One magic square

Last leaves of Autumn in Canberra

 Lots of inspiration this week but not much time for pursuing my dreams in the garden or even reading about them. One Magic Square is a beautiful book by Lolo Houbein that I have flicked through and feel I need desperately to buy. Now I understand why Sheryl, who loaned me the book, was so enthusiastic. It really is brilliant. It has a series of food plot designs and wonderful narrative from author Lolo Houbein who experienced severe food shortages as a child in war-time Holland. The book begins:

To start growing your own food without delay, put down this book, go out in the garden and select a spot in the sun. Dig over one square metre with a garden fork and remove all weeds by hand. Pasta/pizza plots, salad plots, bean plots, winter vegetable plots - the list of combinations and her beautiful designs is comprehensive. She describes how to take your produce from garden to table with practical suggestions for cooking great wholesome food. It's not a book - it's a manual for self-sufficiency and has a magical feel to its pages. She has thought of everything and trawls history, culture and travel to bring in useful vignettes such as the Greek horta - a description of how Greek women would go into the mountains and gather wild greens for their cooking pots.

There is no free lunch. There is no cheap food. The cheapest and best food is the food you grow yourself - food that does not accumulate added costs for transport from other states or continents, needs no refrigeration because you pick it minutes before preparing, does not add to pollution because it only travels from garden to backdoor, is free of costly chemicals and needs no packaging. Consider the real cost of a cucumber in a plastic jacket, grown in a temperature-controlled poly tunnel, refrigerated, put in the jacket, transported a great distance and displayed in an air-conditioned supermarket under burning lights. The cucumber you grow yourself just has to be fresher, tastier and healthier than that, doesn't it.

Lolo warns about peak oil and future fruit and vegetable shortages that may occur. Lolo says food gardening is the most intelligent adult endeavour on earth and her techniques allow people like me to start small, gain confidence and enjoy moving towards greater self-sufficiency.

My living table decoration of alfalfa

Now - don't shoot me but I have a balanced mildly economic rationalist view - I agree we should all be growing our own food and that food shortages and price hikes are real threats.  I also think it's great that we have a horticultural industry and that you can buy tasteless rock-hard tomatoes bred for transport in truck if you want to. I agree the hidden costs are high but our population deserves access to cheap, healthy food - how the real cost of that food is made transparent is another matter.

Conversely, any endeavour in the home or community garden that is real, practical and achievable is what I support.

Dickson Wetland community planting day


This event sounds great. A community planting day at Dickson Wetland, Hawdon St, Dickson.


Saturday 4 June 2011
11am-3pm


Carrotmob at Ainslie IGA 11 June

I've never heard of Carrotmob until this week but this new type of consumer activism is working towards our 40% greenhouse gas reduction target. Here's some of the blurb from their website.

To contribute to and highlight the ACT's newly adopted 40% greenhouse gas reduction target, Canberra Loves 40% and partners present 'Carrotmob'. 

Carrotmobs are a fantastic way for business and the community to work together for sustainability. 

Carrotmobs are a global movement of community organisers who use consumer activism as a way to help change businesses in their communities. In a Carrotmob campaign, businesses compete at how socially responsible they can be, and then a network of consumers spends money to support the winner.

Ainslie IGA has won Canberra's first ever Carrotmob by committing to put 100% of the money spent by the ‘mob’ on Saturday June 11 into reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The SustainAbility Advice Team has donated an energy audit to help Ainslie decide how to get maximum emissions reductions with the mobs money.

The more of us and the more we spend the more they can do! Join the mob that's creating a more sustainable Canberra by registering on our website www.carrotmob.love40percent.org

The Land newspaper

I've discovered The Land newspaper thanks to the gentleman farmer of Crookwell. I so don't enjoy mainstream media (yawn!) but was riveted by stories on how to crack a stock whip and what qualities to look for in a plucky sheep dog. The issue I read had a lift-out on sustainable farming including the lovely free-range pig farmers of Temora who sell at Epic markets and the success of Milkwood Permaculture (see my blog links).

The Land sells out quickly I'm told. This latest issue has a special on eggs in its 'Farming small areas' lift-out. Quail eggs are becoming very popular. There is a feature on Majestic Mushrooms at Murrumbateman, farming in suburbia, alpacas and chainsaw safety - love it. Even the ads are interesting with solar-operated gates and interesting sheds. I note Joel Salatin is back in Australia again - on 2 August he'll lecture at Jamberoo on how to create a profitable, diverse 'beyond organic' farming enterprise.  It's a one-day workshop on the techniques from Poly-Face Farms. If The Land is anything to go by it sounds like farming practices are evolving and regenerating and things are moving in a different direction.

Acoustic soup 

I keep missing Acoustic Soup nights at the ANU due to a clash with children's activities. They are organised by Real Food Canberra for uni students but everyone is welcome. Last Wednesday's theme was Mexican May. This was the delicious-sounding menu:

• Sopa de Zanahorias
• Sweet potato and Bean Chile
•  Mexican Rice
•  Cornbread
• White-bean and silverbeet dip

Art in the garden

As any genuine Canberra local under the age of nine will tell you, some of the best spots at the Australian National Gallery are on the outside, not the inside. I discovered recently that the Eucalypts in that place of beauty and sculpture are intentionally planted to cast shadows on the walls of the gallery. Fern Garden by Fiona Hall is a piece of landscape architecture that I always make a point of experiencing when I visit the gallery with children in tow. Hidden away behind a curlicued gate, it transports us into a secret little world that is both contemporary and layered in history with its references to Islamic courtyards and other traditional influences. I particularly love the swirling pebble paving which are placed to remind us of the flow of the regional watercourses from which they were sourced. The Dicksonia are ancient remnants which remind me of Where the wild things are and create a stark contrast between the contemporary and the primeval. The water fountains in summer are a cool retreat. Someone remarked to me that it doesn't quite hit the mark with what it is trying to achieve but I still believe it creates contemplation and reflection hidden away from the bustle of the gallery main and fulfils its functions as a piece of landscape art.

I have noticed an increasing trend for sculptors to collaborate with garden designers and include their installations either permanently or temporarily. Artists help us interpret, understand and protect our natural world with their interpretations of beauty and the past and present. Since I was able to take time out of the corporate world while my children were younger I have been struck by the impact of artists on my psyche and sense making. From my friend Judy reinterpreting the sacred lotus through screen print to a woman inspired by the Bayeux tapestry to create a 3-D history of Canberra tree plantings in paper mache, artists stop us momentarily and make us think, feel and experience something beyond our mundane and soulless corporate and consumerist culture.

I particularly love the work of the sculptor who makes giant pears out of horse shoes, Victoriana pineapple plants and creations from barbed wire.

Strelitzia

I've learned a lot from Holly Kerr Forsyth about the genesis of many of our introduced plants in Australia and why we have so many species from South Africa as the ships of the early settlers sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Another eminent garden historian Richard Aitkin also explains a similar Brazilian connection and I'm looking forward to reading his book Botanical riches.

It all makes me feel logical about my fusion garden of Banksia roses, camellias from China and tough plants from South Africa especially when I realised that gardeners have mixed and matched plant species sourced from all over the world since they first arrived as non-indigenous occupiers of this land. I have strelitzia reginae about to bloom with 'birds of paradise' in my courtyard nestled under the eaves. They are really tough and love close plantings in the pot so I have also squeezed in some geraniums which cascade over the side. I realise that it probably would have been collected on the way here along with agapanthus and all sorts of other South African 'goodies' although strelitzia were introduced in 1733 to Kew Gardens in England. What I think is quite hilarious is that my strelitzia plants were purchased from Aldi after I spotted them in the catalogue a few years ago - never saw them  advertised again. You can get all sorts of odd things from Aldi - even strelitzia reginae.

City farming, SEE-Change and other innovations

I've been thinking about innovation in the way we grow produce and wondering what's happening around the world particularly in less developed countries. I am partly inspired, I guess, by Terence Conran's book A Chef's Garden - fresh produce from small spaces which is 11 years' old but started a trend and shows gardens growing masses of produce in small spaces using beautiful design techniques. Conran designed a chef's rooftop garden for the 1999 Chelsea Flower Show.


I've already copied his ideas with my new living table decoration of alfalfa sprouts in a blue glass urn. As an aside our first lot of alfalfa sprouts I blogged a couple of months ago were eventually a failure using the jam jar and muslin. They definitely need a soil medium to grow. I have also purchased a sprout kit which is a mini-innovation - the sprouts grow in a stack of four cylinders using a clever drainage system. In three days we had crunchy sprouts to snack on. The Dr Fothergill sprout kits are in all the hardware stores which are stocking an increasing array of herb and vegie starter kits for kids and grown-up gardeners alike.


Two great innovations are transforming people's lives in two completely different parts of the world. In India a new green revolution is taking place but instead of synthetic fertilisers boosting growth, the methods of Dr R T Doshi are using biomass such as sugarcane waste and household organic waste to grow gardens in the city. The methods are fascinating and use a method combining growth and composting waste in the bottom of specially adapted drums and bags with extensive tips on companion planting and general guidance for healthy organic fruit and vegetables in an urban space.


City farming workshops are currently being conducted in Australia and a workshop will be held in Canberra under the auspices of Real Food Canberra. The City Farming website is great and I recommend the video to see what people are growing and how quickly their crops get to harvest stage. The city farming system has been commended by the United Nations Development Fund.


Meanwhile in the United States another innovator has developed a 'freeware' approach to water wise fruit and vegetable containers called Earthtainers. I read the article in slate.com and the person who developed these amazing containers, Ray Newstead, regularly travels overseas leaving his bumper crops unattended with complete confidence due to the wicking properties of the containers he designed. I don't think I could build one but he claims anyone can use his plans and get the gear from the hardware store.

Newstead says on his website:

The EarthTainer is not a "Product" - - there are none for sale, thus it doesn't compete with Commercially available self-watering container products.  Rather, it is a "design concept" that is made available as "Freeware" for your private use and enjoyment.  Just remember to please make a donation to the Feeding America Organization if this design does bring you happiness.

This kind of innovation is probably featured in a film the Canberra organisation Real Food screened recently. I wasn't able to attend (it was tonight) but it sounds great. The movie Fresh by Anna Sofia Jones is billed as a new way of thinking about what we're eating. The Real Food organisation promotes real food that is sustainable and ethical for people and animals. I took my children to a photo shoot and soup meet for their children's sustainable cookbook currently in development.


We took one of our pumpkins and a few morsels of spinach and herbs. The girls were proud, nevertheless, that they could take their own homegrown vegies and donned aprons and wielded wooden spoons to help some of the Real Food people cook up a big pot of delicious soup. It was a great afternoon and the big people showed the littlies how to shell peas and chop onions wearing swimming goggles.

Look what I grew in our pumpkin patch!

The Crookwell connection


Our pumpkins seeded a bit too late and with the likely advent of tomorrow's first frost they might not be quite ripe when the vine withers. Peter and Dell Bungay dropped in for a lovely visit not long after I purchased some of their succulents from Wagga (see my earlier posts). Turns out Dell's family come from Crookwell and in fact are a well-known family of brick makers and bricklayers who literally laid the foundations for many of our beautiful heritage buildings including in the Southern Highlands (the exotic mushroom farm is in a brick tunnel built by one of Dell's forebears).


Dell told me Crookwell is so cold that any diseases or pests that would strike potatoes are unlikely to survive in that pure air. She sent me some beautiful photos of the early potato farming in the 1800s. Her husband Peter gave me some great gardening tips including the importance of removing lateral shoots from tomato and pumpkin vines to boost production. My big pumpkin patch, although impressive, is a Japanese pumpkin which is too thin-skinned to store over winter and needs to be harvested straight away. They should have ripened earlier but have just scraped in. Dell was interested in the location of the gentleman farmer of Crookwell in case she knows the area from childhood. The caption on one of the postcards reads 'Potatoes grown by Mr Vidler Crookwell – weight from 2.5lb to 3.5lb each'.

Crookwell potato seed stock in the late 1800s or early 1900s

Potato farming at Crookwell late 1800s or early 1900s

Dave the horticultural demon inspected my ornamental vegetable garden this evening and said the use of black weed mat on the rises will help protect the seedlings from frost and cold. His tip is that with the water table high at the moment, the risk of frost burn is greater for young seedlings. The ornamental kale I've planted is completely edible but I'll stick with the cabbages and leeks for the moment.

Ornamental kale looking 'showy'

Our new vegie patch in the front yard

Autumn joy


I took great joy in restoring my garden somewhat over Easter with lots of pruning, clearing and planting. I discovered the joy of dividing. My sedum 'Autumn Joy' had flattened out which is a sure sign they need division. I've done some mass planting of this drought-tolerant beauty and hope the crowns survive my novice attempts. I also pulled up about six gladioli bulbs for re-planting in July. Gladioli are a symbol of love at first sight. According to Dell, Crookwell was once the site of a giant gladioli farm to supply floristry for weddings. I also divided my agapanthus and gratefully received a huge box of 'aggies' and irises from my good friend and superb gardener Libby. With the price of plants I'm very keen to re-use what I've got and the 'aggies' have created a beautiful sweeping border in a couch-infested hot spot.


SEE-change


I'm really interested in this organisation as part of my growing awareness of why we all need to make a difference and take small steps towards big change particularly with what we teach our children. I read in my local newspaper about a program called SEE- Change which aims to encourage Canberrans to think positively about the future and act to reduce the territory's ecological footprint. A festival of young ideas will showcase the best innovative ideas the students develop at the end of 2011. I have blogged previously about the work of academic and geographer Paul Tranter and the importance of encouraging our children to embrace science, technology and innovation to solve the environmental problems of the future.


Naomi Wynd is the executive officer of SEE-Change and in The Chronicle on 19 April she said the organisation's role was educating teachers in the subject area and developing tailored curriculum for use in the classroom. She said teachers could then implement the ideas as they wished. Subject areas will include improving the sustainability of transport and how food choices can affect the ecological footprint. Our great lifestyle has a big environmental cost here in Canberra.


SEE-Change was trialled at Lake Ginninderra  Secondary College with Year 12 environmental biology students as part of the curriculum. Students at the college have made solar-powered ovens, have a native plant garden they plan to share with other schools and are experimenting to find the most effective blades to use in wind turbines. Apparently the program will run in all schools next year.


I don't to be a pessimist as SEE-Change wants to promote positivity but did you know wind turbines use so much concrete as base that it potentially outweighs the carbon reduction impacts? They need to run for a long time before all those tonnes of concrete are mitigated by the renewable energy benefits. Cement for concrete is one of our most carbon intensive products due to the pure water and massive energy requirements. There are always costs and benefits and lots to think about.

Gallic version of Heston Blumenthal; the life and love of trees

Zucchini secrets 

I promised one of my blog readers that I would obtain the recipe for zucchini balls made at one of Canberra's very best restaurants. I found out today that it is all in the technique, not the recipe. Here's the secret. You grate the zucchini and salt it in the colander and let it drain but do this several hours before you want to make the balls. After you squeeze out the moisture add lots of beaten eggs so that it is a consistency that sticks together. Then you can add flour and whatever else to taste. Then you deep fry for four minutes. It's not like eggplant though - you don't salt the zucchini to draw out the moisture, you do it to alter the chemical consistency somewhat. Or so I'm told on good authority.

Marc Verat

Speaking of chemical consistency, recently I came across France's answer to Heston Blumenthal but a hippy forest lovin' Gallic version. I begrudgingly admire Heston after seeing his historic Roman and mediaeval feasts but I find his food science a bit over the top sometimes.

Marc Verat is similarly technical with vegetable matter prepared in a lab coat with various scientific looking implements. It's called molecular gastronomy and he uses essences of roots, herbs and plants found in the French alps. He seems like the Willy Wonka of the cooking world to me and wanders around in a black hat. Terribly eccentric but considered the best chef in Europe. He too has had no formal training. His restaurant is no longer open but was one of the most sought after places to eat in France before it closed in 2009 due to Marc's ill health. Located in the mountains, the footage of the restaurant showed exclusive diners eating next to live pigs and chickens happily ensconced in pens. 'In your face' dining to show where your food actually comes from just in case you're not sure. I watched him inject an egg simmered for nine hours with an infusion of cumin and other herbs. While watching the Discovery channel doco that featured him, I was moved by his passion and love for wandering through the forest gathering the food his father had shown him as a young boy.

Vegetables growing in between graves

Oh dear - I thought I was a bit radical planting out our ornamental vegetable garden in the front yard but Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall just reported on real food vegie activitists in Britain who grow plantings in between historic graves. Two women grow vegetables initially without council permission wherever they can find open space. Bus stop leeks, grave yard beans, lovage and other herbs from a verge. Then they have a harvest festival for people in their village using their roadside bounty. The council has since given permission to plant 500 fruit trees on public land and were looking into other plots.

Autumn

Autumn on Limestone Avenue, Ainslie.

Hugh F-W was raving about Autumn in the episode I watched. The change of seasons gives us a sense of purpose and he thinks Autumn is the most productive growing season.  As an Autumn task I have turned my late tomatoes and chillis into chutney and pulled out the basil. I am planting cabbage, cauliflower, snow peas, peas, artichokes, red onions, winter lettuce and broad beans. My coloured silverbeet in a container was planted in summer but is not doing too well all of a sudden - it's a bit mottled. Maybe the compost soil is not right for it as I note silverbeet definitely needs lime. In the front yard I have planted a rosemary hedge inspired by the Albert Hall and I found some ornamental kale which makes the most divine crimson border plant for the vegie garden. We visited the Yarralumla Heritage Nursery this weekend where I spotted the ornamental kale. It truly has some gorgeous and unique offerings including many heritage varieties. I particularly love the way they display their trees so that you can see a range of species. The nursery is aptly located next to many of the original Thomas Charles Weston experimental plantings that greened our gracious city. We dined at the outdoor cafe underneath a Gingko Biloba tree. The distinctive yellow leaves are the last to fall in Autumn.

While at the nursery we splashed out on a Pawlonia Sapphire Dragon Tree and the children planted it today. I've told them it's their Jack in the Beanstalk tree and I am looking forward to it growing fast and tall and producing beautiful blue pendulous bracts in the Springtime. It should shade a hot spot where the house faces north and create a lovely vista.

The life and love of trees by Lewis Blackwell is now on my 'must have' list. It is truly the most beautiful and remarkable photographic book I have seen and features a range of stunning images from around the world. A former editor of Getty images for 10 years, Blackwell indulges his love of nature with a selection of amazing works by photographers. He writes beautiful essays and poetry as an accompanying text. The eucaplyt, giant buttressing ficus in Queensland rainforests and the Wollemi Pine are local features but Madagascan boababs and the world's 'fattest' tree from Mexico are some of the favourites.

Japan's acers, maples and blossom trees feature in this exquisite book. Sadly I read today it is the blossom festival in Japan at the moment but a very sombre time. 14,000 people have been killed. savethechildren.org.au/JapanEarthquake is one place where you find out what's been done to help create child-friendly spaces during the emergency and download instructions to make paper cranes. 'An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand Japanese cranes will be granted one wish...' The appeal is now closed as they've met their fundraising target.

 I have never been there but this country is the source of so much beauty in our lives due to the Japanese mastery of simplicity and design. Tachibana no Toshitsuna wrote Notes on garden making in the 11th Century, one of the world's earliest manuals of garden design: recall the vistas of various famous places, select what attracts you and add your own interpretation. I dream of visiting Kyoto during the children's festival and seeing the bamboo forest walk. I had the chance last year and now I regret not going as I fear Japan will never be the same for many years. Life goes on.

Quick survey on food security

This survey will take a few minutes and is for a project some university students are doing on food security. The students are developing a creative presentation to communicate food security issues and to empower individuals to take action.

The survey is to help ensure the presentation is as effective as possible.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C85B63

All feedback will remain entirely anonymous. The presentation will be finished in late May.

Superbly succulent

It seems like a mirage. There I was driving through Wagga on the way to visit my dear old Granny's grave. Maybe she was guiding me. I got a little lost and out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign.

Great gardener Del Bungay

Succulents $1 each.

I pulled up in my car and investigated and that's how I met the lovely gardener Del Bungay pictured. Del's greatness in the garden helps raise money for a Uniting Church facility planned for Wagga. I plundered her stock and took about 20 beautiful plants which will look amazing. She and her husband have had an open garden showcasing these resilient plants and Del mentioned several waterwise gardens nearby that have been opened to the public.

Del attributes good organic matter to her healthy specimens and of course warns against over watering. I consulted my copy of The Canberra Gardener. Contrary to popular belief most succulents don't come from deserts but originate in potentially rich grassland with moisture limited during the season. To thrive, they need good drainage to stop the feeding roots from rotting. A mixture of about equal parts clean river sand and good quality compost is most effective in garden beds. In pots the author says a good commercial potting mix is ok with clean sand to be added in a ratio of one part sand to two parts commercial mixture. A small amount of balanced fertiliser should be added if the potting mix doesn't contain fertiliser. A gravel mulch is recommended to prevent problems. Mealybugs, scales and two-spotted mite (red spider) will attack potted succulents.

I need to find some beautiful containers but meantime my succulents should be ideal at my entry doors to welcome guests with their dramatic foliage and beauty.

Death of the Australian backyard

The slow death of the Australian backyard occurred sometime in the 1990s. Limited carbon sequestration, lack of security, obesity, social disconnect, high temperatures, no tree cover and reliance on air conditioners...these are the some of the disadvantages of the maximum house/minimum garden footprint on the edge of our cities.

Tony Hall of the Urban Research Program at Griffith University has posed the question why? He has come up with a reasonable proposition that makes chilling reading. Australians are spending most of the week commuting, working and then the rest of the weekend shopping. Gardening and a nice outlook are not a priority.  Large homes are seen as a financial investment and economic behaviour has driven the market to buying the most house possible and affordable with lenders willing to maximise mortgages. Resale value drives a presentable front yard with a house squeezed onto a block and no room in the backyard for a Hills Hoist, composting system, space for children to play let alone any food production.

It makes chilling reading and confirms the words of a British philosopher/academic I heard who said we have created the society we live in and ultimately it comes down to our individual actions to change it to something better. I'm starting to genuinely believe people not government are driving change and I think there is a groundswell but we are only at the beginning.

Pumpkins

I could be on the urban fringe in a McMansion but through sheer luck I ended up in Ainslie all those years ago. Without much money but thanks to an economic downturn we were able to get a foothold in here and now we are living in one of the best spots in Canberra. The chickens are the icing on the cake and in our 900 metre square backyard they have taken over a sizeable proportion. So have the pumpkins. My pumpkin vine self seeded while we were away and has run rampant from the vegie bed thriving on nutrient rich soil. They look magnificent and are fruiting nicely.

A friend reminded me today of the Collector pumpkin festival coming up on 1 May. Good country Autumn fun she said. When you harvest pumpkins you need to leave about 10cm of stem and allow the pumpkins to harden up for a few nights in the cold. This maximises their storage over autumn and winter. If you do snap the stem, some melted candle wax will help protect the pumpkin from rotting.

A natural spray to knock harlequin bugs

I was waiting for an appointment recently and picked up an old copy of Gardening Australia. I opened the page and saw a recipe guaranteed to nuke those nasty harlequin bugs and no synthetic chemicals.

Here it is.

Heat 2L of water with eight chopped up garlic cloves. Add 10-15 of the hottest chillies you can find. As the water begins to boil turn down the heat so it just simmers for 15 minutes. Add some liquid soap (best if potassium-based) and allow to cool. Strain through a sieve to save the liquid. Dilute by adding 10 parts water to 1 part of the brew.

The inventor claims this spray is 100 per cent effective in killing harlequin bugs in seconds and works on other bugs. It is safe to use on fruit and vegetables. I'm going to make some as I have a heap of chillies finishing up for the season. The red and black bugs seem to have disappeared but I will be ready for them.