Australia’s 10,000 registered beekeepers are worried. In the last 20 years hive numbers across the country have halved, and the industry is currently battening the hatches for a perfect storm of multiple pressures on the European honeybee.

Chief among their concerns is the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This occurs when bees simply vanish from their hives leaving the capped brood and queen in abandoned colonies. CCD was first observed in Pennsylvania in 2006, and losses in North America and Europe have averaged about 30 to 40 percent in the years since. It is important to note that no cases of Colony Collapse Disorder have been recorded in Australia.

Does that mean we can rest on our laurels. Definitely not! Beekeepers are worried that a major outbreak of the feral Asian honeybee, which was first detected in Queensland in 2007, will bring into the country the parasite Varroa destructor, a mite that has been implicated in CCD overseas. In the long term, however, both varroa and the Asian honeybee can be controlled. The issue that really petrifies beekeepers is the growing use of insecticides.

Editor of the Australasian Beekeeper Journal, Des Cannon, wrote in a recent editorial that he regards “the use of pesticides in our environment as the single biggest threat to the survival of beekeeping”. Cannon singles out for special attention a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, so called new generation insecticides that have gained widespread usage since they were introduced in the mid 1990′s.

Neonics, as these chemicals are commonly known, include the popular garden insecticides Confidor and Conguard. Both products are systemic. This means that although neonics can be applied in a variety of ways – as a soil drench, a foliar spray, in granular form or as a seed treatment – they work by being absorbed into a plant’s vascular system where they are able to attack the nervous system of any insect that ingests the chemical.

Herein lies the problem with neonics such as imidacloprid and clothianidin: they are extremely toxic to bees. No big deal says Bayer CropSciences, the multinational company that sold more than a billion dollars worth of neonicotinoid products last year. They insist that bees spend little time foraging on infected pollen, that little if any neonic insecticide finds its way into hives, and if it does, the concentration is so low that the effect on hive health is negligible.

These claims are called into question by the findings of a Purdue University study released last week in the peer reviewed journal Plos One. Researchers found damning evidence that bees from hives located near neonic treated cornfields were exposed to insecticide in various ways throughout their foraging period, and were actively foraging on maize pollen.

Most alarmingly though, the research indicated that the neonic clothianidin was present on bees found dead at the entrance to hives as well as in pollen collected by the bees and stored inside the hive. Considering both imidacloprid and clothianidin are almost universally used in Australia as seed treatments for canola (some of which is also genetically modified), corn and other crops, beekeepers have every right to be concerned about the future of their livelihood.

So what can we as gardeners do to support the local honeybee population. Firstly, we ought to abandon formal style gardens for the environmental folly that they are and embrace a more relaxed, cottage style dominated by flowering plants such as daisies (among the best bee attracting plants), clovers, fruit trees, herbs and natives including grevilleas and dwarf eucalypts.

Secondly, and most importantly, gardeners should cease using imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid chemicals. Most pest problems can be solved in the long run by creating a biodiverse garden full of a broad range of plants, along with organic soil building techniques. The latter will help boost the immune response of plants, making them naturally resistant to any minor pest outbreaks that might occur.

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made an interesting comment on an Australian chat show last year. He said that “worms are more important than people, and the reason for that: worms can live on the earth without people, but we can’t live on the earth without worms.” Whether you love or hate what Watson does each summer in the Southern Ocean, his comment is spot on.

We’re not the centre of the universe. We can’t live on the earth without worms any more than we can without honeybees, so the sooner we get over ourselves, and drop the sense of entitlement that has infested all corners of our privileged society, the better.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 28th January 2011. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

Today, the Saturday of the Carnival of Flowers parade, is the biggest day of the year in Toowoomba and for the first time in a decade the Garden City is truly living up to its name. Thank goodness for summer rain. There was always going to be long term benefits from last January’s floods, and its fair to say they’ve arrived. The annual flowers appear to be brighter than ever and the new foliage on deciduous trees is the most exciting shade of lime green I’ve ever seen. Such a magnificent display is largely due to good soil moisture, flowing creeks and rivers, and full dams.

This year I’m hoping to get out to lots of local gardens to take it all in. I’d encourage you to do the same. So many people put in such a huge amount of work to get Toowoomba ready for Carnival that it would be a shame to see their efforts go to waste. Have a picnic in one of the city’s parks. Tour some of the prizewinning gardens. Have a wander through some of the outstanding exhibition gardens, open for charity. A spring like this doesn’t come around often so my advice is to breathe it all in and give thanks for nature’s beauty and abundance.

Then, once the parade floats are back in storage and the annuals are starting to fade in the summer heat, I’d urge you to do something else – take some time to reflect on what you’d like Toowoomba to be in the future. I know it’s an odd suggestion, especially on a day when we’re supposed to be celebrating everything great about Toowoomba, but the way I see it, the city is at a crossroads.

Toowoomba can go in one of two directions in the current decade: it can become the support centre for a vast extractive industry based around the mining of coal, and coal seam gas; or it can become the sustainable food and farming capital of Australia. Don’t fall for the hype that we can have a kind of hybrid future where mining and agriculture can coexist. They can’t. It’s one or the other, and the citizens of the Toowoomba region and our elected leaders have to make a choice.

The former option, Toowoomba as a mining support centre, is short-sighted in the extreme. It is short-sighted for the reason that we forget the simple scientific fact that every child gets taught in primary school – some resources are not renewable. In other words, mines have a lifespan. They are productive for two or three decades until the minerals therein are exhausted, and extraction becomes non-viable. There’s absolutely no doubt that during the lifespan of a mining project jobs and wealth will be created (as long as China keeps buying our resources), but the question we ought to be asking is what happens in 30 years when the gas rigs have rolled out of town and the open cut mines are being “rehabilitated”.

Toowoomba might be close to some non-renewable energy reserves, but let’s not forget that the city also sits smack bang in the middle of some of the richest farmland in Australia. To the east is the Lockyer Valley with it’s famous black soil. To the west, the fertile alluvial plains adjoining the Condamine River and its tributaries. To the north, productive red soil range lands prized for market gardens, dairying and livestock. And to the south, the Granite Belt, internationally renowned for its orchards and vineyards. If we look after our farmland it has the potential to feed and clothe a growing population for many decades to come.

For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to throw in my lot with a future based around sustainable farming and food so here’s what I’d love to see happen within the decade: greater support for the development of farmers markets and other innovative means of getting locally produced food to local communities; the creation of more food producing community gardens in Toowoomba and the larger towns; a kitchen garden in every school across the Toowoomba region; schemes to help enthusiastic young farmers get access to land; and most basic of all, rock solid protection of our best quality farmland from all forms of mining.

So what will we choose – Toowoomba the Mining City, or Toowoomba the Garden City? One promises to create rivers of gold for a short period of time but will come with long term by-products like pollution, degradation of farmland, and in the case of coal seam gas, mountains of salt spewed up in the drilling process. Toowoomba the Garden City might not create rivers of gold, but if managed well, it can sustain us well into the future. I’ve made my choice, and it’s to get back to the garden. What about you?

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 17th September 2011.

When Kylie and I were newly married and had moved into our first house, we were given a tiny little hand-me-down black and white TV. Being a long-time footy fan, I’d attempt to watch games in black and white, and Ill tell you, it was a seriously frustrating experience. It was almost impossible sometimes to distinguish between the opposing teams.

A year or so later we inherited another TV, still a tiny little box but this time, a whiz bang colour version. You can guess what happened. The change from watching the footy in black and white to watching it in vibrant colour was absolutely mind blowing.

This is how I like to think about spring – it’s as if nature is suddenly playing out in full colour, rather than black and white. Life appears to be bursting forth all over the place, and there’s an obvious sense of urgency in the air. The garden looks fresh, but I know that some plants are using up all their stored energy reserves and will soon be hungry. One of the major spring tasks for the gardener, therefore, is to provide nourishment. But there’s a catch: nourishment means a lot more in garden terms than simply throwing around a packet of urea or super-phosphate in the hope that it will “green things up”.

The true way to a healthy, well nourished garden is by continually building healthy, biologically active soil. Bottom line. Healthy soil is a diverse ecosystem full of decomposed rock minerals, decayed organic matter, micro-organisms, and beneficial fungi, and will therefore support plants that naturally resist pests and disease. By contrast, gardens that are over fed with artificial fertilisers look lush, but they’re actually bloated and sappy, fed on what is the equivalent of junk food.

I use no artificial fertilisers in my garden at all. Nothing is applied to the soil or a pot that is based on synthetic chemicals, which means no orange slow release pellets, no ammonia or urea, no super-phosphate and no soluble “liquid” fertilisers. None. These fertilisers damage, rather than enhance, soil life, so the only fertilisers I use are those made from natural products such as manure, blood and bone, worm poo, fish emulsion and rock minerals. This is not a boast, just a simple statement of my principles, and actions.

One of the reasons I abhor the use of chemical fertilisers is because in my view, they are weapons of violence and war. If you think this sounds far fetched, consider the history of chemical fertiliser use. It all began in the peace-time years immediately following World War Two. Munitions factories that had been making bombs from ammonium nitrate were re-purposed to produce cheap, nitrogen-rich agricultural fertilisers. More recently, ammonium nitrate fertiliser was used to make bombs used in July’s Mumbai bombings and confessed Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik even went as far as to purchase a farm so that he could access chemical fertilisers to make bombs.

This isn’t to say that chemical fertilisers can’t be used for peaceful purposes. Of course they can. There is also no doubt that the use of chemical fertilisers have greatly increased crop yields, and as a consequence fed billions of people. But so have natural fertilisers, and they can be used with few of the risks associated with synthetic chemicals.

One of the major issues arising from over reliance on artificial fertilisers is a serious deterioration in soil quality. Chemicals can provide specific plant nutrients, but they contribute nothing to the biological activity of soil and excessive use can lead to ground that is effectively dead – nothing more than a medium to keep plants from falling over. An obvious consequence of poor soil quality is even greater dependence on artificial fertiliser for a farm or garden to remain productive.

The washup is that I’m not what you’d call a gung-ho plant feeder. I never throw fertiliser around willy nilly, even if it’s a natural product, and I only fertilise in a limited range of scenarios: to give young seedlings raised in pots a healthy start; to provide nutrients to container plants grown in potting mix; to replace nutrients leached on very free draining soil; to ensure healthy growth of particularly hungry plants such as citrus trees and vegies; and to give a quick boost to heavily pruned plants such as roses.

I basically ignore all the gardening experts telling me to fertilise like there’s no tomorrow. Instead, my real concern is with the soil. I’ll use fertiliser when and if it’s required, but my overwhelming concern is with the health of my soil. Nourish it, and not only will my plants be well-fed, but I will be too.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th September 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, unfertilised cottage garden in spring.

Suddenly, after reading about them in an apple growing book of all places, I’ve developed an interest in mushrooms. Or more specifically, fungi. Mushrooms are nothing more than the fruiting bodies of a fungal organism running through some kind of substratum such as wood, or more commonly, soil. The organism itself takes the form of microscopic fibres called hyphae, which in turn form an underground, cotton wool like mass called a mycelium. You may have come across the white fibres of a mycelium while digging in the garden.

I don’t like to overstate things, but in the case of mycelium, mind blowingly awesome is the term that springs to mind. Mycelium can form underground networks many thousands of kilometres long, and is thought by scientists to be the largest organism in the world. A single fungus in Oregon, for example, has been found to cover an area equivalent to 1665 football fields and is estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.

Mycelium sequesters carbon dioxide. It plays a vital role in decomposing plant matter, and generally has a beneficial relationship with plants, aiding in water absorption, distributing nutrients, and conferring resistance to soil borne pathogens. There is evidence that fungi can “bio-remediate” polluted land, protect houses from termites, and at least one mushroom expert, mycologist Paul Stamets, has argued that the solution for the nuclear contamination around Fukushima, is mycelium. You can encourage the growth of mycelium in your garden by ceasing the use of toxic fungicides.

No less remarkable is the use of fungi as food. If I’m ever forced to choose a final meal, a contender would have to be fried mushrooms, seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme and a splash of Tabasco sauce, served on home baked sourdough toast. Or plain old mushies on toast. It’s a dish fit for a king in my opinion, and the Holy Grail for me is to cook it up with mushrooms that I’ve grown myself, or better still, foraged from the wild.

Every autumn, a couple of different fungi appear beneath a stand of Monterey Pines along our front boundary, and another type always pop up in large clumps in various parts of the lawn. With the hope of scoring a free breakfast or two, I bought myself a mushroom book, and have managed to identify at least one species – the small fungi growing in the lawn are magic mushrooms. For some this discovery would be like stumbling across a gold nugget, but the hardest drugs I consume are caffeine and alcohol. Mind altering hallucinogens aren’t my thing, as besides, it’s illegal to consume magic mushrooms in Australia. Including those growing in your back lawn.

The other two species growing under the pine trees I’ve yet to positively identify. At this point I need to provide a serious caveat to anyone considering foraging for wild mushrooms – take care! Some fungi are poisonous, and can cause effects ranging from mild diarrhoea to death. If you consume a Fool’s Funnel, for instance, you’ll probably break out a major sweat, but mistake a Death Cap for a field mushroom, and it’ll be a case of lights out.

The golden rule of mushroom foraging is simple: “If in doubt, go without”. This implies that before any fungus is consumed, it must be positively identified. Mushroom books contain a step-by-step identification key, and the author of mine, John Wright of River Cottage fame, suggests that: (i) you should never eat a fungus if you don’t know its name; (ii) you should only eat a fungus if it agrees with the book’s key, and the description, and the photograph; and (iii) only a small amount should be consumed when trying a species for the first time. Got it?

If this foraging business all sounds like too much hassle, it’s entirely feasible to grow your own mushrooms at home. Kits are available in nurseries from about April to October, and they represent pretty good value for money. I manage to get up to four kilograms of mushies from a kit costing around $25, so it’s cheaper than buying mushrooms from the shop and as with most produce, home grown mushrooms are also far superior. The rubbery excuses for fungus they sell in the supermarket taste like pencil erasers compared to home grown mushrooms.

I hope you’ll share my new found appreciation for mushrooms. Two hundred years ago, no-one would ever have believed that fungi could be so interesting, let alone realise that the vast web of mycelium beneath our feet may hold the solution to some of the world’s big problems.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 14th May 2011. Image by Joel Hagerman via flickr.com.

In last week’s Secret Garden I introduced the permaculture concept, and it’s three guiding ethics. In this week’s sequel, I want to talk principles. Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison first outlined a set of design principles in his 1988 epic, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. The book is thick enough to chock a semi-trailer, so broad is its scope, so when permaculture co-founder David Holmgren restated the principles in a more accessible format in 2003, the overhaul was very welcome. Here they are, along with my brief take on each.

Observe and Interact

Take the time to engage with the natural world, and design a garden that is tailor made to a particular site. Alexander Pope put it this way: “consult the genius of the place in all”.

Catch and Store Energy

Harvest resources while they are abundant, and store them for later use when they’re scarce. Rainwater tanks are an excellent example of this principle, as is the traditional practice of preserving the harvest for use during winter.

Obtain a Yield

Holmgren states this as “you can’t work on an empty stomach”. When a starter vegie grower brings in a first harvest, for example, or some income is derived from a project early on, it provides a boost, and the project is likely to go ahead and thrive.

Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback

The three permaculture ethics are an important means of self regulation, but it’s important to learn from your mistakes. Seek constructive criticism, and observe the feedback provided by natural systems. If you plant a cactus in a bog, and it rots, accept the feedback and resolve to plant a moisture lover in its place.

Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

Nature is abundant, with more than enough renewable resources to satisfy our basic needs. Why ordinary citizens continue to prop up fossil-based industries, when the solutions are under our collective nose, is beyond me.

Produce No Waste

Trade your council Green Bin for a compost bin. Minimise your packaging and reuse it where possible. Or as self-sufficiency pioneer John Seymour once said “the dustman should never have to call”.

Design From Patterns to Details

If we apply permaculture principle one, we’ll see that patterns exist in nature, and they can be used successfully in our gardens. Once these “broad brush strokes” have been made, it’s easy to fill in the details.

Integrate Rather Than Segregate

An ideal example of this principle is compost. More than the sum of it’s parts, compost contains various elements – moisture, plant waste, animal manure – which combine together for the common good.

Use Small and Slow Solutions

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. When size and speed become excessive, maintenance becomes difficult and the crash, when it comes, is a lot harder than ought to be. Pay attention to scale.

Use and Value Diversity

The more diverse an ecosystem (or garden), the more unique it is, and the more resilient it becomes to a variety of threats. Rather than putting all your eggs in one basket, diversify. Mix things up.

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Permies argue that where two different elements overlap, there is an intense area of productivity. An often cited example is where forest meets open grassland. Some of our most productive fruiting plants come from margins such as this.

Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Since moving to Hampton in 2006 my family has been quietly designing, and implementing a rough plan as a response to issues such as peak oil and climate change. I refuse to fear change, and instead try to make it work for myself, my family and my community.

There’s a perception in horticultural circles that permaculture is little more than a quirky method of gardening, using novelties such as herb spirals, swales, chook domes, and off the wall things called keyhole beds. However, these are simply techniques that are supposed to fit within a broader philosophical context. Taken as a whole, permaculture is seen by many as the clearest template yet of how we can best design human settlements in partnership with the natural world.

Personally speaking, I’ve been interested in permaculture since I started getting serious about gardening 12 years ago. But for reasons that I’m yet to properly define, something has stopped the concept from jumping up and grabbing me by the throat. Maybe it’s that I’ve seen some weedy, overgrown, and to be frank, ugly permaculture gardens. Maybe it’s simply that I don’t yet understand permaculture well enough to give it a proper go. Then again, maybe, just maybe, permaculture is truly revolutionary, and I’m yet to realise that it offers the best shot at thriving in a swiftly changing world. Time will tell.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 7th May 2011.

The events come thick and fast at this time of the year. Easter, Anzac Day, and Earth Day last weekend, Gardenfest and Autumnfest this weekend (see Garden Cuttings for more info), and the Hampton Food and Arts Festival in a couple of weeks’ time. One event that’s likely to fly under the radar, but deserves more attention is the inaugural National Permaculture Day, tomorrow, May 1.

Despite being described by veteran environmentalist David Suzuki as “the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet”, Permaculture has yet to gain any real traction in our part of the world. As far as I’m aware, there are no local events being held tomorrow, which is a shame, and though there are a handful of dedicated permaculture gardens hidden around the place, none are throwing open their gates to the public. I wonder why this is the case. Is it because of Toowoomba’s conservatism, where anything and anyone bearing a green tinge generally gets treated with suspicion? Or is it simply that permaculture is a difficult concept to understand?

Conservative our area might be, but in my experience the latter reason is true: most local gardeners have heard of permaculture, but few actually understand what the concept is about. Personally, I find permaculture to be brilliantly conceived, even revolutionary, but it is a very difficult concept to penetrate for the average home gardener with no experience in design or ecology. And while I don’t really consider myself a permaculturalist (and certainly don’t qualify as a permaculture designer), I would like to spend this Saturday and next introducing the permaculture concept and outlining ways we might be able to apply it in our gardens.

As with all concepts, it’s worth starting with a definition. The Oxford English Dictionary defines permaculture as “the development or maintenance of an ecosystem intended to be self-sustaining and to satisfy the living requirements of its inhabitants, esp. by the use of renewable resources”. That hardly pins the concept to the mat, so let’s expand a bit with some history.

The term Permaculture” is a portmanteau of permanent culture, and permanent agriculture. The concept originated in the mid 1970′s when a young ecology student, David Holmgren, and his lecturer at the University of Tasmania, Bill Mollison, published an article in Tasmania’s Organic Farmer and Gardener Magazine. This article was soon followed by an interview on ABC radio, and in 1978, Holmgren and Mollison’s seminal book on the concept, Permaculture One: A perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements.

Sadly, the two visionaries have since gone their separate ways. Mollison, who still lives in Tassie, has focussed on education, believing that permaculture could spread exponentially by teaching students, who would in turn teach others, and so on. He taught the first Permaculture Design Course (known as PDC’s by Permies) at Stanley in Tasmania, in 1979, and thousands of PDC’s have been taught around the world in the years since.

David Holmgren took a different approach. With permaculture gaining widespread publicity, he retreated to a smallholding in Victoria to quietly test his ideas. In 2002, he re-emerged with Permaculture – Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability a landmark book that reinterpreted permaculture’s fundamental design principles as a creative adaptation to the decline in non-renewable sources of energy such as oil. I’ll talk more about these principles next week.

Until then, I want to conclude this week’s column by mentioning the three ethics at the core of the Permaculture concept. In Permaculture One, Mollison and Holmgren described these as: Care for the Earth; Care for People; and Fair Share. The first ethic is self explanatory. The second suggests that all people should have access to what they need to live a safe, and healthy life. The third is a principle that most gardening and farming models overlook, and is based on the ethic we’re all taught as kids – only take what you need, and share the rest. Some permies call this, “return of the surplus”.

While some elements of permaculture are ripe for critique, I confess to having a great admiration for any movement that is built upon a set of foundational ethics like those above. What’s more, I believe they are the right ethics to build upon. We’re living in an age when most big, established institutions – business, politics and religion – are being white-anted from within by self interest and a desperation to cling to the status quo. In some cases, ethical foundations rotted away years ago. Permaculture offers a creative response.

Next week – The Principles of Permaculture Design

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 30th April, 2011.

If you like your springs cool, wet and lush, then the season just passed was for you. I’ve been in horticultural heaven for 12 beautiful weeks. Every day I look at the garden with disbelief, marvelling at just how well plants can grow when the soil’s moist and temperatures hover in the low 20’s for weeks on end. In our part of the world, spring usually arrives rushed and flustered. But this year, it’s as if spring has been holidaying on a tropical island and is reluctant to get back to everyday life. It’s been relaxed, and that suits me fine.

There are downsides to every season, however. Because this spring has been so cool, many plants have grown slowly. In my garden, I reckon we’re about a month to six weeks behind we’re we usually are at the end of November – I’m starting to wonder whether summer might take the rest of the year off.

In the vegie garden plants that are usually in full production are just getting going. The potatoes are on track for a Christmas harvest, but tomatoes planted after our mid-October frost are still only a couple of feet tall. The corn hasn’t flowered. Climbing beans are still reaching for the top of their trellis. Real heat lovers like capsicums and eggplants are piddling along. On the flip side are peas. They usually stop flowering once temperatures are consistently above 24 degrees or so, but this year they’re still pumping out white blooms and ripening juicy fat pods. There’ll be freshly shelled peas on the table for Christmas lunch.

If your patch is doing something similar to mine, my suggestion is to seize the day by viewing the cooler conditions as the perfect chance to practice succession planting. For those who’ve never heard the term before, it describes the practice of sowing small amounts of the same vegetable in succession throughout the growing season. The aim of succession planting is to provide a continual harvest over an extended period.

One of the mistakes many home growers make is to emulate commercial farmers. It’s understandable, because the sole agricultural model most people have had limited exposure to is the notion that a crop is planted all at once, grown on, and then harvested all at once. This model suits commercial growers. But for backyard food production, imitation of commercial food production means gluts.

In her excellent 2007 book Animal, Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver writes amusingly about her family’s annual glut of tomatoes.

“At what point did we realise we were headed for a family tomato harvest of 20 percent of a tonne? We had a clue when they began to occupy every horizontal surface in our kitchen. For a serious gardener, the end of summer is when you walk into the kitchen and see red.”

If it’s not tomatoes, it’s beans or zucchini. “All dinner guests were required to eat squash,” says Kingsolver “and then take some home in plastic sacks.”

To avoid these type of gluts isn’t easy, even for experienced vegie gardeners, but with a bit of discipline and favourable conditions, it’s more than possible. The secret for most crops is to grow from seed, and to sow it at regular intervals in small quantities. A new sowing of fast growers like lettuces, Asian greens and rocket can be made every couple of weeks, so that by the time the first row is harvested, a new row is nearing maturity. Because you’re sowing lots of seed you need access to reliable water or rainfall, and overcast conditions like those we’re set to enjoy over the next few months help ensure even germination.

For slower growing vegies, succession planting might be as simple as making an early sowing, and a late one. I do this with crops like potatoes, corn, and beans with good success. If the weather cooperates, I might even squeeze in a third sowing of a fast maturing variety late in summer, timed to just beat the first frosts of autumn.

Fruit bearing crops such as tomatoes and pumpkins can be induced to bear progressively over a long season through a process similar to deadheading annual flowers or roses. By constantly picking just ripe fruit, you essentially prevent plants from reproducing. They will respond by sending forth new flushes of flowers, and in a matter of weeks, a fresh crop of fruit will be ready to pick.

It might turn out to be a wet Christmas this year, but there’s no point in whinging about it. Every season has its success and failure, its highs and lows. I’m determined to make the most of what’s on offer, and if that means sowing packet after packet of seeds, I say bring it on!

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 4th December 2010. Photo by Justin Russell, Thistlebrook veg patch, Nov 2010.

Our relationship with food is changing. Some of us are growing, harvesting, cooking with, and eating, our own. Others are buying local, seeking out and purchasing food grown within an hour’s drive from home. More and more are waking up to the fact that their daily bread doesn’t magically appear on the supermarket shelves, but is the end product of a complex, and mostly hidden, supply chain.

Finally, it’s dawning on us that everything that goes in our mouths and fuels our bodies has a source. Someone, somewhere planted and tended the apple tree that bore the shiny red piece of fruit you had for morning tea. Same goes for the chicken you ate for dinner. And the wheat used to make the sandwich you had for lunch. And the sugar used to sweeten your morning coffee. Ad infinitum.

The associated reality is that the vast majority of the food we purchase from our local Coles or Woolies is practically anonymous. A label on the packaging or the price ticket might say “Product of Australia”, but for me, that’s small comfort. Where in Australia was the product grown? By whom was it grown, and what farming methods were used to produce it? Where was it packed? How was it transported?

Worse still the label might say “Product of California” or “Packed in NZ” or more likely, “Mix of Local and Imported Ingredients”. I’d have to be very determined indeed to trace the origins of every item in my trolley, and you could guarantee that at every turn, my efforts would be met with resistance by the giant food corporations who would prefer to keep their factory-style production methods a secret.

Some food growers, mostly small farmers and market gardeners, are taking an approach opposite to that of the industrial food barons. They’re embracing accountability. At the forefront of this movement is Joel Salatin.

Salatin is the patriarch of a relatively small, family run farm in Virginia’s picturesque Shenandoah Valley. He describes himself as a “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-farmer”, but in reality is probably the world’s leading practitioner-advocate of farming that is local, humane, natural and yet innovative.

His Polyface Farm services more than 3000 families, 10 retail outlets, and 50 restaurants through on farm sales and local buying clubs. Salatin is vehemently opposed to industrial scale agriculture. His alternative is focussed on husbandry, both of the soil and the animals within his care, and transparency. One of the guiding principles stated on the Polyface website is that “Anyone is welcome to visit the farm anytime.  No trade secrets, no locked doors, every corner is camera-accessible.” Some farmers are offering guided farm tours and holding open days in an effort to develop a relationship with their customers, but when it comes to integrity, Salatin is a kind of agrarian high priest.

The good news is that Joel Salatin is currently in Australia on a lecture tour and will be appearing in Brisbane for one night only on the 4^th December.  As a speaker, Salatin is dynamite. He possesses the rare combination of vibrant intellect, practical wisdom and a healthy dose of wit. But the trait that fills venues around the world is an incredible sense of optimism. Salatin is literally walking the talk. His methods have been refined over three decades, and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

I’d encourage anyone interested in gardening, farming, local economies, organics, or those who are simply keen to hear a smart cookie speak about stuff that matters to make the trip to Brisbane next Saturday night. During the previous decade, we saw the emergence of the celebrity chef – think Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Maggie Beer, Kylie Kwong et al. My tip is that the current decade will witness the rise of the celebrity farmer, and to a large extent, home food production. We’ve reconnected with the kitchen. Now it’s time to reconnect with the ingredients, and the people that produce them. In this regard, I can think of no better exemplar than Joel Salatin. Check him out!

Joel Salatin will speak at Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm from 6pm to 9pm on December 4^th, 2010. Limited tickets available at the door – book in advance by visiting the RegenAG website at www.regenag.com/workshops/joel-salatin-public-talks/.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 27th November 2010. Image courtesy Participant Media.

Has anyone seen the current TV ad from well known Australian gardening company Yates? If you have, does it frustrate you as much as it does me? I’ll explain. The ad depicts a gardener pulling out a lone plantain weed by hand, before suggesting to the viewer that there’s an easier way to deal with weeds – spray them with a chemical herbicide and walk away.

Are we so obsessed with convenience that we have to spray every weed in sight, no matter how easy they might be to remove manually? Or is the ad simply another example of a big corporation creating a need where one doesn’t currently exist? Either way, I think it’s one of the dumbest ads the gardening industry has devised. It fails dismally to give a true picture of why and how weed control is best undertaken. So let’s broaden the discussion, starting with the classic definition of what constitutes a weed.

Put simply, a weed is a plant growing in the wrong place. Every plant is native to somewhere, but problems arise when certain plants spread beyond their native habitat to compete with native plants from a similar habitat. Australia plays host to some nasty weeds that can wreck good quality agricultural land and choke waterways. Some are poisonous, others are especially prolific, lots are simply undesirable and therefore, unwelcome. The wrong plant in the wrong place, worthy of eradication.

But let’s face it. Some weeds are more benign. Many aren’t particularly invasive, plenty are attractive, and more than a few are useful as food or medicine. My approach with these less problematic weeds is mostly one of live and let live. For evidence of this approach, you ought to look no further than my lawn.

With my tongue only half planted in my cheek, it’s fair to say that I like the traditional “mixed herbage” style of lawn. I don’t get overly fussy about weed control and I actually welcome a weed like clover, which being a legume, fixes nitrogen in its roots and increases the fertility of the soil. Plus it looks very pretty at this time of the year and as we can all testify, is one of the best plants for attracting bees to help pollinate my fruit trees.

This doesn’t mean that I turn a blind eye to every weed, however. I’m engaged in a long running struggle to keep plants like plantain and shepherd’s purse in some kind of order. Nor is it safe to assume from my comments at the start of this article, that I never use herbicides. On occasion I do, but my intent is always to take the gentlest option.

So for the most part, weed control in my garden is a manual affair. Those weeds that can be easily pulled from the ground, we pull. Some have persistent roots and a tool is needed. I can recall that as a kid, my Mum used to patrol the lawn on hands and knees lifting weeds with the aid of an old kitchen knife. She still does it to this day. The technique works just as well as it always did, and costs nothing but a bit of time and effort.

Other weeds are easily controlled with heat. This bursts the cell walls of plant foliage and can be simply applied in the form of boiling water from the jug, steam, or a flame gun. Mum told me once that my Pa used a flame gun in his Brisbane market garden, and though they’re not commonly available these days, can be sourced from specialist mail order suppliers.

None of these techniques will work on more vigorous woody weeds, so when eradication is highly justified or mandated by law, the use of a herbicide may be a necessary compromise. There are some certified organic products on the market, but to date, have required multiple applications to be effective and work only on less persistent weeds, making them expensive.

Chemical herbicides are cheap and effective. But they’re not without cost. All are toxic to some degree, and some of the nastier products have had devastating health effects on people and the environment. None are allowed under organic certification standards. Even glyphosate (commonly sold as Roundup and Zero) isn’t as safe as the marketers have made out, so use chemicals cautiously and only as a last resort.

Ultimately what you do in your garden is mostly up to you. If you want to spray a weed rather than pull it, you will. The best advice I can offer with weeds is to consider the health of your family and your neighbours, do the right thing by the environment, and if chemical weed control is required, always choose the lesser of two evils.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 9th October 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Thistlebrook.

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.