As a counterpoint to last week’s Secret Garden, which suggested that we ought to make peace with the natural world, I want to talk this week about one of the most destructive insects on the Downs – Queensland fruit fly. If any native insect can be fairly regarded as a pest it’s Bactrocera tryoni. Without some form of intervention, it will breed to plague proportions and happily render an entire crop of fruit inedible. Does this advice contradict what I wrote last week? Not on your nelly. There are very sound practical and social reasons to control fruit flies in the home garden.

Before we discuss the various control strategies, it helps to understand what we’re actually trying to control. Queensland fruit fly looks like a cross between a housefly and a wasp about seven millimetres long. It is a native insect that occurs naturally along the subtropical east coast of Australia where it can build up in huge numbers during the summer, particularly after periods of warm, humid weather. Colder areas like Stanthorpe offer some resistance by way of winter frosts. Here, numbers build later in the season compared to relatively frost free zones, where the flies can become a problem as early as September.

Almost all fruiting plants are susceptible to fruit fly damage. The female lays her eggs in a piece of ripening fruit, and after an incubation period of just a couple of days, maggots hatch out, spoil the flesh and often cause the fruit to drop onto the ground. To help break the breeding cycle, good hygiene is vital. Clean up any fallen fruit or let chooks into the orchard to do it for you. Monitoring is also helpful. Now, late winter is the time to hang one of the various bait stations (available from nurseries) in the orchard and it should be checked weekly to get an indication of how fly populations are going. Once flies start to appear in the traps,  control strategies should be implemented.

When you boil it down there are three main ways to reduce fruit fly damage: one is to spray with a toxic chemical; another is to spray/bait with a certified organic product; and the third is to exclude the flies from ripening fruit.

Short of moving to Tassie, where fruit flies don’t exist, the surest guarantee of an undamaged crop is by spraying a chemical such as Lebaycid. For me this simply isn’t an option. One of the reasons I grow fruit at home is to take back control over the stuff I put in my mouth from the dictates of multinational companies. In my backyard I choose not to use toxic chemicals already banned in lots of developed countries overseas, and the majority of backyard growers I’ve talked to do likewise.

This leaves two poison-free options for dealing with fruit fly: organic baits and exclusion. Baits have been around for years and lots of gardeners make their own using various foul smelling concoctions. These home made baits tend to be almost useless, at best attracting only the male. The females won’t enter small holes, so they fly off to mate with the blokes down the road. Hussies!

A better choice is a certified organic product such as EcoNaturalure. This next generation bait contains a natural insecticide called spinosad, and works by attracting both male and female flies with a protein rich lure. The product is “splashed” onto the trunks of trees or sprayed onto boards hung throughout the orchard. If you follow the manufacturer’s instructions closely you should get a success rate of about 75 to 80 percent  undamaged fruit, but there’s one major downside. In warm districts, EcoNaturalure needs to be applied weekly from early spring until all fruit is harvested.

The other non-toxic strategy is exclusion. This works by either slipping a purpose made bag over ripening fruit, preventing access to the female flies, or by using fine weave netting to cover an entire tree. Exclusion is highly effective, however slipping a bag on every piece of fruit is very tedious, even for the most dedicated amateur. Netting is more convenient, but can be quite costly for a large home orchard.

All things considered, my approach here at Thistlebrook is to use the right control strategy for the right situation. For shy bearing plants, exclusion bags work a treat, but in my espalier apple orchard, for example, I’m planning to use fruit fly netting. In all I have more than fifty fruiting trees in the garden so the most effective, economical and practical solution is organic baiting. There’s no doubt that I’m making a compromise. But it’s a compromise I’m prepared to make for the sake of home grown fruit that’s abundant, delicious and chemical free.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 28th August 2010. Photo by Kathy Kimpel via flickr.com.

It’s brutal, unrestrained warfare. Me versus them. The lone, heroic gardener armed only with a pressurised spray pack, a pair of plastic goggles and a respirator, taking on a swarming, orc-like army of pests vying for ultimate control of the garden. To the victor shall go the spoils, namely basketfuls of home grown fruits and vegetables necessarily laced with a cocktail of toxic chemicals.

This is the way some so called “gardening experts” distort the gentle art of growing your own food. Theirs is a world of paranoia, where pests lurk around every corner, waiting patiently until the cover of darkness to wipe out a ripening tomato or a broccoli leaf. Like suburban Kim Jong-ils with better haircuts and cooler spectacles, they have stockpiles of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides sitting innocuously in their garden shed. Unlike the North Korean supreme leader, the warrior gardeners have no hesitation in using these backyard weapons of mass destruction on anything that dare spoil their infantile notions of garden perfection.

To those gardeners who fit the description above, here’s a reality check: there is no such thing as the perfect, blemish free garden. Real gardens will always contain weeds. They’ll always be attractive to insects that feed on fruit and foliage. They’ll always be prone to fungus “attacks” when the weather is warm and humid. And guess what. All the midnight fretting and gung-ho spraying in the world ain’t gonna change it. In fact, such practices will probably make your problems worse.

My approach to “pest control” is somewhat more relaxed. In part, this is a reflection of my personality, as much as my beliefs – I consider myself a fairly gentle soul. A peace lover. It takes a lot to get me really riled, and as far as I can remember, the last time I punched someone in the nose was way back in Grade 8 when I took on a bloke called Donald who was bullying a deaf kid. I’m anything but a saint, yet for whatever reason, I mostly manage to vent my spleen by means like the pen, rather than the sword.

So backyard warfare’s not my game. I get asked all the time what spray should be used for such and such a pest, and I’m tempted each time to suggest doing nothing at all. More often than not, that’s what I do – nothing. I rarely spray, and when I do, it’s with something organic that is as gentle as possible. I’m not out to beat the bugs, and I have no delusions of control over the natural world. I’m keen to make peace, not wage war.

What I’d like to see is gardeners practising something along the lines of the Slow Food movement’s concept of “the co-producer”. Consider this quote from the Slow Food Australia website:

“We consider ourselves co-producers, not consumers, because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of – and a partner in – the production process.”

To me the key word is partner. Slow Food advocates are determined not to simply act like leaches on the ample backside of industrial farming, bleeding it dry. They’re not parasites or competitors. They’re partners. What would it look like if gardeners took a similar approach by partnering with nature rather than constantly fighting against it?

The starting point would be a radical shift in attitude. A myth still prevails that human beings must dominate and subdue the natural world with the aim of fashioning a sense of order and control from something chaotic and hostile. My rebuff for this argument is to point to the catastrophic floods currently drowning Pakistan. It is an act of pure pretence, and indeed arrogance, to believe that the natural world can be tamed. It cannot. So instead of deluding ourselves with the notion that we can bend nature to fit around us, we need to do the opposite – find ways that we can shape our lives to fit with nature. That’s what partners do.

From the point of view of a determined fruit and veg grower, I’m pragmatic enough to acknowledge that there will be times when some sort of intervention is justified. I’m not suggesting that you never, ever, spray. But much of what gets passed off as gardening advice bears more resemblance to the totalitarian ravings of backyard megalomaniacs than it does practical wisdom. My advice is to put down your chemical weapons. We are not at war. Nature is not the enemy.

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.

To dig or not to dig, that’s the question. If you’re part of the legion of new vegie gardeners taking up the spade in a quest for the good life, you could be forgiven for wondering who you should believe. The advice seems completely contradictory. Should one take the advice of the no-dig advocates, who argue passionately for the spade to be left in the shed, or is it safest to believe the traditional gardeners, who argue that theirs is a tried and true method refined over hundreds of years? Or is there a third way that finds some common ground between the two extremes?

We’ll get to the answer later, but first, let’s explore what I mean by “no-dig” gardening. The concept has actually been around for decades, just under different names. It began in the1930’s with the Japanese farmer/philosopher/scientist Masanobu Fukuoka, who from 1938 until his death in 2008, experimented with various small scale farming techniques that he collectively referred to as “natural farming”. Fukuoka’s philosophy was based on a simple concept: the farmer should interfere as little as possible with natural processes. Crops could be grown, he argued, without machines, with no prepared fertiliser and no chemicals, yet attain yields equal to or greater than the conventional Japanese farm.

One of the main components of the Fukuoka approach was to use ancient techniques like cover cropping and seed balls in order to totally avoid having to cultivate the soil. Fukuoka’s concept was characterised as “no-till” farming and enthusiastically embraced during subsequent decades by both agricultural scientists and the growing band of farmers interested in natural farming methods. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s though, that a Sydney gardener named Esther Deans applied Fukuoka’s techniques to the domestic backyard.

In two well regarded books, Deans outlined the concept of “no-dig” gardening. Her basic idea was to build garden beds above the soil surface by layering various materials on top of each other like a kind of horticultural lasagne. Layer one is wet newspaper laid on the soil (or lawn) surface to smother weeds and grass. Layer two is straw or lucerne hay. Layer three is organic fertiliser such as pelletised chicken manure, or blood and bone. Layer four is straw. Layer five is manure. Layer six, the top layer, is good quality compost. Each layer is watered progressively as the beds are built.

Anyone who’s done a spot of composting will know what’s going here. When first made, a true no-dig garden is basically a fancy compost heap. A high nitrogen material (manure) combined with a high carbon material (straw) will decompose in the presence of moisture and oxygen, creating a soil-like material (humus) that is okay for growing plants in.

No-dig advocates claim a slew of advantages over traditional techniques. No-dig gardens don’t need to be cultivated, thereby eliminating damage to fragile soil flora and fauna. They are perfect for those who are unable to wield heavy tools. They are more fertile than traditional gardens. They can be made over really poor soil or even solid concrete.

Sounds great, doesn’t it. In practice, no-dig isn’t as simple as it appears, especially long term. As no-dig gardens decompose, they shrink, and need to be constantly topped up with copious quantities of organic matter. When built over a hard pan, serious drainage problems can develop in wet conditions. No dig garden beds need to be either really narrow or modular for ease of access. Then there’s the myth shattering truth that vegetables need to planted, and planting (even sowing) requires some degree of cultivation. There ain’t no such thing as a totally “no dig” vegetable garden.

So in answer to my original question, to dig or not to dig, my approach is to find a middle way. I’ve tried no-dig gardening, and it proved a tricky proposition. Instead, my philosophy is one of minimal till. I believe there are times when a good dig is beneficial for both the health of the garden, and the health of the gardener. While I don’t advocate the old techniques of double digging and annual winter cultivation, I have no qualms about digging in a green manure crop, cultivating the soil as part of my annual crop rotation, or growing carrots in ground worked to a fine tilth.

I suppose what I’m saying is that there’s a case to be made for digging, but with restraint rather than abandon. Before putting spade to soil, I try to use my brain. I ask myself questions, things like: “why massacre earthworms if I don’t have to”; and “do I really need dig this particular bed, or am I blindly following convention”. In gardening, as in life, the real answer is all about finding a healthy sense of balance.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 29th June 2010.

You’d never guess it from the utter lack of publicity it’s received, but 2010 is officially the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity. The term “biodiversity” gets bandied around a lot these days (including in Secret Garden!), but what does it actually mean?

Simply put, biodiversity is short for “biological diversity”. It describes the total range of life-forms within a given ecosystem or biome, and suggests that the more biodiverse an ecosystem, the more resilient it is to disruption. In geographical terms, tropical biomes along the equator tend to be the most biodiverse on earth, while the poles tend to be the least biodiverse.

From my point of view as a passionate home gardener, biodiversity has three main implications – habitat creation/preservation, resistance to pests and disease, and conservation of genetic diversity. Let’s look at each of them in turn.

Habitat Creation/Preservation

We share our gardens with all kinds of life forms, from soil dwelling micro-organisms to native animals. As such, I believe we have a moral responsibility to preserve habitat for native species where it already exists, and where it doesn’t exist, to create new habitat.

Habitat creation isn’t too difficult. Mostly it involves a change of attitude that is more tolerant and inclusive of species other than Homo sapiens. Beyond that, it is largely about providing water, shelter and food for native animals by planting a diversity of species that are either indigenous to your area, or well suited to your particular climate. I’m not a native plant fanatic, favouring instead an eclectic garden full of plants from all over the world, but I do think it’s important to set aside at least part of the garden for “the birds”.

Resistance to Pests and Disease

The internationally renowned garden designer Paul Bangay, who was in Toowoomba last year, is famous for using a plant palette consisting of just a handful of species. In one of his books, he says that “I love those occasions when a site gives me the opportunity to use only two kinds of plant or even one, but lots of that one or two.” While Bangay’s gardens are undeniably elegant, his statements from a biodiversity point of view are way off the mark.

Let’s cut to the chase: the fewer the number of plant species within a garden, the more vulnerable it is to attack from every pest and disease under the sun. And as a consequence of limited diversity, the more necessary it is to drench the garden in chemicals to keep it healthy. If you want to reduce, or eliminate your use of toxic chemicals in the garden, the quickest way to shoot yourself in the foot is to “use only two kinds of plant or even one”. In agriculture, this would be called a monoculture. Biodiverse gardens comprised of many plant species are more likely to be healthy gardens.

Conserving Genetic Diversity

Consider, if you will, the humble spud. For centuries it has been one of the most important, and reliable, foodstuffs eaten by human beings, to the point that the International Potato Centre in Peru maintains a collection of about 5,000 individual varieties.

Now consider the Irish Potato Famine. By the mid 1800’s, the Irish had been growing the potato for more than 200 years. But due to a range of social and political factors, the lower classes of the population had become almost entirely dependant on the plant for food, with a single variety in particular dominating plantings across the country.

The Lumper tasted awful, but was nutritious and had the virtue of producing very heavy yields per acre. It’s major vice was that it was disease prone, and in the autumn of 1845, the fungal disease “late blight” wiped out the nations entire crop. Approximately one million people died from starvation and disease, a quarter of the population.

The moral of the story is simple, yet profound. Reduce genetic diversity far enough, and there’s a very real risk of starvation. Conversely, increase and preserve genetic diversity and food becomes more secure. It also becomes more democratic. The seed of heirloom varieties can be saved, and distributed to friends, increasing the gene pool even further.

I’d encourage each of you to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity in your own backyard. Set aside a part of the garden where you can plant Australian natives to provide habitat. Rethink the minimalist approach to garden design in the light that the shelves in your garden shed will inevitably groan with poisons. Grow old fashioned fruit and vegetable varieties. Do your bit to preserve the genetic diversity of our food producing plants, and enjoy the myriad of flavours, colours, textures and origins as part of the bargain.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 19th June 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Roberta’s Garden, Pittsworth.

Mention the words “winter vegetable garden” and one plant immediately springs to mind – the humble, and much maligned cabbage. I picture ornamental rows of big ruby red drumhead varieties, all standing bravely against the worst weather that a Darling Downs winter can bring. There’s one problem with this image though. It’s the sight of slimy, boiled cabbage being unceremoniously dumped onto a dinner plate beside slices of corned beef. To me, it looked and tasted like boiled seaweed. Don’t even mention the “wind”.

Do you share my dilemma? On the one hand, I love the look of a winter garden full of cabbages. On the other hand, I absolutely loathe eating the things. Since my gardening philosophy is to concentrate on growing what the family likes to eat, I’m very choosy about the cabbage varieties I grow, and of the few that make the cut, most of the plant will end up in the gizzard of a chook. Fortunately, they don’t share the same sense of repulsion.

I’m probably being a bit unfair to what is actually a valuable, nutrient-rich vegetable. Half the problem was that my Mum, who is otherwise a first-class cook, probably didn’t know how to cook it. Maybe it’s a hereditary thing. Mum is of Scottish descent and I guess that meant that vegies were either roasted or boiled. If she was Irish, I might have scored colcannon. If she was German, sauerkraut would have been the go. Even bubble and squeak would have gone down alright. But boiled it was.

There I go again, deriding an innocent vegetable. Poor thing. Let’s see if I can put the image of boiled seaweed out of my head and highlight some of the cabbage’s good points. For one, it is about the hardiest winter vegetable there is. Cabbages, and their closely related cousins the kales and choys, contain natural anti-freeze which allows them to easily cope with frosts down to minus 10 or lower.

I wasn’t kidding when I said that cabbages are packed with nutrients. They are particularly high in Vitamin C, making them useful for warding off winter ills, and also have high levels of calcium, fibre and Omega-3 fatty acids. There’s evidence to suggest that cabbages can help prevent cancer due to their high levels of antioxidants.

Neither was I kidding about ornamental value. The crinkly leaves of savoy cabbages are especially beautiful, and red drumhead varieties look good when backlit by a low winter sun. Some of rocket-shaped sugarloaf cabbages look pretty, but my favourite of the lot is Tuscan kale or cavolo nero. The Italian name translates as “black cabbage” and indeed, the foliage combines an unusually dark, slate green colour with lance-shaped, savoy leaves.

The other good thing about cavolo nero, is that it’s actually edible. Delicious in fact. I like it pan-fried in olive oil with chopped bacon and garlic, then mixed through mashed potato. Maggie Beer does a lovely looking bruschetta with cavolo nero, and describes it as “a rustic dish for which I would travel miles.” Perhaps I do like eating cabbages after all.

There are three rules to bear in mind when growing cabbages, and any related members of the Brassicaceae family such as broccoli, cauliflower and rocket. The first is that they love rich, well drained soil. Manure heavily, add well rotted compost, and plant cabbages after a crop of nitrogen fixing legumes (beans or peas). The second is that cabbages appreciate a sweet soil, so incorporate about a handful of dolomite lime per square metre to raise the pH if required.

Finally, time your crop to mature when the weather is cool. Considering that spring on the Downs can be warm and dry, the best time to plant cabbages is in autumn, with harvest occurring progressively through winter. It’s not too late to get some plants in now. Brassicas grow easily from seed, and this is a good way to experiment with some of the old fashioned varieties. Depending on the variety, you might need to plant as far as half a metre apart.

Pests are few. Possums will eat the tender young leaves, but the main enemy of most brassica growers are those frustratingly persistent cabbage white butterflies. Their numbers are much reduced during winter, but in warmer areas, you have two choices to keep them at bay: netting the plants, or spraying with non-toxic “Bt” (Bacillus thuringiensis, sold as Dipel).

There you go – cabbages are a virtuous plant after all. Does this mean that I’ll be filling my patch with them? Probably not. I’ll always find room for cavolo nero and stuff like bok choy, but I still can’t come at the big drumheads. By all means give them a go, but for me, the sight of slimy boiled cabbage has left a permanent scar.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 12th June 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Tuscan Kale or Cavolo Nero.

All over the world the line between gardening and farming is rapidly being blurred. In the so called “rust-belt” of the United States, which includes declining industrial icons like Detroit and Pittsburgh, suburban wastelands full of derelict houses are being reclaimed for use as miniature farms. In debt stricken Los Angeles, micro farming businesses utilising rented backyards are springing up like California Poppies.

In the UK, an innovative scheme called Landshare brings together people with a plot of land to spare with those who want to grow their own food but have nowhere to do it. The project has got off to a flying start since launching last year. More than 47,000 members have joined the scheme, with back gardens, church yards, rural plots and even pub gardens being snapped up by land-sharers as soon as they become available. The UK’s National Trust has seen value in the scheme and has pledged to make available 1000 growing plots.

Even here in Toowoomba, a growing band of suburban gardeners are replacing ornamentals with edibles. At Gardenfest last weekend I got chatting with an experienced gardener about his interest in producing organic food. So keen is the bloke that he’s removed most of his rare plant collection, and is filling his 800sqm block with fruit trees and vegies.

This is all exciting stuff for a keen home grower like me to witness. I can’t help but think that finally, after decades spent filling gardening books with ornamentals and relegating fruit and vegies to the appendix, we’re starting to get the message that land is a precious resource, best used productively. I’m hopeful that we’re over the false notion that crops are grown on farms and gardens are made for the dual purpose of boosting property values, and making us feel warm and fuzzy.

Historically, the lines between gardening and agriculture have been unequivocally blurry. Right up until the boom period following World War II, and for a while thereafter, small, private gardens the world over were full of fruit, vegies, chooks and flowers all happily coexisting alongside kids playing summer games under the sprinkler. In a sense, everyone farmed. Just about every garden was productive. Then along came rising incomes. Cheap food produced using cheap energy flooded supermarkets, and with it came the perception that home grown food was something done in the Third World, not a prosperous country like Australia. Fruit trees were cut down and vegie patches became archaeological relics lost under a landscape of turf and conifers. Or worse. How many productive gardens have been lost to the frivolity of plunge pools and outdoor kitchens?

But cheap energy is now nostalgia. The fiasco unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico should remind us of what we all learned in basic primary school science: fossil fuels are finite, and logic suggests that if we use up enough of them, one day they’ll run out. What’s going to fuel the combine harvesters then? Where will farmers grow food when nigh on all the productive farmland has been lost to open cut coal mines and salt water spewing gas wells? We might be able to power the odd car and lightbulb, but how will we fuel our bodies?

The answer is right under our noses! It’s already arrived. Millions of gardeners have already turned the ornamental garden over to backyard food production, and guess what – the outdoor kitchen was never as useful as the indoor one and the plunge pool was useless in winter! Plus, as a bonus, it turns out that the edible garden looks just as pretty as the “ornamental” garden but is far more satisfying.

The word “agriculture” is derived from two Latin words – ager, meaning field, and cultura meaning cultivation. Taken literally, agriculture means “cultivation of a field”. Whether that field is the size of cricket oval or just a courtyard, if you’ve made up you’re mind to cultivate it, you’re engaged in agriculture. If that cultivation produces edible crops, as far as I’m concerned, you’re farming.

In the current issue, Time magazine has named its annual top 100 list of people who most affect the world. Alongside household names like Barack Obama, Sachin Tendulkar and Lady Gaga is Will Allen, a 62-year-old African American, six-foot-seven-inches tall former professional basketball player. Allen is an urban farmer. From a two-acre site in a poor Milwaukee neighbourhood, he produces a quarter of a million dollars worth of food that helps feed 10,000 people. Allen’s Growing Power foundation teaches people how to grow their own, and works on the motto “Grow. Bloom. Thrive.” Sounds like a pretty decent idea to me. What about you?

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle, 8th May 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – “Spring Vegies”.

When it comes to Easter, who do you believe? If the hardware stores had their way, we’d all be stocking up on supplies for a four day burst of DIY. Believe the camping stores and we’d all be heading off to a national park or a beach for a four day “escape”. Believe the bottle shops and we’d all spend the long weekend on a bender. I sure as heck don’t believe the supermarkets, but if I did, I’d spend four days eating chocolate and hot cross buns.

Here’s what I believe: faith still has its place. For me Easter is, amongst the chocolate, camping, and DIY, a time to reflect upon the big issues. Chief amongst these are life and death. If this sounds dreadfully old fashioned, and more than a bit moribund on the second biggest holiday of the year, give me half a chance. Let’s make the connection with gardening. That is, after all, the topic of this column, so here goes. When you distil gardening down to its pure form, it’s not about plants or soil or beauty or nature. Strip all that stuff away, and gardening is essentially about the two biggies, life and death. Growth and decay.

At this point, I’m sure there are more than a few loyal readers reaching for the anti-ageing cream. It’s not hard to understand why – our culture is obsessed with youth. We’re terrified of decay and do almost anything, no matter how ridiculous, to avoid its inevitable conclusion. Hair gets dyed to rinse out the grey. Breasts get “enhanced” to resist the effects of gravity (good luck!). Food becomes a convenience remote from the reality that for human beings to eat, something that once lived must die. The concept of ageing gracefully has gone the way of the Tassie tiger.

Gardeners, however, are a wise lot and I’m hopeful that those of us who practice the ancient art know better. In the garden, decay isn’t something to be feared, but something to be celebrated as a part of the grand cycle of life. Plants grow, mature, decay, and then they die. Either that or they are eaten. When plants die or get eaten, they rot, and the process of decomposition forms humus, the building block of healthy soil. In turn, soil humus helps produce healthy plants, and so the cycle goes. Gardening is about life and death.

The early 20th century botanist Sir Albert Howard, one of the “fathers” of the organic farming movement, believed that the first principle of agriculture is that “there must always be a perfect balance between the processes of growth and the processes of decay.” The consequences of this balance, according to Howard, are “a living soil, abundant crops of good quality, and live stock which possess the bloom of health.”

Around the same time that Howard wrote these words, soil scientists found that they could effectively isolate the key elements in soil that nurture plants, namely nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous – NPK respectively. Once the three elements were identified, scientists were able to synthesise them. This was believed revolutionary at the time, in that the “problem” of soil fertility could now be solved by the mass production of synthetic fertilisers, rather than reliance on animal manures. Thus began modern industrial agriculture, and the NPK ratio can still be found on the back of every pack of commercially produced fertiliser.

For Howard the industrialisation of soil fertility more or less threw the balance of nature completely out of whack. Synthetic fertilisers could replace key elements in soil, but it couldn’t reinvigorate depleted topsoil and therefore violated the “Law of Returns”, Howard’s concept that what comes from the soil, must be returned to the soil to keep it healthy and productive.

I’d take this concept a step further by arguing that decay or death actually sustains, and gives meaning to, life. One can’t properly exist without the other, yet many households see decay as inconvenient, so they unwittingly break the cycle of nature by behaving as though death is absent from the equation. A prime example of this is when people put otherwise beautifully compostable plant waste in a green lidded wheelie bin that gets carted away once a week to become someone else’s problem. And pay for the privilege!

Compost your green waste, and return the black gold to the soil. Get some chooks and feed them kitchen scraps. Use their manure to feed some fruit trees, and complete the cycle by feeding any spoiled fruit to the chooks. There’s one sure way to affirm life this Easter, and that’s by accepting, and dare I say, celebrating death.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 3rd April, 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Davidson Arboretum, Highfields.

If this statement doesn’t hit you square between the eyes, nothing will: the world will run out of topsoil in 60 years. When I first heard scientist John Crawford make the claim on the ABC’s 7.30 Report a couple of weeks ago I was, literally, slack jawed. Sixty years! The implications of a number like this are massive, but when combined with a number like nine billion, the projected population of the earth in 2050, the figures are almost too much to comprehend.

Crawford, a professor at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Sustainable Solutions calls the soil depletion process “Peak Soil”. He points to China, where natural forces and industrial agriculture combine to deplete topsoil at a rate 57 times faster than it can be replenished. In the US, the National Academy of Sciences estimates the depletion rate to be 10 times. In NSW, the rate is about five times. To put the depletion in other terms, more than 75 billion tonnes of topsoil is lost annually and 80% of the world’s farming land is moderately or severely eroded.

Our topsoil bank, says Professor Crawford, will soon be empty. In Australia the problem is exacerbated because our rocks, which break down to provide the minerals in soil, are geologically ancient. Much of their weathering has already taken place. This means that our soils have generally lost much of their “goodness”, and most of the nutrients are stored in Australia’s existing plants. Read between the lines and you’ll realise that in Australia, an estimate of sixty years until the topsoil is depleted is likely to be very generous.

For those of you reading this article from the comfort of your lounge room, this might all seem a bit trivial, alarmist even. You rock up to your local supermarket week in and out to purchase a trolley full of food. Other than when banana prices skyrocket, it’s no big deal. The groceries get stacked in the pantry, eaten by the end of the week, and a fresh trip to the shops conducted 52 weeks of the year to replenish supplies.

What we’ve forgotten is Wendell Berry’s reminder that “eating is an agricultural act”. Those groceries lining the cupboard and the fruit bowl were grown by a farmer, on a farm, probably in soil. If you think soil depletion doesn’t affect you, it’s time to wake up. No topsoil by 2060 means widespread, aching hunger, the kind that compels people to fill their bellies with anything – even the dirt that once produced crops.

The good news, says Professor Crawford and other soil scientists, is that there are simple solutions to the problem. These solutions can be applied equally on a scale that ranges from a tiny backyard to a broad acre farm, and they can be very cheap to implement.

1. Keep the soil covered. Soil that has dried out during a drought has a diminished capacity to support microbial life and it’s more prone to being blown or washed away. Spread a layer of mulch, preferably something that will gradually break down to feed the micro-organisms in the soil. The use of cover crops in the vegie patch will perform a similar role.

2. Soil can be replenished. It takes time and effort to do so, but through the continual addition of organic matter to depleted soil, fertility can be significantly increased and microbial life enhanced. An added benefit of soils rich in organic matter is the capacity to store moisture. The easiest ways to improve soil at home are by making compost and growing green manures.

3. Avoid cultivating the soil. No till gardening isn’t practical (try growing carrots in non-sandy soil that hasn’t been dug), but we can all aim to make our practices minimum till. Don’t dig for the sake of exercise, and once soil has been dug, try to implement point one (above) as soon as possible. It’s also a good idea to regularly spell beds in the food producing garden.

John Crawford says that most people encounter soil as that inconvenient stuff that sticks to the sole of your shoe and has to be scraped off before entering the house. In other words we treat it like dirt. Those days have to end, and a new era of soil conservation – where we treat it not like dirt but an essential building block of life – has to begin. Start now in your own garden, and implore your friends to do the same. Unless you all want to eat hydroponic tomatoes. But then, where would we get the water?

First published in The Chronicle 13th February 2010.

Thanks ex-tropical cyclone Olga. What beautiful rain you’ve delivered, and just in the nick of time too. After great falls in December, January was a much drier than average month as those northerly winds and hot temperatures kicked back in. My garden was starting to look completely frazzled. But you’ve given us what we really needed – some respectable follow up rain. If the bureau’s right and we get further decent falls throughout February, we’ll be set up for a classic Downs autumn.

With extended periods of wet weather like we’ve had recently, there is a downside for gardeners. A warm, rainy week equals fungal disease. While some fungi are actually beneficial, there are those caused by pathogens that can wreak damage on plants that lack built in resistance. Sometimes the effects are superficial, affecting the gardener more than the plant. Rust on frangipani or canna leaves, for example. Sometimes though, fungal diseases can seriously damage a plant or its fruit, causing crop failures and in extreme cases, death.

Some of the more common fungal diseases you might encounter this week include: powdery mildew, a particular problem with cucurbits, roses and some perennials; blackspot, the major fungal problem with roses;  brown rot, a major problem with stonefruit; and wilt, fungal diseases that particularly affect tomatoes. There are many others of course, and their causes vary.

Lots of fungal diseases manifest during, or shortly after, periods of wet weather. But some prefer dry conditions, others are spread by a “vector” such as insect pests, while others can reside in the soil and become a problem when waterlogging occurs. Phytophthora is an example of the latter, known colloquially as “die back”. Diagnosis of this, and many fungal diseases, is particularly problematic for amateur gardens and few people are prepared to send samples off to a laboratory for proper identification.

Fortunately, fungal diseases can often be effectively controlled without a specific diagnosis, and through a number of different means. As with the human body, the most effective way to deal with fungal problems is through prevention. This can take the form of traditional plant breeding, where nurserymen select and develop plant cultivars that have built-in resistance to specific fungi, or through good cultural practices on the part of the gardener.

A case can be made for having a reasonably tidy garden. By cleaning up fungus affected leaves of roses and fallen fruit, for example, the gardener can prevent outbreaks of fungal disease occurring in the first place. Another means of prevention is by controlling vector insects like aphids and beetles so that they are unable to transfer fungal disease from plant to plant. Increase air circulation around susceptible plants, an even better, practice building a healthy soil full of beneficial micro-organisms. This will help plants naturally resist disease.

Sometimes though, prevention is best achieved by spraying. Many of the fungal diseases affecting fruiting plants, particularly stonefruit and others in the rose (Rosaceae family), can be stopped in their tracks by applying an over wintering spray. Being an organic gardener, I recommend using products that are acceptable under the Australian Organic Standard and in pragmatic terms, this means using either a copper-based spray such as Bordeaux, or lime sulphur.

Neither is ideal, but of the two, lime sulphur is the preferred option. Copper is a heavy metal. This means that it can accumulate and persist in the soil, and research indicates that it’s particularly harmful to earthworms and soil-borne organisms. It is an acceptable input under the new Australian Certified Organic Standard, but it’s worth noting that the European Union has banned the use of copper sprays and other countries are heading in a similar direction. Both copper and lime must be used in accordance with the manufacturer’s directions as they can be harmful to plants when applied incorrectly.

For minor fungal infections, there are even “softer” options available. Milk sprays are effective in preventing powdery mildew on grapes, roses and cucurbits. Simply mix one part full cream milk to nine parts water (or 100ml milk topped up with water in a one litre container) and spray on the foliage of susceptible plants every week or two. Potassium bicarbonate (sold as EcoRose) is also effective in preventing a range of minor fungal diseases, and some gardeners get decent results by spraying foliage regularly with seaweed extract.

Above all, it’s worth remembering an old gardener’s rule of thumb: if a fungal disease has already presented itself, then it’s too late for prevention. Control the existing outbreak and resolve to get in earlier next year.

First published in The Chronicle 6th February, 2010.