food growing as practice

This has been niggling at me for a while, and I want to dispel what seems to me a popularly held myth, that growing your own food is easy.  There's enough banter out there about food growing, in book form, on the television and in the online/blogosphere scape, and although there is a lot of instructive info, it often feels like all that is required is some enthusiasm and a simple intent to start and it will be as easy as a wink.  I'm all for talking about the positive benefits of vegie and fruit growing, but it certainly is not always easy, if it was would anyone ever buy food?!

I absolutely adore Costa as the new host of Gardening Australia, but I can't help but wonder at the apparent ease at which his "Verge" garden has sprung up.  Commitment is such an important ingredient for successful gardening, particularly when the initial exciting flush that comes with something newly begun dies down.  What I find difficult to manage is the balance between patient waiting and quick action.  Like anything in life, you get out what you put in, you literally reap what you sow.  Food growing requires consistent effort, but an interesting kind of consistency that must also allow for adaptability.  You have to keep putting in, but keep a close evaluative eye on what's happening to know what steps to take.  How do you develop this eye?  How do you know how to respond?

The required skills and knowledge can be learned in part through books/television/internet (which, I'll say it again, overwhelmingly make it seem so easy!), but there's a level of know-how needed that can only be cultivated by doing.  I've been thinking about this for a long time since I saw an episode of Gardening Australia back in April (see "Gardening for Life" on 14/4/12), that showed a segment about a retired market gardener in Coburg who was turning over the lease for his cultivated land to CERES.  He had a knowledge of the land that he had tended all his life which seemed to defy logic.  At one point he says that a patch over there "looks" good for growing broadbeans, and I wonder about what is going on here.  Is it the development of a localised wisdom that comes through experience?  Perhaps coupled with repetition, careful observation and above all practice?  So food growing is a practice?!  Of course, it demands the consistent effort and commitment that developing a practice requires.  When expertise of a practitioner is demonstrated it dazzles and implies effortlessness, and perhaps that's what is happening on shows like Gardening Australia.

As my ripped up corn stalks (due to dog vs rat battles) from last season testify, food growing is not easy!  In actual fact, it was easier when I went more by my instinct and less by instruction from books.  So like the market gardener, I'm going into the next season with the intent to listen to my own intuition and discover the lore of my land.

winter moments

Hello after a big winter hiatus!  I'm at the point where I'm through the conference and teaching preparations and back into semester two...where did the time go?!
Winter is idling along...it's been so very chilly...but punctuated by lovely moments that can only happen at this time of the year.

There is broccoli in the garden and I'm looking forward to Spring and time to plan and plant!

I'm still crocheting away... thinking about the anatomy of known forms.

afters

When I haven't been around here for a bit you can most likely guess by now that there has been some demanding stuff going on PhD wise.  I was told by my lovely hairdresser today to update the blog (ta S xx), so here I am!   Our graduate research conference was weekend before last and I spent all of last week in recovery mode.   It took some serious wrangling in the last month or so to get ready to present my work, but the most interesting thing I got up to was making a sampler constructed out of this stuff...

Anyone for box chain?!

I will show what I made...just haven't got around to photographing it yet, but as a teaser, I will tell you that it is all about revisiting my making skills from my previous incarnation as a fetish wear designer!
Part of my post GRC recovery was spent on sock knitting...my feet have been so freezing during this very chilly wintery season that I decided to use some of my sock yarn stash to actually make socks rather than the usual baby cardi's.

This is the first time I've attempted sock knitting...so far so good, I'm nearly up to the heel shaping.

Other stuff...the lovely drawing salon semester finished last night...I'll get around to showing some more drawings soon...and the magnificent Ms Rehe is going on a drawing adventure to New York, so do stop by Patsyfox in the coming weeks to see what she is up to.

Not much happening garden wise...some winter planting and planning for hopefully a better warm season in a few months...I did pick some carrots yesterday...they were yum :o)

back in not so black...again!

Back towards the beginning of my bloggy happenings I moved away from blackness and into blackness with the blog layout...for a while I've been tired with the black, and even though it is less lit pixels, a pal pointed out to me that a difficult to read screen isn't very sustainable either!   So I've taken the plunge to start redesigning the blog page in line with some new directions I'm taking...it's a work in progress...watch this space!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the uni semester started last week which takes me away from all routine things, and this week has been about developing a new routine...which is kind of nice - means some jiggling of priorities and attending to the really important things.

I didn't touch the garden last week...it has been a very disappointing season with the lack of a real hot stretch and all of the pests (aphids and rats!) that have just caused almost everything to fail.  Even the last hope for apples is out the window as these late season sturmers have been munched away at (I think rats...again!)  When I went to take a pic I discovered european wasps sucking away at the flesh too!

But I did manage to pick one, the last with no rat chews...and looking at the woodbridge link, it's reassuring that my apple looks the same as theirs, even though it is insanely early compared to the june/july ripening time that they predict...

There are always some lovely things in the garden though, like this orb weaver on one of the rose arches....

And the zucchinis and cucumbers I planted to replace those pulled out during the dog vs rat debacle are doing well...even though they are late in the season, hopefully I'll get a crop...

I'm starting some experiments with making vegetables in the studio...not sure where it will go, but I'm doing some plastic crochet Marjorie Bligh style with a twist.  I'm doing some hyperbolic crochet to make some lettuce forms...in this case using glad wrap from a bunch of organic celery...


From sheet to form :o)

new things

I have some new beginnings lately...although I'm not really sure where I'm heading!
I finished the latest baby cardi...a friends new bub is just about here :o)

I got onto my elbow patch project, using an old well loved printed cardi, and some of the crocheted grannies I was working on here.  This cardigan was my favourite "go to" cardi around 7 or 8 years ago (my fav now is a big oversized machine washable grey woolly that came from the op shop).  There's a nice narrative of remnants and mending within it...

I swiss darned across a little ladder in the cuff, and used the granny squares to stitch over the elbow holes.  These particular grannies were made using the remnants from first of the sock yarn cardies which I made for my niece.

In this last pic you can see the previous mending - the darning which my mum did lots of years ago.

I'm taking my everyday craft practice into other projects...using leather remnants stitched together to make a thick leather yarn which I have then crocheted into a massive granny square using a 20mm hook...

I'm unsure how this will be applied to a garment form at the moment.

New things are popping up in the garden like these dwarf beans, the last for the season...I hope we have some continued warm weather for the last of the summer crops...

And the water tanks (1 in the front garden, and two in the back) now have a wire mesh covering to grow some lovely plants on them.  This one behind the workroom is filled by the water from it's roof, and connects to the watering system for the adjoining patch which you can see in the pic above.  I planted two old fashioned noisette roses next to it - Lamarque, and Mme Alfred Carriere in the winter, which now are able to be tied up away from the trampling doggles!  I'm hoping that next spring will see them flourish and bloom and eventually creep over the workroom roof to create some nice living insulation :o)

giant eyelets are go!

I went on a big eyelet expedition last Friday, but before I get to that, I failed to mention the watermelon suprise I had the day before.  The watermelon plant out the front was looking a bit wilted after the hot weather while I was away.  I was worried that it could be on it's way out if I didn't start to look after it more carefully, but when I looked closely I saw a lovely melon about the size of a tennis ball developing!

I'll be very careful to water it everyday now, I think that's what they need.

I'm about to start making curtains for the holiday house at Rye, and decided that eyelet top style would work best for the rods and style of the windows.  I've never invested in large eyelets and the equipment to attach them - I have wanted them, but never had a good enough reason.  So I popped down to Eyelets Supply Co. in Springvale to get my 40mm beauties!

I've never been to Eyelets Supply in person, although I've rung through orders hundreds of times.  I liked seeing their sets of old skool dies...

And their presses...

Here's the big eyelets...

And the lovely sales guy Luke demonstrated how to attach the eyelets and also told the story of how he amputated his hand 15 years before!  I think he felt he had to tell me because I asked if he minded me taking pics of him hammering and thought I might notice his hand looked a bit funny.  It was amazing that he could hammer with it and write normally...I won't go into more detail, might be too gory for here!

Next door is a Chinese temple too, which was so pretty, I love the ceramic details :o)

update...canis vs rattus

Gem and Hugs had a crazy hour tonight at a bushy park that we specially drive them to (for local peeps, darling park, malvern which gardiners creek runs through)...plenty of rats there which they flush out, and sometimes catch.  No success tonight though (don't worry, they're feral rats, we check for the long tail!)

When we got home, even though u might think their rat chasing desires have been fulfilled, they were straight to the veggie patch.  To prove what I was saying earlier, here they are...

Reiterate note to self: must get smaller gauge mesh!

have beans

Where have I been?  I hardly know myself...too many everyday things and holidays getting in the way!
We went down to P's families holiday house for "Oystralya Dai" (last Thursday, quote Pen!), and spent the weekend...I didn't get back till Monday night...

But we had lots of fun, and did more renos which are now nearly done, yippee!  But onto beans now...firstly a bean shaped Gemma pet on the bed at Rye (couldn't resist!)...

But what I really want to get to is the beans in the garden.  We had lots of broadbeans back in December...

Which were yum when I cooked them with my meatball dish

The purple king beans growing alongside the espaliered citrus trees on the back of the house were growing beautifully at the start...

And we were picking some lovely beans too...

But a few weeks back I noticed that not many more beans were coming and the leaves were looking poorly with some browning off.  On close inspection I discovered tiny aphids on the undersides of the leaves.  I've never seen these ones before, they were almost invisible and almost like a coating of sticky green.  I'm not into spraying at all, even with a soap spray and I'm glad I didn't because some ladybirds moved in and then a week later I could see their larvae, which are so small it's hard to take a pic of them!

These beans are pretty much a write off now, but there were a few flowers that are developing into beans now, so fingers crossed!

I have the next lot of beans planted out the front, and they are looking good, so it doesn't really matter so much.  I have the attitude (and this is true of the ratty issue and this seasons plum situation too), that I'll take what I can, or reasonably should, and if other creatures or plants in the system need to do this too, that's ok, it's a bit of give and take.  Having said that, it is just as well that I'm not relying on my garden for absolute subsistence!   But I'm learning from what does and doesn't work, conducting the garden activities in a more orderly manner now and documenting the process, which should all help as I trundle along.  Oh, and mentioning the rats again...the games continue as when I came back from Rye all of the half developed corn cobs had been stripped from the stalks.  When the dogs are away the rats will play....oh the woe of these before and after shots!

The doggles have been going nuts trying to get into the fenced garden now...my bet, clever rat knows it's the only place in the garden they can't get to!   Gems and Hugs can get their heads quite a way through this mesh if they want to and are now destroying whatever plant matter within reach in the effort to get to rattus.  Note to self...need smaller gauge mesh!

rats!

We have some resident rats here...I'm was never worried about them as we've never had any (or mice) in the house and they keep the dogs endlessly amused as they run along the fence railings.  That was until now!  I came home from the beach with the doggles as it was getting dark last week and there was the little blighter (well, no so little actually!) up on the apple arch.

I had been wondering for a while what had been causing this kind of damage to the apples.  Definitely not birds who peck bits here and there...this was consistent nibbling to one apple at a time until the last bit would disappear.  I was suspecting rats and that was well and truly confirmed.  I called the dogs and they went nuts once they saw the rat up there...they were jumping and yelping, the rat didn't know which way to go and finally launched itself off one side of the arch and unfortunately doggles were not quick enough.  There were two repeats of the same, one in the early hours of Sunday morning (aarrgh, followed by a very drooby Sunday).  Although the apples are being saved from rat nibbling, the kerfuffles have caused most of the still very green apples to be knocked off the tree.  I've saved these couple...the bigger one was looking beautiful too :o(....with the hope that they might ripen off the tree.

Besides the failures in the garden (there have been more too - grrrr!), I've gotten back to making with some leather and have been finding that as I make I'm sorting the remnant pieces into streams suitable for their use.

This piece goes into the unusual/unique/interesting stream where anything might go!  More to come on this next adventure...