Chapter 4

Cage the Vege and Free Range the Chooks

 The couple of potted plants that I brought with me to the house were suffering and longed to spread their roots through moist rich soil and flourish.  I planted them into the ground accordingly and so, here we are almost one year on and what should be a metre high miniature capsicum plant is less than half that height and a prolific birds-eye chili plant looks more like ground cover!  What happened you may well ask?  Was the soil not fertile was the sun not shining was the rain not falling regularly?  No, all of that was happening like it should, perfect growing conditions in fact, however our free range chickens were free ranging all over my plants! 

I read just recently in Earth Garden magazine that if you want to free range your chooks you need to cage your vegetables, so that’s just what I did.  Using the new roll of wire netting that was supposed to be the new roof over the chicken run I cut out sections and fenced off a part of the garden just for me.  

We have grand plans to build a large raised vegetable garden down one side of the yard next to where right now our herb garden is doing very nicely.  There is a vacant spot, a “no mans land” that is basically just a wasted space that requires regular mowing.  It is overlooked by what I would call the “sun room” a long thin room running the length of the house from the front door which was originally a verandah that has been closed in.  This is currently where I spend most of my week days as it is also one of the  spaces that we have dedicated to our clothing business.  It houses the cutting table, packing benches sewing machines etc.  A right little “sweat shop”.  To have that space overlook our vegetable plot will be a calming view on those not so calming days when work is overwhelming and all I wish I could do was be outdoors.  

Alas, this garden will be an added expense that hasn’t reached priority status just yet.  With the water tank in and paid for but still yet to be plumbed, the garden will have to wait.  So meanwhile I have decided that every other available space that doesn’t require any monetary commitment needs to be dedicated to my need to grow food.

The good thing about my new fenced area is that is already has water reticulation and with just a few added risers has pretty much got water spraying to every part of the ground.  A trip to Bunnings and not a lot of money later my crops include; snow peas, real peas, rainbow carrots (a heritage variety), asparagus, lettuce that sprung up from an old plant that went to seed, rainbow beetroot (another heritage variety), broccoli, cauliflower, perpetual spinach, and a lone purple runner bean plant (heritage), a lone cucumber (we started with four plants) and the chili and capsicum plants that bravely survived the chook’s garden decimation.  I have other vegies in the herb garden also.  A striped eggplant and lebanese egg plant that my sister and her partner bought me at Christmas and have already given up some beautiful fruit.  I have strawberries that have tripled over the summer and now are laden with fruit that is just beginning to blush with the promise of yumminess to come.  As I mentioned in the last chapter we have plenty of banana trees that previous owners have planted and also a renegade golden passionfruit vine which has yielded a huge crop already even after sharing many fruit with the possums.

When we first bought the house I envisaged a fruit grove running the length of the driveway so I quickly planted some trees; a "lots’a lemons" which has given us three in its first year, a lime, which has only produced one so far, an olive tree, a grafted avocado tree and a housewarming gift coffee tree. 

In the compost heap down the “back forty” which is lush and rich and aerated with the help of my efficient garden mulching chooks, three other avocado trees have sprung up by themselves.  So its fair to say that from virtually nothing edible in the garden we have a veritable bounty in its early stages.  

There is nothing more satisfying than picking and eating some food that you have grown yourself!  The other morning I had a free range egg omelette with home grown tomato, capsicum and gently flavoured with our own chives.  Next I’ll be looking to source an alternative for the cheese and I’m thinking about growing mushrooms.  I look forward to my fist home grown dinner party (with our vegetarian friends of course), and I think they are looking forward to it too.