Field of dreams …
It is fitting that the last post on the blog for 2023 should concern a project that has occupied us for the best part of the year, namely the construction of our veggie patch. The previous owners of our property were horse people and so on our western boundary there was a relatively flat area that was used as a dressage / show jumping arena. It was very early on in our tenure that we decided that this was a good site for our veggie garden. The first photo I have of the enterprise is on 5 May 2021. We gathered well over 100 bags of horse manure and many bales of pea straw to spread over the field. Our aim was to turn the soil from the compacted clay of a horse arena into beautiful arable loam worthy of a superb veggie garden, one that would provide all our needs for years to come. But as Samuel Johnson wrote in 1755 in his Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language, on the many difficulties he faced in completing his work “But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer.” In our case you could say it was the inexperienced dreams of city-dwellers, because as winter turned into spring - and we remained living in Brisbane - the paddock reclaimed our manure and straw. In short, by the end of October 2021 there was no visible evidence that any work had ever taken place.
The field of dreams
After this debacle we resolved to be more strategic in our choice of major projects and work outwards from the cottage. This proved to be a sound approach and projects such as the apple orchard, the olive grove, the lower orchard, the nuttery and the preparation of the sheep paddock have all been successfully completed. On the flip side, two whole years have passed since our first doomed interaction with the field of dreams, because it was only in April of 2023 that we were once again able to turn our attention to the veggie patch. We had thought things through a little more carefully this time. Our first task was to ensure an adequate water supply given that the site is well away from the cottage, so we installed a 24000-litre stainless steel water tank that is fed from the tanks at the back of our shed. Soon after we had some concrete footings laid for a proposed greenhouse. Recognising that the compacted clay of our chosen site was too poor to support vegetable growth we accepted that we would need to build raised beds. and work on these was sporadic during late autumn and early winter.
The arrival of the water tank (April 2023)
The concrete footings for the greenhouse (May 2023)
Work on the project stalled completely during the worst of the winter and it was not until mid-August and the imminent arrival of spring that we got a second wind. At this point we completed the fencing of the entire area, a necessary step in order to protect against invasion, both by the local fauna and also by our chickens who had adopted our raised beds as dust baths.
The hens taking a bath while a bemused Collie looks on
The fence taking shape (October 2023)
I have already chronicled the building of our greenhouse (see "Musings on a misspent youth …", published on 14 October 2023) and after its completion we still had a number of raised beds to construct. Suffice it say that from beginning to end the veggie patch project took the best part of a year and as a consequence we were a little late in getting started with planting. That said, the signs at the moment are promising. We have feasted on early greens of endives and spinach and have also harvested broad beans, strawberries and blueberries. Our early potato crop is looking very healthy, but we will still have to wait a while for the corn, pumpkin and onions. Inside the greenhouse the tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, basil and chillies are flourishing.
Greenhouse tomatoes starting to ripen
The seed charmer at work
The statistics on food waste in Australia and around the world make for particularly depressing reading. I won't attempt to summarise the relevant numbers but coming from the Huon Valley one fact in particular struck home and that is that approximately 3.7 trillion apples are wasted each year. Clearly having a thriving veggie patch is not going to contribute to improving this rather dismal situation but attention to waste can. We try to compost all our kitchen and garden waste (a subject on which I will write at some future point) but this alone is not enough. Our thoughts have now turned to preserving food that we cannot eat immediately or which does not store well so that we can feast on our own produce in the lean winter months. Our Christmas presents to ourselves were therefore a rather fancy stainless steel apple press for making apple cider and a variety of accoutrements for bottling and preserving fruit and vegetables.
The apple press
Perhaps we are dreaming once once again and doomed to inevitable failure. But I seek solace once more in Johnson's Preface
"Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and apology. To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the enterprize is above the strength that undertakes it: To rest below his own aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself because he has done much, but because he can conceive little."
Bring on 2024! Cheers!
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