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).
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:
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| 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
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
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:
- 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).
- 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.
- Dig in the compost and a heaped tablespoon of fertiliser at the base of each stake.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Keep on tying up at regular intervals before the unsupported top is long enough to flop over.
- 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.
- Pick tomatoes. If any develop that have brown or black spots pick them and dispose of away from the crop.
- Pick more tomatoes.
- Enjoy them sliced, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and home-grown basil leaves.
- Invent even more ways of eating tomatoes.
- Give tomatoes away.
- Freeze tomatoes.
- Make chutney.
- 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).
- 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.
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.
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This months blog is a simple collection of photos, taken in the evening's fading light. Enjoy, and hopefully be inspired.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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| 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
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.
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Millions of Peaches
Millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches, peaches for free.......
Hearkening back to my not-so-reckless youth, this song lyric by "The Presidents" seemed aptly fitting this autumn. Our tree, upon receiving death threats for its previous lack of fruitfulness, fronted up with 44 kilograms of delicious golden queen peaches, and that kept us very busy (hey, even Jesus cursed a fruitless tree, read Mark 11 v 12-14), The humid weather was threatening their loss the moment they were ripe, so we preempted the microbes with a ridiculous amount of stewing and freezing - our freezer is now well stashed with dessert-sized servings of peachy goodness stored in plastic clipseal bags. On one particular evening we had four sauce pans simmering away on the stove, and then emptied, refilled and repeated the process to do eight in the night!
One days pick from the peach tree (and a big night of processing ahead)!
This was also the first year I made a concerted effort to grow capsicums properly. Dedicated beds, transplanting out three month old, individually potted seedlings (started inside in the winter), fertiliser, plentiful compost, and a mulch of pea straw. They took a while, with the first pickings in mid-February, but they are so useful over the summer months being tossed into salads or chargrilled on the barbeque. And we are still picking the last of them in June, so they completely outdid our tomatoes and beans for length of season. I for one am a convert to capsicums, and they will be added to the list of essential summer vegetables I grow every year.
The first capsicums "Dulce Espana"
With a smallish backyard, I have also been snooping around the neighbourhood, foraging foods on public land. From our kitchen window you can get a glimpse of Hamlins Hill, a large lump of sandstone that protrudes above the houses and industrial estates, and which, thankfully, has remained as a reminder of our suburb's rural past. Hedgerows of historic hawthorn trees cut across the hilltops, and this autumn they glowed red with a heavy crop of fruit. Using trusty Google to find a use for them I experimented with hawthorn jelly - the labour for volume return wasn't favourable, but the flavour was pleasant and quite unique.
Hawthorn berries from Hamlins Hill (Mutukaroa Regional Park).
Boiled then strained using the traditional Martin family method (stocking and an upside down barstool!)
Hawthorn Jelly: the final product (after mixing 50:50 with sugar and simmering for 10 minutes). A great accompaniment to game meats.
Continuing the cost benefit analysis of the garden, the summer months have been very productive. Combined, during March, April, and May, the garden produced $486 worth of fruit and vegetables, after costs were considered (detailed breakdown below). And I don't think this is a particularly extraordinary year - our tomato and bean crops were poor due to excessive rain and humidity, and these are often, by value, the mainstay of our summer garden. Peaches were the highest value crop for March, followed by basil (the half- kilo harvest of basil leaves was used to make a years supply of basil pesto, also stored in the freezer). Capsicums, mesclun, and herbs were the big producers of April and May. So for the 10 months calculated so far (August - May) the garden has produced, at Countdown prices, $1178 worth of produce (or an average of $3.80 per day). I was expecting about $800 for an entire year, so have rather underestimated the cost benefits of our forty square metres of dirt!
Entirely home-grown salad: lettuce, mesclun, cucumber, capsicum, yellow tomato (an heirloom French variety called Garden Peach), alfalfa sprouts, chick-pea sprouts.
However, even at $3.80 per day (or $117 per month) I forsee the intangible benefits as even greater. Gardening for me is therapy from a stressful day, my kids are growing up learning how to grow food, and knowing where at least some of their food comes from, and I appreciate inclement weather like rain and frosts (I am awaiting the first frosts to signal the start of the parsnip season). So while I have well and truly demonstrated that gardening is great in lean economic times, I suspect I would do it even if it came at a financial cost.
So if you don't have a garden, or if you think your lawn doesnt need to be as big as it is, why not start thinking about feeding your soul and your stomach? The ground is soft and its a great time of year to start.
Till next time,
Tim
| March 2012 | |||
| produce | weight kg/# packs | retail | value |
| alfalfa | 3.00 | 2.15 | 6.45 |
| beans | 0.50 | 9.99 | 4.99 |
| beetroot | 0.24 | 3.99 | 0.94 |
| raspberries/boysenberries | 0.00 | 41.50 | 0.00 |
| capsicum green | 10.00 | 1.79 | 17.90 |
| capsicum red | 13.00 | 1.47 | 19.11 |
| courgette | 1.05 | 4.99 | 5.23 |
| lemon grass | 1.00 | 3.98 | 3.98 |
| mesclun | 4.00 | 3.50 | 14.00 |
| kaffir lime | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| spring onion | 1.00 | 1.79 | 1.79 |
| apples | 1.54 | 1.99 | 3.07 |
| peaches | 41.40 | 3.99 | 165.20 |
| rosemary | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| silverbeet | 2.00 | 2.79 | 5.58 |
| strawberries | 0.00 | 11.00 | 0.00 |
| basil | 0.52 | 99.50 | 51.24 |
| cucumber | 4.00 | 1.29 | 5.16 |
| tomatoes | 2.15 | 3.98 | 8.57 |
| garlic | 0.00 | 22.98 | 0.00 |
| 319.18 | |||
| lime | 9.00 | ||
| celery plants | 1.39 | ||
| water | 5.00 | ||
| seeds | 14.00 | ||
| 29.39 | |||
| benefit minus costs | 289.79 |
April 2012
| produce | weight kg/# packs | retail | value |
| alfalfa | 1.00 | 2.15 | 2.15 |
| beans | 0.07 | 9.99 | 0.66 |
| beetroot | 0.55 | 3.99 | 2.19 |
| lemon | 0.13 | 3.98 | 0.51 |
| capsicum green | 13.00 | 1.79 | 23.27 |
| capsicum red | 7.00 | 1.47 | 10.29 |
| courgette | 0.30 | 4.99 | 1.52 |
| parsley | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| mesclun | 5.00 | 3.50 | 17.50 |
| kaffir lime | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| spring onion | 0.25 | 1.79 | 0.45 |
| apples | 1.91 | 1.99 | 3.81 |
| peaches | 3.11 | 3.99 | 12.40 |
| rosemary | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| sage | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| silverbeet | 1.00 | 2.79 | 2.79 |
| thyme | 2.00 | 2.99 | 5.98 |
| basil | 2.00 | 2.99 | 5.98 |
| oregano | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| tomatoes | 0.29 | 3.98 | 1.13 |
| bay leaves | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| 108.57 | |||
| water | 5.00 | ||
| seeds | 8.97 | ||
| 13.97 | |||
| benefit minus costs | 94.60 |
May 2012
| produce | weight kg/# packs | retail | value |
| alfalfa | 2.00 | 2.15 | 4.30 |
| rhubarb | 0.62 | 6.99 | 4.32 |
| beetroot | 0.20 | 3.99 | 0.80 |
| capsicum green | 4.00 | 3.99 | 15.96 |
| capsicum red | 5.00 | 3.99 | 19.95 |
| courgette | 0.40 | 10.98 | 4.40 |
| mesclun | 4.00 | 4.15 | 16.60 |
| kaffir lime | 2.00 | 2.99 | 5.98 |
| apples | 2.44 | 3.48 | 8.50 |
| rosemary | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| sage | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| silverbeet | 3.00 | 2.99 | 8.97 |
| thyme | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| basil | 1.00 | 2.99 | 2.99 |
| 101.74 | |||
| Costs | 0.00 | ||
| benefit minus costs | 101.74 |
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