Ornamental vegetable gardens

Great climbing branches near the hedge

I am looking forward to creating an ornamental vegetable garden in my front yard. I declare that vegies in the front yard are terribly fashionable. We heard (from our neighbours whom we love!!) that a Chinese lady up the road had a vegetable garden in her front yard. We went for a wander and saw the most beautiful garden packed with rows of produce all beautifully positioned and profuse. The garden was offset by the festive lanterns she had hung in the front windows of the house.

Rosemary hedge outside the Albert Hall, Canberra

Clive Blazey emphasises the importance of the vegetable garden looking neat and shows some of the French gardens and at Dromana with box hedging enclosing impossibly beautiful vegetable gardens. This is going to be challenging for me because I am not neat. I have decided that rosemary hedging is the go for my border. Tough, ornamental and edible. Recently my friend W. and I were over at Albert Hall listening to baroque music as you do. We soaked up the romance of this classical-style building and W. mentioned that most older couples in Canberra met at Albert Hall dances in the 1940s or thereabouts. We explored the building in the moonlight and once we got outside to gaze at the secret turret, stumbled upon the most handsome clipped rosemary hedge planted in a little parterre around a sundial. I was so taken with it that I had to go back and take photos. It happens to be located next to a heavenly Atlas Cedar which looks like it is compulsory for climbing. In the daylight I noticed the rosemary plants were double planted. Perfect for the formal vegetable garden. We also discovered a secret underground art gallery - I will show you images in another post.

What I love about the formal front vegetable garden is that not only does it pay respect to our multiculturalism - think olive trees, grapevines and tomato plants in the front garden - but it carries on a tradition started by those whose forebears arrived in convict days on these harsh and strange shores. The early settlers slashed all the angophora around the harbour and built slab huts (with picket fences for posh people). On each side of a central path vegetables were planted so that every possible inch of space could produce food. This was of course necessary given the trials and tribulations the early settlers faced. They could have asked the local people for help with identifying bush foods but didn't and nearly starved but eventually were able to grow their own food.

Nowadays in our era of abundance the front vegetable garden is symbolic and a little bit cheeky for other reasons - growing food in the era of mass production takes on a new significance. It is water hungry but practical and useful. My last post about Paul Tranter mentioned oil crises and possible threats to global food production and the need to work cooperatively and share produce in our neighbourhoods. It makes a lot of sense and we made lots of connections in our community establishing that Dr Tranter lives locally and is a generous and well-regarded speaker and thinker. His words are responsible for why I now have a large hole up the backyard created by my enthusiastic little team of diggers. I think I need to buy a Pawlonia Sacred Dragon tree just for my little diggers to plant and watch it grow like crazy over the next few years. They are very keen to plant a tree and this one should reward small children with impressive growth.

This week our other beautiful neighbour Bob handed fresh cut beans over the fence. He cut them on the diagonal and we were able to steam them right away with some other vegies. Delicious. I intend to grow beans up large tripods in our front yard ornamental vegetable garden. I'm thinking of cabbages in rows for aesthetics and then swathes of artichokes to make a silvery statement and punctuate the neat rows.
We are going to wheelbarrow in compost soil from the backyard, add in the sheep manure and cover each mound with weed mat. Clive Blazey recommends this technique with cutting through the weed mat to place the seedlings. Can't wait to get started.

Crookwell potato festival

We couldn't miss the Crookwell Potato Festival. It was a beautiful drive and a great afternoon outing. The whole town seemed to have got behind the festival which took place on the local sportsground with all the fun of the fair including spudlympics and old fashioned sack and egg and spoon races for the kiddies. We gorged ourselves on massive baked potatoes with bacon and sour cream, potato pancakes and bangers and mash with fried onion and real gravy in polysterene tubs.

Astrid and I met some real potato farmers who were running the potato seed stall showing all the different varieties of potato which come out of the ideal growing conditions of Crookwell. An unexpected highlight as we were leaving was the discovery of a sock company in Crookwell which sells locally made socks from Australian wool dipped in colourful dyes for a rainbow effect. Lindner quality socks at www.lindnersocks.com.au or visit the shop and factory at 6 Goulburn Street Crookwell on a Saturday. What a charming town and a fabulous festival! The gentleman farmer of Crookwell was there with the lady farmer of Crookwell and their charming grandchildren.

Sebagos

The gentleman farmer of Crookwell with newest loved one.

Potato fever!