|
Sharing A Suburban Food Forest In this second extract from Back Yard Farmer Volume Four, Amadis explains how she and her neighbours are creating shared gardens of fresh healthy food, and in the process have developed oases of friendship and respect in their urban environs. BYF4 is available from newsagents, bookshops or The Good Life Book Club from early July.
In North Coburg, we are blessed with a range of neighbours who love to grow their own food. Some of our older gardeners are Italian, Greek, Maltese, some Indonesian and some of Anglo-Saxon descent. We have young families with children who are growing up knowing where a cucumber comes from, caring for the hens that laid their fresh eggs and culturing their taste buds early to enjoy a wide variety of fresh, healthy organic foods. What's also exciting is that we get to share and swap excess produce, recipes, dishes and seeds of different varieties of vegetables and flowers, gardening tips and most important of all, friendship. Our own garden is home to a number of conventional and less conventional food plants. Over the years that I have been learning more about food gardening I have come to appreciate that growing a greater quantity of what I like to eat, and managing seasonal succession of plants (in particular salad greens and herbs) that I harvest regularly, is a worthy aim in itself. Some of the more unusual plants we have include the white sapote (Casimiroa edulis), tamarillo (Solanum betaceum) and babaco (Carica pentagona). Our nature strip is a jumble of culinary herbs, indigenous grasses, fl owers and herbs and home to an almond and snow apple tree. We also grow yacon or Peruvian ground apple (Smallanthus sonchifolius), pepino (Solanum muricatum), horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) and a delicious land cress (Barbarea verna). My favourite harvest includes the summer's basil, rocket and tomatoes, home-grown garlic, and sweet asparagus, heralding winter's end and the beginning of spring. We have water tanks to keep our vegies and garden irrigated, and I am in the process of setting up our grey-water system to divert water from the bathroom. My greatest challenge is keeping the soil well fed and moist. What makes me excited, is knowing that age-old skills that have been passed on from generation to generation are not being lost, and that the vital link with the Earth, and being able to provide for one of our most basic needs, is gaining new-found respect as more people discover the healing and delightful endeavour of growing food. Our community is the richer culturally and socially as a result, and we are well on the way to transforming our suburban gardens into the food, fruit, herb and fl ower oases of the future. |
Emma and Annie amongst the silver beet, parsley, cucurbits and citrus.