said - I feel an urge to say things that need to be expressed, to hopefully inspire or challenge, or to simply share knowledge.

I believe that writing can give people a voice. In a world of six billion people, it is easy to have a false sense of the insignificance of an individual. What effect can one person have? And how many people think like me? For when I see actions and events so contrary to the very core of my being, the frustration is that I can feel alone. But you reading this blog assures me that there are many people, be they in my home country, Russia, Germany, China, or Kenya, that relate to the thoughts I express here. Most of you I have never met, but I want to say I appreciate your readership.

Not that I view myself as perfect by any means of course. I am inconsistent. I can be thoughtless. I  seek reconciliation between who I am and who I want to be, and often I fail. I need to remind myself that I can simply make the best use of who I am to  make this world better. Even if it's just for one person, somehow, somewhere. And part of this journey for me is to write, and hopefully something I write might resonate with a reader.

For I wholeheartedly and firmly believe that everyone is deeply significant. We are all meant to be here and each one of us can achieve good that only we can achieve. We have all been made to be vital, creative, impacting people, who, through a deep and truthful sense of who we are, can change  the world around us.  First think me, then my neighbour, then the world. Person by person, city by city, nation by nation. Grandiose? Maybe. But people are meant to be visionary, it's a part of who we are. Like it or not we are completely and utterly changing our world. The question is, which way will we help it to go?

Stumble It!

Love and Freedom

My parents gave me great riches. Not the material kind of course, but an inheritance of far greater intrinsic value. Who I am, they played a key role in nurturing and forming. And that, I think, is a critical part of a parent's love for a child.

I don't think my mother and father raised me with preordained ideas as who I should be. They certainly didn't try to fulfill any of their lost dreams by foisting them on to me - I would have made a very poor nuclear physicist, my father's first academic love. And I wasn't pushed or prodded into any childhood hobbies. There were no piano lessons, no after-school school cricket, no French lessons. But I wasn't ignored or left in want of attention either. Instead, my parents sought to understand my natural leanings, and  then to encourage these to their utmost.

And my natural leanings, to many, were in hindsight a bit odd. I wasn't a typical kid. Sure I occasionally played with action men, blowing them up by strapping fire-crackers to their chests. I even dabbled for one season in rugby, playing for Marist as a rather small and lazy-eyed nine-year old. But my lack of hand-eye coordination, still little improved, probably made it quite a relief that my real passions lay elsewhere. And there began a career that I still have today.

For as far back as primary school, the natural world around me enraptured my attention. My ideal Saturday would be to go to a local drain, so I could traipse through the water and muck finding pond snails, leeches, and water-boatmen. As a young child I didn't roam the neighborhood on my own of course - while other parents watched their kids from the sideline, mine watched me from the stream side. Then I would take them home and study them under a desk lamp, making scientific observations in a notebook on behaviour, habitat, or diet.  And my interests didn't stop at bugs. I remember one day gathering my plant collection together in a row on the deck, then marching my entire family dutifully past them as I staged a "plant exhibition". I guess my sister was long-suffering also.

On a steady diet of "childrens" books, including the authors David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell, I saw myself as a true-blue animal collector. The only bounds my parents placed on this was a rat ban - one family member who can remain anonymous had, and still has, muriphobia. I milked these wide boundaries for all they were worth. I raised tadpoles to frogs in my bedroom, and had multiple fish tanks, axolotyls, rabbits, skinks, ringneck parakeets, finches, and cockatiels. And in addition to these the family pets added, at various points in time, dogs, cats, goats, possums, chickens, and bees. The schools I went to weren't exempt either. I kept a plant collection in my Standard 3 classroom, that I would diligently air outside at lunchtimes for extra light, and at intermediate school I kept a tank of golden bell frogs in the school library. This was probably in hindsight not a good call - I would spend many lunchtimes catching flies by the school compost heap, much to the ridicule of my ball-sport playing peers. Eventually the frog's incessant croaking made the librarian request their removal - "the library is a quiet place". I was not to be deterred. Tanks and their denizens continued to multiply and by the age of 14, I had a dedicated fish-room in the downstairs basement.  I remember having shelves after shelves all stacked with tanks, and breeding creatures to feed to breeding creatures. I had whole food-chains going with predators and prey.

And yet my parent's still encouraged me. Not phased by the prospect of old age without a white-collared son to support them, they fostered this mad love of the living. There was no pressure at high school to take one subject over another - only to make sure I selected the subjects I loved. So I finished my schooling with an eclectic mix of English, Sciences, and Practical Art. I even had their encouragement to pursue a double degree in Fine Arts and Science though, as it turned out, the university couldn't cope with such a disparate conjoint degree. I remember my dad disparagingly discussing what the university would have done if Leonardo da Vinci had wanted to do the same!

And so childhood passions, fostered by loving parents, had the freedom to flourish into the interests of a lifetime. Entering university, I finally found "critical mass"  of like-minded people. My hobbies were no longer strange and I pursued my academic interests unhindered through a BSc, MSc, and PhD. Perhaps my parents knew all along that a child will find success in the working world if they love what they do. Now for work, I sometimes find myself thrown back 30 years. Dredging through a drain to discover what lives there, or catching fish, I sometimes think "I am paid to do this??!!"

So this is a big public "thank you" to my parents for their incredible love and freedom. You allowed me to become who I was meant to be. I await the blossoming of my children's interests with anticipation.

Stumble It!

I grew a tree

I grew a tree. Not just any tree, but a Dunn's white gum (Eucalyptus dunnii). Heralding from southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, this spectacular gum tree grows to 50 m tall, with a smooth trunk, coloured white or grey. A friend of mine imported some seed from the Queensland Forestry Department, and knowing that I was plant-mad (even as a teenager), he gave some seed to me. So 19 years ago, at the age of 16, I sowed some seeds.

They were tiny, like short lengths of orangy-red hair. Small and light enough to disperse by simply being blown about in the wind. And after they germinated, I planted three small seedlings on a hillside near a stream, at a place called Takou Bay, Northland. In this far and often neglected corner of the family farm, the young trees grew, fighting through the gorse to reach the Northland sun. And each year, they faithfully converted soil nutrients, the sun's rays,  and rain into an ever accumulating biomass of roots, trunk, branches and leaves. That little seed contained all the templates needed to be a Dunn's white gum. Yes, it's just the growth of a plant, a biological process that occurs in most places, across the globe, day after day. But for some reason I never cease to marvel at this miracle. That something so small can grow to colossal proportions.

 Already, for this Dunn's white gum, the youthful exuberance of rapid  growth is giving way to maturity. It now stands tall in the landscape, providing shade and shelter, and flowers and seeds will soon be forthcoming. Many storms have assailed it, but have only succeeded in adding to its character. Gnarled branches and tree holes mark the location of past wounds, but only add to the tree's beauty.

Unbeknownst to me then,  the place where this tree grows would become deeply rooted as a part of my life. I have sown, planted, harvested, and consumed from this land ever since, the very soils of the place becoming engrained in my skin and psyche. And as I think about the passage of time between then and now, I realise that the growth of trees is an incredibly apt marker for a man's passage of time. The trees and I, we grow old together.

Rain

The rain drenched me. Large drops, falling on my head, slipped down my face and fell to the dirt. It didn't chill me, it warmed me. The first real rain for several months, this drought-breaking rain was a gift, and it lifted my soul. Working alongside me was my son, Shepard, who at only 20 months old would already rather be outside with me, whatever the weather. His little body was soaked, but ever-determined, he wrestled with a full-size garden fork, turning the soil. 

Sensing the opportunity of the moment, I had come outside to plant, and he had followed. The seemingly ever present heat of the sun had made transplanting a difficult task; small seedlings had wilted in the heat, despite judicious watering, their disturbed roots struggling to transport adequate water from roots to xylem  to leaves. But today was different. The heat of the sun was tempered by rain; the water was drops of delightful coolness. A moment to plant.

 So that is what we were doing. A father, a son, six lettuce plants, and a punnet of coriander. And thinking about today, now late at night and my family asleep, I sense something ordinarily mundane had become a lasting memory. Inked deeply into my mind like a cerebral tattoo. A moment of togetherness with a common purpose. And after a summer of parched earth and failing crops its enough to keep me going. The prospect of the autumn rains, a refreshed land, and a deepening relationship between a father and a much loved son.   

Blessings,

Tim 

The Interconnected Garden: A Parable of Community

We all need each other. It doesn't matter our gifts or talents, our faults or failings, we all have a role to play in sustaining each other, and enriching each others lives. Even the small and seemingly insignificant things we do can have ramifications far beyond the immediately tangible outcomes of our actions. Nearly 2000 years ago, Paul, a follower of Christ wrote the following in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12:

"The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ....... If the foot says, "I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand," that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, "I am not part of the body because I am not an eye," would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, "I don't need you." The head can't say to the feet, "I don't need you." In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary"

Thinking about the high diversity of species within my garden, and the interconnectedness of it all, I can't help but think about it as a thriving community. A healthy garden has parallels with healthy human communities, and further illustrates Paul's thoughts of two millennia ago. How is that you may ask? How is a cabbage dependent on a parsnip, or a tomato on a bean? How is a chaotic and eclectic vegetable garden less prone to catastrophe than an orderly field of potatoes? All things are interrelated, and the answer lies in community. All the fruits and vegetables are part of a greater whole, and each have a role to play. Now before you think I am stretching a point, allow me to illustrate.

Some vegetables and herbs such as parsnip, carrot, coriander, and parsley have value far beyond their edible roots, or the garnish they provide. These plants (all in the family Apiaceae) have umbrella-shaped flowers that attract helpful predators to your garden, such as ladybugs and parasitic wasps. These insects will fly in to visit the flowers and then hunt for pesky caterpillars on adjacent crops. So even if you don't like the the taste of coriander, or crave sweet roasted parsnips in mid winter, these are plants that are beneficial to your garden community.

Other vegetables do well following on from another crop, much like some people are leaders and others are better followers. Potatoes are great at breaking up new soil, and don't mind lumpy soils, or lower amounts of organic matter. Other vegetables, such as carrots, are followers. They need a well-worked fine soil, with manure that was applied before the previous crop. Beans also do well in soils not recently manured, and by fixing atmospheric nitrogen they prepare the way for more nitrogen-hungry vegetables such as sweetcorn. Each vegetable grows bigger, better, and healthier by being part of a greater community.

A true community not only recognizes differences but celebrates them. I am glad the species that comprise my garden community have different needs and yields. That enables me to grow a interdependent  community that is productive and resilient. Each season throws different challenges, such as prolonged summer rain, or plagues of leaf hoppers, but every year I know that some species will thrive and keep home-grown food on the table. And by growing a wide range of crops, I know that one plant disease can't wipe out all of a harvest.

So as we move into 2013, and the joys and challenges it will bring, I will try to foster even greater diversity in the garden. I am currently growing hyssop, galangal, ginger, caper bush, chickpeas, and adzuki beans to add to the mix - I know I will be able to find some space for them somewhere. And I will also strive to cultivate deeper friendship within my community, seeking to encourage and value the overlooked, the weakest, and the supposedly 'least important". And if I do this, I know that my life will be enriched in the process.

All the best for a bountiful 2013

Tim

A Lizard in my Lettuces

Today there was a lizard in my lettuces. A copper skink (Oligosoma aenea) to be exact. I was out picking some leaves to from our Green Oak Leaf and and Pink Freckles lettuces and it quickly scuttled away. It was a beautiful rich bronze-brown, and about 10 cm long (or 4 inches for my USA readers).

Copper skink. This isn't the one from my garden (that one wouldn't wait for a photograph) but another one  seen recently in Auckland. 

As an ecologist, this is something to be celebrated. Copper skinks aren't like slugs or snails - introduced pests that voraciously prey on my vegetables - but are a lizard species unique to New Zealand that FEED on my garden pests. I feel honoured that this "production-focused" area of my garden has been deemed an appropriate residence by local wildlife. Copper skinks are only found in New Zealand, and whilst still the most commonly occurring native lizard in my city, are increasingly under threat from land "development" - that euphemism for "bulldoze the trees and build something", and are preyed upon by many of the mammalian predators we introduced to this land (including stoats, ferrets, weasels, ship rat, Norway rat, house mice, hedgehogs, and the list goes on). We really did stuff it up when we set about enriching this land with species from our respective homelands! But what copper skink really like is not so much pristine native forests but lots of cover and hiding places, some sunshine to bask in, and plenty of small invertebrates to eat. So my garden with compost heaps (three of them!), and ramshackle wooden garden edging, dense plantings of vegetables to smother the weeds, and lots of thick mulch, is quite a happy environment for my local reptiles. In fact, in my professional work, its sometimes surprising where this species turns up. I have searched through mature forest within proposed subdivisions and roads, only to find them in wood piles or under discarded rotting carpet and corrugated iron or in piles of broken concrete. Which tells me that "biological treasure" can be found in strange places, even a lettuce patch.

So how can we be better stewards of our world in our vegetable gardens? How do we encourage courgettes and copper skinks? (hey, I am a sucker for alliteration). As I have previously alluded to, encouraging helpful wildlife and increasing the food production within your patch is, for the most part, complimentary. Here are a few starters:

• Mulch heavily to retain moisture and reduce weed growth. As the mulch rots, it will also add humus to the soil, further increasing moisture retention and soil nutrients. Mulching is great for skinks, as they love to hide under it to avoid predators such as rats. 
• Raise your garden beds using wooden surrounds (I use railway sleepers and whatever other scraps of timber I can find). Raised beds improve soil drainage and increase soil temperature over the wet winter months, and provide additional hiding places for small creatures. My railway sleepers have holes in them where they formerly had bolts going through them. 
• Minimise the use of pesticides. I occasionally resort to some pesticide use for problematic infestations of aphids, but I only do so if plants are getting very stressed by them. Don't leap for a chemical fix until other options (including "do nothing") have been exhausted. If an insect isn't causing harm, its probably performing some useful purpose in nutrient or soil cycling, or is prey for something else that is of benefit.
• Compost. While emptying a compost bin I once found a copper skink happily living inside the compost bin! I guess it gained plenty of warmth from the decomposition process, and didn't have to go far to get its dinner. 
• And for something more controversial, don't get a cat, or if you do have one, don't replace it when it dies of old age. Cats are notorious predators of our reptiles, many of which are threatened species. Did you know there are about 100 species of lizards in New Zealand, which gives us more species by land area than Australia (which is regarded as the global hot spot for reptile diversity). Living in the city doesn't excuse cat ownership -  the ornate skink, which has an conservation status of "At Risk-Declining", is found throughout Auckland City.

All of which is quite a digression from my usual gardening prose, but then I did promise to write about anything that makes me tick. 

Till next time,

Tim 

The Recipe for Tomatoes

Some people, upon seeing my  garden, declare that I must have "Green Fingers" (defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "a natural ability to grow plants"). The term conjures up some magical explanation for why some people's gardens flourish while other people, despite their best efforts, only seem to fail. It implies that from birth, some people have a 'hidden gardening gene' that ensures that everything that person attempts to grow will thrive, flower, and fruit. But above all, I suspect the kind of people who label others as "green fingered" are first and foremost justifying their own inability to grow things. This inability I suspect is firmly and simply planted in a lack of gardening knowledge, or perhaps just a lack of time to tend the crops.

As I can tell, green fingers don't exist. If they did, I think I would have them, and I am certain that I don't.

My best efforts at growing watermelons end up with unripe fruits the size of a golf-ball, before the plants shrivel and die. I have tried multiple times, but have in the end given up in disgust. Its a bit puzzling, since other cucurbits such as cucumbers, courgettes, and pumpkins I grow with ease. I am also particularly adept   at growing carrots that compete with Medusa for their number of extremities, and pencil-thin parsnips.  Winter cabbages are a flop to the extent that my wife questions my sanity each time I valiantly try again, and again.

No, if I had green fingers, several crops that defy me would regularly grace out tables.

But for most things, I think gardening is akin to baking. If you can follow a recipe, you can grow a crop. Skimp on one thing, and your efforts may well be doomed. Forget the baking powder, and your cake might be better used as a landscaping paver.

So given it is early summer, here is my recipe for a good tomato crop. Follow it to the letter and you will be giving them to your neighbours, or making chutney, before you know it.

Ingredients

• One tomato plant (for beginners try Moneymaker, or a cherry tomato (e.g. Sweet 100)
• A sunny part in the garden with well-worked soil that has not previously grown tomatoes in the last 3 years
• A strong stake at least 2 m tall (bamboo is great)
• Two heaped spadefuls of compost (bought or make your own)
• Something to tie the plant up with (I use strips of old pantyhose)
• Fertiliser (something with N, P, and K (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) and trace elements. Or you can use blood and bone, or fish-based fertilisers. 

Makes enough tomatoes for one person from New Year until late April or May. Multiply the recipe for the number of people you want to feed. 

How to make them:

1. In late October through till early December dig over the ground until it has a crumbly texture.  If growing multiple plants, prepare planting holes at spacings of at least 0.8 m (between plants and between rows).
2. Push the stake firmly down into the ground and test for firmness. The top can wiggle but the stake should resist being pulled back out.
3.  Dig in the compost and a heaped tablespoon of fertiliser at the base of each stake.
4. Remove the plant from the pot and plant it 2-3 cm deeper than the soil level. This encourages more roots and a sturdier plant. 
5. Give the plant a mulch of hay or pea-straw 2-3 cm thick over an area at least the size of a dinner plate. Don't let the mulch touch the stem. 
6. Wait until the plant is 30 cm tall and then tie it loosely to the stake with a strip of pantyhose or other soft material.
7. Remove the side branches that grow in the forks between the main stem and each leaf - do this by regularly by pinching them off with your fingers. 
8. Keep on tying up at regular intervals before the unsupported top is long enough to flop over.
9. Only water during dry spells, keep the water off the leaves, and water deeply. Once or twice a week, with several litres per plant, is a lot better than a sprinkling once a day.
10. Pick tomatoes. If any develop that have brown or black spots pick them and dispose of away from the crop. 
11. Pick more tomatoes.
12. Enjoy them sliced, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and home-grown basil leaves.
13.  Invent even more ways of eating tomatoes.
14. Give tomatoes away.
15. Freeze tomatoes.
16. Make chutney.
17. Save seeds from your favourite plants (put them through a sieve to remove pulp, dry on a saucer, and then store them in a labelled plastic clip-seal bag). 
18. At the end of the season, when the plant is dying, pull them up for the winter and compost them. Remember where you grew them so you can plant them somewhere else the following spring. 

For the more adventurous, I love the following varieties:

Tommy Toe
Garden Peach
Tigerella
Black Cherry
Oregon Spring

I find the larger tomato varieties  are very prone to rotting in the humid Auckland summers. If you want a tomato plant that produces huge trusses of up to 20 medium-sized fruit, try Tommy Toe.

http://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/shop/Vegetables/Vegetable+Groups/Tomatoes/Search+by+Colour+Height+or+Fruit+Size/By+Fruit+Size/65-120g/Tomato+Tommy+Toe-8605.html


May you be inundated with tomatoes this summer,

Tim

The Beauty of Production

Production to me has a certain air of beauty about it. To me, the burgeoning growth of a row of potatoes rivals a well-kept flower bed, and certainly surpasses the look of a manicured lawn.  The riotous colours of swiss chard wonderfully assails my vision, and apple blossom, whilst unarguably endowed with good looks, also speaks of the crisp home-grown fruit to come. The present beauty of the garden is even more, because it comes with the promise of the future  harvest. Not that I don't like flowers for the sake of flowers, for I grow these too.

This months blog is a simple collection of photos, taken in the evening's fading light. Enjoy, and hopefully be inspired.

Self-sown calendula that has been flowering all winter. We use the petals for a splash of edible colour in our winter and spring salads. 

Eat your colours. Swiss chard (silverbeet), again self-sown and left to grow where it won't get in the way. Delicious wrapped in tinfoil and steamed on the barbeque with sea salt, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Borage flowers. This easy to grow herb attracts bees to the garden (needed to pollinate the apples) and the flowers are a great edible addition to salads. What other foods are naturally light blue?  

Apple blossom, with a delicate beauty at odds with our cold and blustery spring weather.

The beauty of brown. Here my daughter, Annabelle, is applying the fertiliser in preparation for potato planting in mid-September. This area was lawn until March 2012. The following photograph is the same bed one month later. 

Potatoes planted in a trench, then progressively mounded with alternating layers of soil and hay. We are trying five varieties (Jersey Benne, Cliff Kidney, Heather, Ilam Hardy, and Agria) so we can spread the production over several months. 

The last of the freesias. Grown in a planter box I inherited from my grandmother, they erupt in a riot of colour and fragrance each October. 

No lack of colour in this home-grown spring salad. Lettuce, corn salad, carrots, alfalfa, and borage flowers.

The happiness of green.  Bok choi, mesclun, coriander, and lettuces.

And for those of you who request more gardening advice:

• Plant potatoes now for harvest in February-March
• Sow cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, and peanuts inside for later transplant.
• Prepare ground for planting beans in early November (dig in compost and lime)
• Direct sow first crops of mesclun and radishes.
• Plant punnets of spring onion, broccoli, and beetroot.
• Get a head start on your tomato crop  by purchasing and planting a couple of well-established tomato plants.  

A year in the garden: It's simply "Providence"

Providence. An old fashioned word, and one of my favourites. It sums up the topic of my last year of blogging nicely, and gives tribute where I think tribute is due.

A noun defined as "the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power, or God or nature as providing such care" (Merriem Webster Dictionary), this word is increasingly out of favour. It's increasingly odd to give thanks for the sunshine that powers all life on our planet (as well as growth in my garden), rain that waters the crops, or a good harvest. Increasingly, progress and change in our Universe, from the growth of a harvest from a packet of seed, to the birth of a supernova, is merely attributed to inevitable changes in matter, with neither divine instigation nor guidance. I know providence is no longer a commonly used word, or even part of a commonly held world view, but for me, the providence I experience through my 40 m2 of dirt can be a frequent reminder of the benevolence of my creator, and the soil he gave me to work.

And these thoughts are perhaps the lens through which I consider the past year in my garden. The full cycle of winter, spring, summer and autumn has passed, and through it all, our little piece of Auckland urban soil has provided in abundance. Salad greens, tomatoes, beans, courgettes, peas, herbs, parsnips, carrots, yams, potatoes, rhubarb, kale, brocolli, tat soi, raspberries, boysenberries, mizuna, yacon, Jerusalem artichoke, peaches, apples, and many more. Every week, every month, every season. The garden has provided for us plentifully, and even at times provided meals for which no food was purchased. But even greater than the mere filling of stomachs, the garden genuinely enriches our lives. We are less removed from the planet that sustains us, and I hope, better stewards with what we have been entrusted. We willingly partake of sometimes forgotten cycles, consuming food that grew in yesterday's waste (if I may frame "composting" poetically), and collect seeds at the end of the season so that the source of the next crop is assured. And even though we are a household of five, we produce surplus to share with friends and neighbours.

The final months of the year-long cost-benefit analysis (June and July), brought the total for the year to $1320.97. That's an average of $25.40 a week, or $3.70 per day. And while it was a great exercise in documenting just how much food a backyard can produce, and what crops are the best in terms of dollars saved, ALL of the family are rather glad we can stop weighing every gram of every tomato or bean that comes in the door.

The summer peak is predictable - its the season of endless warmth, and, thanks to the garden hose, plenty of water. The lean months of August through to October are due in part to the shady nature of our garden in the winter - its just too cold and wet for even cold hardy crops such as brocolli to germinate and grow, and the autumn sown crops are coming to an end. If the garden had full sun, $50-$100 per month would easily be achievable.  Because all of these crops were weighed and valued month by month, the next step is to work out which crops are the best value for area occupied, and which ones really dont justify their presence in small back-yard vegetable gardens. But that will be the topic of my next blog.

Thank you for reading so far - the annual cycle has ended, but my writings have not.

Tim

Guerilla Gardening

Something deep inside me wants to be a world-changer. To go beyond the comfort of my own existence, and do something out of the ordinary, perhaps even extraordinary. This doesn't always sit comfortably, it implies effort and the extension of oneself. To make a difference beyond the boundaries of one's everyday, and sometimes mundane existence, requires a new way of thinking and the willingness to be a doer. Some of the time I wish I was content with being run-of-the-mill, it would be easier.

Boundaries are set all the time for what we can achieve. Sometimes they are tangible, but at other times they are difficult to define (yet just as limiting). There are perceived boundaries posed by gender, ethnicity, and place of birth, legal boundaries (property boundaries, bylaws) and self-imposed boundaries (the "I can't do that" or "I won't do that, imagine what the neighbours might think"). So a world-changer is someone who is willing to challenge what is acceptable, the "status-quo", to achieve what others can't or won't.

And that is where, on a much more local scale, "guerilla gardening" has so much appeal to me. Thinking about the ways I might expand my garden beyond the confines of this 350 square metre lot - extending the garden into my neighbour's, the verges, the local school, areas of unkempt and weedy wasteland. I was trying to coin a phrase to encapsulate this philosophy when the words "guerilla gardening" came to me.  Eureka! Clandestine, perhaps sometimes even illegal gardening, but for the common good. 

So I have to admit when I googled "guerilla gardening" I was a bit crestfallen to see it was already a global phenomenon! Check out  http://www.guerillagardening.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening or the global GG community http://guerrillagardening.org/community/index.php?board=90.0

There is even a guerilla gardening book, and an "international sunflower guerilla gardening day". And guerilla gardening is happening in London, Korea, New York, Australia, Denmark, and the list goes on.

So what about me? As I write this I look out the window at a native shrubland in the local primary school. It was a muddy and forlorn slope  until I approached the principal and offered to design the garden, order the plants, and lay them out for planting. The principal agreed, and several hardy staff members turned up on a miserably cold and wet winters day to plant. Now, only a few years later, its the wildest part of the school grounds. The tallest trees are about three metres tall, there is enough dense cover for the children to make secret tunnels, and the birds are returning. So if you don't like your view, even if you don't own it, why not see if you can change it?

This success, and the realisation that I am actually a part of a growing  global army of guerilla gardeners, has got me thinking about where to next. I have just noticed several dumped trailer-loads of topsoil in an area of wasteland, wedged between a local road and the motorway. The soil is so good I am shifting it by the bucket-load to the most impoverished of my vegetable garden beds, but even after doing this, there will be plenty remaining. What crops can I get away with growing there? Would any plants get sprayed by road maintenance contractors? If I plant beans or pumpkins there in the Spring, will they stay there longer if they are in rows (so its looks orderly and cared for), or in random patches so they blend with the surrounding weeds? I won't invest a lot of time there, and I have low expectations that I will be the one to pick the crop, but I will give it a go. I think dwarf beans are my best bet - quick growing, inconspicuous, they wont need watering, and I could be harvesting eight weeks from sowing.

So is anybody else out there boxed in by houses and limited by space? Yearning for a bit more land to grow space-invading crops? Why not think extend yourself and look beyond your boundaries? World changing, probably not. But I reckon its a start.