Amid all last week’s hub-bub about asylum seeker policies, Spanish football, State of Origin football and footballers reacting badly to sleeping tablets, you might have missed a mysterious little news item about an act of horticultural sabotage in north Queensland. Around seven million plants, including four million tomato seedlings, have been killed after they were deliberately poisoned at a seedling nursery in Bowen.

Police believe herbicide was injected into the nursery’s irrigation system, and the rumours are flying. Some say the poisoning was an act of industrial sabotage. Some suggest that another grower was trying to force up tomato prices. Others are even claiming the poisoning was an act of terrorism.

Whatever the motive, the repercussions from this event are obvious. Bowen is the largest winter growing tomato region in Australia, harvesting 80% of the nation’s crop during spring. The loss of millions of seedlings means that if you were planning to make chicken parmigiana sometime in September, one of the main ingredients just got a whole lot more expensive. Prices are expected to triple over the coming months and reach in excess of $15 per kilo.

The loss of a crop is a devastating blow for any farmer, and I wouldn’t wish such an event on anyone. It’s also a serious blow for farm labourers and nursery workers who’ll need to look elsewhere for a job. But while this event is a difficult pill to swallow for those directly involved, I also think it can serve as a timely reminder of the problems associated with the industrial model of food production, and the urgent need for us to get back to basics.

Some of the issues are immediately obvious. Throughout southern Australia tomatoes are a summer crop. However in our society’s desire to have whatever food it wants, whenever it wants it, we’ve largely abandoned the time honoured practice of eating whatever produce is currently in season. Instead, we either eat processed food when fresh produce isn’t available, or worse still, import produce from overseas. In the case of winter tomatoes, we don’t seem to have any qualms about transporting produce via fossil fuel powered vehicles across thousands of kilometres, a process associated with the concept of “food miles”.

Less obvious in the Bowen tomato sabotage is the issue of food security. Unlike our ancestors, who grew fruit and vegetables and kept backyard livestock, we find ourselves in a position of extreme vulnerability when it comes to food supplies. Almost every household is dependent upon supermarkets, but to minimise inventory sitting idly in warehouses, the supermarkets operate according to a “just in time” delivery system. It’s estimated that there is just three day’s supply of food actually stocked on the shelves.

When demand exceeds supply, fresh produce prices go up. But when calamity strikes, prices skyrocket to unaffordable levels. This happened following Cyclone Larry when a large portion of North Queensland’s banana crop was wiped out, and it will happen as a result of the Bowen tomato poisoning.

The solution to the issues of food security, dependence upon supermarkets and long distance transportation, is simple. It’s also affordable, and empowering. It builds community. It leads to improvements in physical and mental wellbeing. It is, of course, to grow your own food, right in your own garden.

I’ve been growing my own fruit, vegetables and herbs since Kylie and I got married in 1998. Twelve years later and we reckon that in summer, our garden supplies about 80 percent of our fresh produce requirement. Supermarkets are still a necessary evil. But we seek to make up some of the shortfall by swapping with neighbours and buying things locally. We’re not aiming for total self sufficiency, but we are determined to grow as much as possible.

There’s more to it than pure economics though. Something I’ve realised in the last year or two is that alongside my wife and kids, food growing is one of the great passions of my life. When I’m outside digging in my vegie garden or working in the orchard, I experience the kind of deep, pit of your guts satisfaction that comes from directly suppling my family’s need for food.

If I could turn the clock on my gardening efforts back to 1998, I’d only change one thing. I’d plant more fruit trees. That’s it. Growing my own food has been one of the best things I’ve done in my life to date, and I’d encourage you too, to take up the spade, align yourself with the seasons and bring forth from the soil a bounty richer than you have ever imagined!

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 18th July, 2010.

Next week the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference kicks off, but already climate is the word on everyone’s lips thanks to the Liberal Party of Australia. Professor Ross Garnaut described the issue as diabolical for policy makers, but you would have been canny indeed to predict that an Australian political party would willingly feed itself through the shredder because it couldn’t fathom the idea that human activity might be warming the planet.

For us gardeners, climate change is a vexing issue. Its unpredictability means that none of us are really sure how we ought to deal with it. Denial is tempting. It would be really nice if nothing changed, but you’d have to be living under a rock to ignore the increasing volatility of our climate here on the Downs. To work with plants and soil and seasons is getting trickier by the day.

I feel like I should state categorically my position on climate change. Some readers have asked, and I see no sense in keeping you in the dark. So here goes. It’s my view that the overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists have made a compelling case that human activity is warming the planet, to the detriment of human existence. I believe that we need to take collective action to reduce the emission of polluting gases into the atmosphere, and I disagree entirely with the fantastical notion that environmentalism is all part of a plot by failed communists. Should I honestly start warning my kids about the greens under their beds?

Let me add a caveat to what I’ve just said. I love the natural world, and can see that the environment is essential for life – without a healthy planet, we’re extinct. But I think it’s a great folly to become myopic about global warming, to see it as a stand alone issue. It’s not. While I support urgent action on global warming, I’d argue that whatever action we take must also encompass the suite of environmental issues including energy, water, chemical exposure, pollution, deforestation and species loss. Most, if not all of these are the result of excessive consumption, or put plainly, human greed and arrogance. A curtailing of emissions ought to be accompanied by a curtailing of these attitudes in tandem.

So that’s where I stand. I’ve got no doubt that some of you are now rejoicing and others are branding me with whatever label you think fits (socialist/greenie/lefty – if I had to choose one I’d go for “agrarian”, just quietly). That’s your prerogative. Mine is to write about gardening, and to that end, I think the main way gardeners can best deal with climate change is by adhering to a simple principle: love the natural world.

That’s going to sound completely balmy to those of you who reached for your label a bit earlier. I hope you’ll read on, because I’m not suggesting that we all start hugging trees. My aim is to treat the environment the way I seek to treat my wife, with respect, compassion, admiration, gentleness and a desire to see her thrive.

To put this in a gardening context, it means I need to behave in a particular way. The starting point is to put my ego in my back pocket, and practise humility. The parcel of land I refer to as “my garden” might reflect my personality and tastes, but ownership exists only by means of a piece of paper. The true role of the gardener is one of caretaker, or to use an old fashioned term, steward. Above all else, gardening in a changing climate means that I have a responsibility to exercise great care in how I manage the land, since I am only keeping it on behalf of future generations.

Whether you’re a climate sceptic or not you, whether you believe in emissions trading as a means of limiting global warming or not, the crux of the issue is plain and simple. Backyard by backyard, suburb by suburb, our self-centredness and greed is stuffing up the planet. But in my mind at least, the solution is just as plain and equally simple. If we can get over ourselves and learn to love the natural world within the patch of dirt we have responsibility for, there’s plenty of hope to suggest that our newfound sense of stewardship can extend to the environment beyond the backyard. It’s time to get real. Put politics aside, acknowledge the mess we’ve made of the world, and starting in your own garden, make every effort to put things back in order.

First published in The Chronicle 5th December 2009. Photo by Justin Russell.

“The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.”

- Shakespeare

The first big frost of the season struck last Friday. The temperature got down to minus six at Thistlebrook, which isn’t quite as cold as the two black frosts of July 2007, but is still a pretty heavy freeze for this part of the world. This morning I toured the garden to assess the damage. The results aren’t pretty.

Nasturtiums, plants I like to use in the vegie patch as a companion, are a complete wipe out and now resemble a slimy ooze with the scent of rotten mustard. But I expected that. They’re tender annuals, and plenty of seed was set for next summer.  The agapanthus always get badly damaged in a decent freeze, but I expected that too.  The same goes for the cannas, which at least have enough dignity to turn the colour of a brown lunch bag, rather than becoming a pile of slime. They bounce back, and would have been cut down in the next month or two anyway.

A couple of plants confirmed my suspicions. All the citrus – a Valencia orange, an Imperial mandarin and a blood orange – fared poorly, and are now curled and crispy. The foliage on the Eureka lemon is fine, but the ripening fruit has turned to mush. I took a calculated risk with all of these plants, and considering they were covered on the coldest nights I’ve decided that most aren’t hardy enough to perform well and will most likely be replaced with something deciduous. A calamondin planted just a couple of months ago in the vegie garden looks fine, other than a slight darkening of the foliage.

Some of the grevilleas have been disappointing. My ‘Robyn Gordon’ did fine last year but this winter looks like it’s been sandblasted, and a recently planted hedge of Grevillea rhyolitica appears to be totally cactus. What annoys me is that this species was sold to me by the grower with the assurance that it would handle hard frosts. In my experience, it doesn’t.

That’s just some of the casualties, but what about the survivors. Most of my perennials and ornamental grasses are made for last week’s weather and breezed through unscathed. Ditto for all but one salvia. A hedge of Photinia ‘Camilvy’ is unperturbed, as is a Ceanothus ‘Blue Pacific’ hedge planted in one of the frostiest parts of the garden. Camellias continually prove their worth, and despite having very full buds, they too have come through totally unaffected. Anything deciduous, be it a tree or a shrub, has performed as beautifully as expected, and the couple of conifers that have found a place in the garden are a picture of rude health.

The lesson of this little tour through my frost ravaged garden is straightforward enough in principle: to save time and money, it’s best to choose fully hardy plants. Hardiness is one of those horticultural terms that constantly gets misapplied as a measure of general toughness, but I was taught that it actually refers to a plant’s ability to withstand subzero temperatures. Thus, a plant can be tender (disliking any frost), half-hardy (taking light frost only) or fully hardy. At my place temperatures can get down to minus 10, real brass monkey weather. Tender and half-hardy plants just don’t cut it.

In other words, I need to be more disciplined in my plant choices. This is tough medicine for someone who loves to grow stuff, but I’ve got no desire to see the garden become a hospital ward for ailing plants. If they can’t cut it, they have to go.

So for the next month or two, I’ll try to be ruthless. The casualties will be summarily grubbed out and given a rebirth as shredded mulch, and a selection of fully hardy plants will take their place. On the list are more temperate fruit trees (I can always find a spot for another heritage apple), and more deciduous shrubs. For years I’ve been a reluctant admirer of conifers, appreciating their toughness but finding them a bit stiff. They tend to be bone hardy though, so if a spot comes up, a conifer or two might get a look in as well.

Even writing this I’m finding it hard to stay disciplined. So many species, so little time! But the alternative – plants that get badly frosted every winter – leaves me…cold. The old mantra of the right plant for the right place rings truer than ever.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 20th June 2009. Photo by John Arnold.

Black Saturday. I don’t know about you, but I simply can’t pretend to understand the horror of seeing my loved ones engulfed in a firestorm, or the bitter disappointment of knowing my home’s gone up in smoke, or the sadness of returning to the scorched earth of a once flourishing garden.

We should acknowledge too, that while fires raged down south, the pointy end of the continent was mostly underwater. The floods in north Queensland and the Gulf are the worst in 30 years, inundating thousands of hectares of farming land and drowning umpteen head of livestock. Though I haven’t personally experienced a flood or a fire, my deepest sympathies are with those who have, and are. My thoughts are especially with those who have lost loved ones.

At times like this, it’s all too easy to start pointing the finger, apportioning blame. Already, just a couple of days after the bushfire, the Victorian Government is under attack for its approach to forest management and the controversial “stay and defend or leave early” policy. Instead of finger pointing, I believe that our initial response to events like those of last Saturday ought to be one of shared suffering, coupled with a deep questioning of our relationship to the natural world.

The fact that there even is a relationship might be a big enough question. Despite our attempts to subdue and control nature, to ignore it and pretend we either don’t need it or can use and abuse it, we depend on nature for our very existence. Without clean water and air, nutritious food and resources for shelter, all of which are gifts from nature, we would all cease to exist.

As gardeners, we like to think we relate well to nature, but do we really? Is the relationship mutually beneficial? Or do we gardeners attempt to control and manipulate nature to our own advantage? How mutually beneficial is a garden defined by elements like straight lines, severely clipped hedges, chemically controlled pests and mown lawns? I’m not suggesting an answer here, because all of these charges can be applied to my garden. But I do think we have to ask some honest, direct questions.

In his book Second Nature, the American writer Michael Pollan poses some uncomfortable questions regarding the relationship between gardeners and nature. These can probably be best summarised in his statement “A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.” To produce a weed-free sward of emerald green, we must control, manipulate and according to Pollan, dictate, all for our own benefit.

So are we as gardeners a bunch horticultural Idi Amins and vegetable growing Mussolinis? As the book progresses, Pollan goes on to talk about his struggles with a woodchuck that takes a fancy to his vegetables, and the weeds that continually overrun his wildflower meadow. He describes his fury, and outlines our darker attitudes toward nature, the willingness we have to exploit it for our short term advantage.

I don’t know if I’m being sentimental or not in suggesting that we relate more warmly to the natural world, but I am sure of one thing: nature is not our enemy. We don’t need to blitz it, or force it or rule it, and it doesn’t exist to be conquered and plundered like a distant colony rich in natural resources.

Perhaps we would be wise to heed a warning from the Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka:

“If we throw Mother Nature out the window, she will come back in through the door with a pitchfork.”

I don’t believe Mother Nature is out to get us, or that she exacts vengeance on those who treat her with contempt. Yet natural disasters like fire and flood, as tragic as they are, provide an opportunity to humble ourselves, and to work in harmony with nature whenever we can. Despite our hubris, the world does not revolve around us.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 14th February 2009

Finally, in what is proving to be a hot, windy, thirsty summer, some rain. Since last Friday, 49mm (2 inches) has fallen at Thistlebrook, and what a relief it is, to the gardeners as much as the garden. Not enough to really saturate the ground, but plenty to re-green the lawns, soak the vegie patch and give parched plants a welcome drink. Hopefully there is more to come.

To capitalise on the rain I’ve been out scattering a decent layer of sugarcane mulch to ornamental beds, and applying soil wetter and seaweed extract to those plants that have struggled in the last couple of dry months. Even managed to plant a couple of citrus trees.

Our rainwater tanks, which were as close to empty as they’ve ever been, arecurrently about three quarters full. This is comforting, in a warm doona on a frosty nnight kind of way, but considering the boom and bust patterns we’ve seen recently, what we really need are larger tanks. That way, when a boom occurs, we’ll have enough capacity to last for a decent couple of months with nary a sprinkle. Rule number one of harvesting rainwater: get the biggest tanks you can afford!