Gardens

It’s been a while since we’ve updated the blog. Not that we’ve had nothing to blog about, it’s just that we’ve been so busy with so many projects, and blogging is quite time consuming.

Now that we’ve been on our property for over 5 years, we’ve learnt quite a bit. We’re finding out what naturally grows well for us here in the Clarence Valley and what techniques and methods we need to use to help the plants that don’t grow so naturally here. We’ve failed a lot of plants, but we’ve had a lot more successes. We’re learning how the weather works to and against our advantage, and the possible natural disasters that we need to be prepared for. We’re discovering what types of pests keep coming around and which plants are more likely to be ravaged by them. There is so much to learn but we love it! We will be forever learning here on the farm!

Here’s Koro and Jojo checking out the cherry guavas and avocados in the food forest.

Our best growing plants here in the Clarence Valley have been garlic, turmeric, ginger and rosella. They’ve been fairly low maintenance and we haven’t had problems with pests. We harvest and use these extensively which I will post about in the coming days…so stay tuned! Sugarcane and Arrowroot grow well here as well, which we use as wind breaks and shade for summer. They also make good chop and drop plants (chopping down to use as mulch).

One of our favorite fruits that we’ve been struggling to grow here is a mango tree. We had one growing really well on the Gold Coast which we planted and did nothing else to it and it thrived. But here in our frosty climate with clay soil and a few years of either drought or floods we’ve struggled with them. We’ve killed quite a few – not intentionally of course, but we do have a couple that are looking really good at the moment in the food forest. Hopefully they’ll survive this winter and will keep flourishing!!!

We’ve had good seasons and bad seasons of potatos, tomatos and the usual basics. We love corn but have to fight the critters before they beat us to them. We’ve had a lot of bandicoots (a marsupial that looks like a large rat) this year. They love our garden too! Our gardens are forever changing, as are our challenges. Bring it on we say!!!

Here’s just a few of the goodies we have growing in our gardens. I will endeavor to post more details as we learn how to grow, harvest, and use them!

With all the isolation time we’ve had over the last couple of months and the weather turning cooler, it’s been the perfect time to get out in the garden. We’ve been as busy as ever cleaning up, weeding, preparing garden beds and planting.

Here’s some of the goodies we managed to harvest this year despite the drought.

Corn is always a winner with the kids!

We’re just eating the last of our water melons now, but we also had rockmelons, honey dew and candy melons

Who knew peanuts grow underground? I watched a video of a lady harvesting peanuts so I thought we’d give it a try. I bought some raw peanuts from a health shop and we planted them. They came out just as peanuts should…we’ll definitely grow heaps more next year!

Our turmeric, ginger, lemon grass and arrowroot are all multiplying well. They will die down over winter but will bounce back when spring comes.

Karl’s well mulched pumpkin patch and cassava plants. You eat the roots of the cassava, so Karl’s just checking them to see if they’re ready or not. On the left is the start of our sugarcane plantation…it’s only 1 row at the moment.

When you don’t mulch your garden it ends up full of weeds. This was the watermelon patch that didn’t get mulched…but thats OK we bought in Sydney the goat to tidy this up for us. He’ll munch it down in no time! If we had put in that extra time mulching around the watermelon seedlings it would have saved the hassle of weeds later (lesson learnt!)

goat

Here’s a few more things we managed to keep alive over the drought period. Tomatoes, strawberries, eggplant, capsicum and chillies

I didn’t know anything about rosellas until Karl pointed out that they’re edible. They are packed full of nutrients and are usually made into jam, but we’ve been using them in a tea with lemongrass and ginger…this is our Covid immune booster tea!…and this is why:

Nutritional value: Rosella flowers contain 260-280 mg of vitamin C, vitamin D, B1 and B2 in each 100 grams. Rosella tea itself contains very high calcium, approximately 486 mg per 100 grams. It also contains Magnesium, Omega 3, Vitamin A, Iron, Potassium, Beta Carotene and Essential Acids. In traditional medicine, rosella is known to increase stamina and endurance, help with detoxification (neutralizing poison) as well as lowering blood pressure, blood sugar levels, uric acid and cholesterol in the body. Helps to treat a cough, sore throat and canker sores, yet can also soothe a migraine. https://organicmotion.com.au/rosella/

Our garlic went well this year and we have a new season of garlic all planted and happily growing.

These are our loofah plants. We’re just waiting for them to turn yellow so we can pick them. They will be our body scrubs…I’ll put up a post when they’re ready!

We’re getting our winter gardens ready now – peas, beans, lettuces, kale, cauliflower, broccoli etc. Yep we’re as busy as ever. This isolation time has actually been a lovely time for us. When we were going through the drought and fires we were wondering whether we made the right choice moving out here…but at times like this we are so glad we took this opportunity and are counting our many blessings! Keep safe and healthy everyone!!!

Off Grid Maori

Northern NSW Australia

Garden Update!

Perfect time for gardening