Down on the farm

I'm always at a loss away from my garden. What to do with the left over cornflakes and bread crusts when there are no chooks to feed? Where do the meat trimmings go when there are no dogs sniffing around for sneaky treats? What to look do outside when there are no tomatoes and plums to test for ripeness? Thank goodness my parents have a compost bin- I'd otherwise be shaking in the absence of recycling.

To take the edge off things I haunt the neighbourhoods of my travels, peering over fences to catch a glimpse of gardens. If I find a veggie garden behind a back fence I'll return again and again until I must surely be in danger of being arrested for loitering. But Brisbane houses don't lend themselves to peeking - there're too many high fences and deep setbacks from the road. So yesterday we drove (and drove and drove and drove - my, but Brisbane is big) to one of my favourite places here - the Northy Street City Farm. It's a few huge blocks of 'permaculture' by the river, in the middle of an inner suburb. It's peaceful and sprawling and soothes my need to stroke some produce.

My Dad is never impressed by the place - he says it's all pumpkins and weeds, and there's not a lot of food emerging from a very big and potentially productive space. That's true enough (although there's a little more besides the cucurbits) and yesterday I was a little underwhelmed by the state of the gardens. But in that farm I recognised a space that is used. On Sundays hippies and middle class mothers gather at the organic markets under the Moreton Bay figs, their kids rollicking in the playground made from trees and bits of trash. There's a cafe in a shed selling chai and food cooked from the garden. My favourite nursery, Edible Landscapes, which is a wild and messy place, is hidden behind a fence, filled with the makings of a garden in my alternate, Brisbane life. People wander and chat and play music. For all its wildness and lushness - it doesn't look much like the farms of our childhood stories - the place is welcoming to people.

In many ways I take after my Dad when it comes to gardening - I look for maximum productivity, whether by permaculture or straight weeded lines; it must the farming stock we come from. I tend to forget the garden is a place to be in, not just a space to work in. The City Farm was so seductive yesterday, with its offer of a living space, not just a working space, and it's making me think about my garden is some very different and liberating ways ...

*****

After the City Farm we drove out to Kenmore for lunch with some friends. I like them but don't know them well - they're from Al's days as a public servant. They are a lovely couple but very together: no cracks in their ceilings and no cracks in their facade either, if you take my meaning. I always feel a little rough around the edges near them, and wish I'd brushed my hair and lost 8 kilos before arriving for lunch. And yet they didn't raise an eyebrow when Nell ate the turquoise playdough or Lu repeatedly attempted nude-ness and climbed to some inappropriately high places when I was drinking wine and not watching her movements. They pretty much share a set of the same ideas that we do, though you'd never guess it to look at the families together. You can find like souls in the most unexpected of places.

Dirty work

I didn't start gardening in pursuit of death and destruction but there's a fair bit of that at our house, organic though we are. Indeed, organic makes it more obvious. We don't lay out some pellets, hoping the undesirables will munch them and then retire to a private death. Each morning I feed the chooks and then turn over pavers and bricks, squashing the slugs that continue to congregate despite my best efforts and picking off the snails to feed to the chooks. I keep an eye out for sap suckers too, and squish them beneath my fingers. Each day starts in an orgy of innards. People talk about gardeners' connection with nature - well, mine's all over the bottom of my boots.

Even the generative tasks are messy. After lunch today I painstakingly picked the compost worms out of the old bathtub and into their new, store bought worm farm. I'm a messy digger and planter too, and when Lucy ends up watering the seedlings in, as she invariably does, I'm damp and a little cold. I rather like the idea of looking fabulous, in a big hat and tailored kit, when I'm out among the plants, but the best I hope for is no bum crack at critical moments.

Lu, who used to be a great little helper, is backing away from gardening. She doesn't really like the feel of dirt and she's scared of the snails and bugs ("they might bite me, Mummy"), she who used to be ruthless in her crushing of them. She's still keen on anything worm related, but even the strawberries, once her most anticipated garden pleasure, are out of favour because they sometimes have dirt on them. Currently, Lu is happiest lolling on the sofa watching Skippy and reading, looking for all the world like a teenager shrunk in the wash.

Nell, on the other hand, is embracing her time outside.


Dirt, muck, it's all good now that I let her wander at will. But usually, she stays pretty close to my side, figuring out how to do it all. The other day she sat beside me, turning over each brick around the bed of sweet peas and bok choy, and pressing her index finger down hard, just like I do to squish a particularly common type of small, white slug. So good to see her embracing the essence of gardening at our house.

Who would guess this is the face of a killer?

Up in the air

In a comment some time ago Nutmeg mentioned the permaculture appropriate idea of tossing seeds in the air and letting them fall where they will. It's a lovely image of abundance and faith. But to throw those seeds high is a challenge, demanding we give up even the image of control - the straight rows, the segregation, borders and easy categorisation. Of course control is a lie, as I'm reminded any time I step out the back and notice anew just how disinterested bugs, weeds and slugs are in my attempts to subdue the earth.

Lucy has no trouble letting the winds and/or fates take the seeds where they will - a seed isn't sown unless its broadcast with enthusiasm. And so I have been undertaking a post hoc experiment. In one bed I planted my beloved broad beans in straightish rows. Exhibit A:

In another bed, I accepted the Lucy sown beans that have popped up among the lupins and peas of the green manure, next to some failing purple sprouting broccoli that were planted too late in the year and then ravaged by slugs. Exhibit B:


Both lots are doing just fine, thank you. But Beans B are taller, thicker and generally seem a little more robust. Happily for me, the purple sprouting broccoli now stands tall and proud, and I might yet get to it eat with Welsh rarebit (as per the advice of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - author, chef and inhabitant of my perfect life as a Devon smallholder). It's not science, sure, but my suspicion is that letting the seeds fall is a good option for me in my garden. They've done better than those I planted after so much careful planning; they arrived because the conditions were so right; they were not protected or subsidized by me zealous care of any tenderness. And importantly in a plot on poor soil and riddled with unwelcome species, they've helped others, even those I had farewelled.

The logic's not watertight, I know, but the possibilities of letting go are exciting. I'm trying to control my garden so much less, and work with what it is rather than what I expect it to be.

There's another reason for this new approach, and it comes back to the girls (all my gardening comes back to my girls). I choose my battles carefully and avoid saying 'no' unless I'm willing to follow through no matter what the toddler tantrum fallout may be. Saying 'no' in the garden rarely works. I turn my back and duck my head too often to see what Lu is up to, and more importantly, a garden isn't a place where 'no' sounds good to me. I want my daughters to feel confident in their surrounds, to be self-sufficient and free to explore and to act. I want them to feel they are partners, or at least a participants in how we live our lives. Our garden is a place and a process where we can encourage Lu and Nell to do and be those things. But to live this I have to give the place over to their imaginations and plans, rather than imposing my own expectations about where the beans should go and if it's a good idea to plant wheat in with the spinach.
I'm looking forward to seeing what this collaboration brings.