After living in Brisbane for five years in rented accommodation where I had limited opportunities to plant my own fruit and vegetables, I am enjoying rejuvenating my Melbourne garden and making it more of a kitchen garden than a cottage garden. I am determined to use more home grown plants in the kitchen, and bring a little bit of the country to the city. Although I still love introduced plants like old fashioned roses, hellebores, salvias and bulbs, and native plants like correas, flowering gums, bottlebrushes and kangaroo paws, I want to encourage my grandchildren to enjoy picking and eating fruit and vegetables straight from the garden like my children used to when they visited my mother- in-laws', admittedly much bigger, garden in the country.
Winter has been a great time for moving plants and creating a new structure which is more fruit, herb and vegetable friendly. It should be noted that my enthusiasm is probably misplaced since this will all probably end in tears due to the local wildlife. So many of my neighbours' gardens are designed for people who go out to work long hours and have little time left for dedicating to gardening. Plus, all except the keenest gardeners have been discouraged by the long droughts and the ensuing tough water restrictions in Melbourne. As a result, a lot of people have put in drought tolerant gardens, paved a lot of their gardens, and ripped out the fruit trees, cottage gardens, and vegetable gardens they used to have. Now, anyone who still has a garden with lots of edible plants and limited paving, has the pleasure of being a magnet for possums, parrots, rats, mice, snails, slugs and insects. In the past, I have lost 1 plum tree, 1 almond tree, 1 apricot tree, I lime tree, 1 apple tree and countless vegetables and flowers - mainly because of the possums. I like possums a lot, but they and the other wildlife in my vicinity do not know how to share. At present, they are trying to kill my remaining apple, the feijoa and one of my crabapples. Once they eat the fruit, they go on to the leaves, then the bark. In the end, the poor plant gives up and both the animals and I lose out.
So what am I doing to achieve this hoped for garden?
In the patio are outside the laundry and living room, I have a succulent garden and fountain with goldfish, but I also have potted olives which have produced enough olives for me to bottle in the past
and a hedge planted with manderines which I hope will provide winter fruit. Eventually, this will be fenced and wired in to provide a catio for my cats, so they can be outside without getting hit by cars and killing native animals, like the possums ( aren't I noble!). Hopefully the wire will keep the possums and birds away from the fruit.
Outside the back door, I have herbs, bay, citrus, olives, fruiting bushes and some vegetables in pots. I have limes on one little potted tree and am using the herbs in my cooking. Here are some of them:
flat Italian parsley:
common mint:
and oregano:
The celery in the flower bed
is feeding us and Ralph, the rabbit,
who repays the garden with his very fertile droppings. Because this area is close to humans and the dogs, we don't seem to have marsupial predations here, and just have to be vigilant with snails, slugs and spiders.
My handyman husband has nearly finished building the fence and the roosting house for the chickens we hope to get in spring, and I have planted a mulberry in the yard. While it is young, I intend to to protect it from the chickens with a wire cage. Hopefully, it is too far for the possums to access it from the fence. If it isn't, I'll have to net it. We are looking forward to eating our own eggs, using the manure on the garden, and feeding our vegetable scraps to our birds. And, eating mulberries, which I love.
We are chopping down the dead apple and the avocado grown from a seed which never fruits, and have ripped out the passionfruit which reverted to the wild form, then took over a neighbour's birch trees. We have pruned the feijoa, the apples, the persimmon, lemon, the raspberries and the crabapples. The prunings are being mulched up and used on the garden beds. I am about to put gall wasp traps and citrus food on my lovely lemon which supplies the extended family and friends so well.
I have planted dwarf apples, a black and a green fig, a nectarine, a peach, a gooseberry, a tamarillo and am about to plant a jostaberry and red and black currants ( not sure where, as the garden has filled up quickly, but they were cheap!) I have just realised that this use of deciduous trees and bushes makes the garden look very bare and stark in winter so need to think about adding some non- deciduous fillers. And, I have added to my comfrey border, replaced the borage which disappeared and have put in some rhubarb. I have also put in some bok choy, spinach, silver beet, thyme, beans and broad beans.
I am hoping that spreading the vegetables and fruit trees around the plot, using lots of mulch, censoring what I put in the compost heaps, owning two dogs and and using netting if necessary will discourage the marauders. I don't want to use poisons on the garden for the insects and snails and it is illegal to hurt or move the possums, plus they have every right to be there, but they don't exactly make things easy for the home gardener. The insect problem isn't so bad because the little silver eyes and other native birds usually turn up when we get an infestation and gobble the aphids, etc. up. The mammals are much tougher to cope with. I am crossing my fingers that my home farm is successful, and not just an expensive experiment which leaves me buying from the local supermarkets.
