Growing with Love is about Caring

Growing with Love is about Caring:

From Cracking Clay to Something Wonderful in 18 months

 

Gavin Edwards
Good Heart Farm
Lapoinya, Tasmania

We bought the farm mid 2012. I made the first garden here, the Hobbit garden, thinking we were going to stay in the packing shed but the shed turned out to be too noisy near the road. So then we moved down the bottom to the cabin. Of course, I had to make another garden down there (the Magic Circle garden in 2013).

September 2014 saw Lisa wanting to go to a herb conference in Arizona. I was against leaving in spring - after all it was a major planting time - and if we don’t plant we have to buy shop food - yuk! Lisa was determined to go however, so I said I’d go and protect her (Women! I’m a sucker, I listened to my heart). Besides, it gave me a chance to hike the back trails in search of native edibles.

We were going to need to expand the garden anyway. So I built onto the back of the Circle and made the BC (Behind Circle) garden.
It took about three days.

 

We were about to leave - the day before I planted the beds out to potatoes - just finishing mulching before we left. Close call.
This is what it looked like in November 2014.

and December 2014

January 2015

 

We ate a lot of potatoes that year! In fact we were sick of potatoes. Luckily I had good lettuce and peas in the Magic Circle to break the monotony.



Later in the year my goodly neighbour, Stan, then gave us, you guessed it, sacks of spuds! I thanked him.

January 2016 - and we’d had very little rain all winter and spring. It turned out to be drought. The ground (clay loam) cracked, nobody had any grass - it was the worst drought this area had ever known. Wisely, I left some beds in the circle unplanted - I figured I might not have the water to water the crops with and as it turned out I was right. We had drought followed by 100 bushfires burning throughout Tassie. I watered all my beds in the BCg by hand with watering cans.

But inside the fence was a different matter. This is how it looked on the 29 January 2016.
 

 Yes, an explosion of Food!

The yellow vine above is Dutch Purple podded peas ripening - pea soup in winter - yum.

Lisa in the corn 16feb16

Cucumbers and squash above

A heritage cherry tomato here - planted late on the back fence. Had about 200 off two bushes.

 Pumpkins growing 21st Feb 16

"Pumpkin!"

The harvest basket 23 Feb 16. Button squash (Patterson Panache Juane et verte), cherry toms and purple beans.

 First of March
and the pumpkins are still exploding and threatening to take over the whole valley



Time to harvest some (no frost yet but somethings starting to gnaw one - so time to come out just in case)

7 March 2016

This was in the driest summer ever and watered with watering cans. No poisons or chemical sprays - totally organic - you CAN do it.

I call this Self-Sufficient Gardening™. It works.

If you want to learn how to grow with love please contact us at The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™

Hope to see you there!