Visit Annie 16 March 2014

On Sunday 16 March we visited Annie's garden at Kettering
The visit to Annie's garden at Kettering showed once again why it is so interesting to visit other people's food gardens. Annie's challenges are hard clay and a lack of water and she has responded to these challenges by building a food garden full of creative and resourceful approaches.

Here Annie (third from right) welcomes us

Here is an example of Annie's sense of humour and inventiveness:

Open the toilet seat and the chooks gallop through the chicken run

Annie's chook shed is on the left. Once a day Annie opens the toilet seat door and the chooks run through the enclosure on their way to one of her enclosed garden areas where they are fed and where they love to fossick around.

Just an ordinary gate, isn't it?  No, it is not!

Now look at this gate. It does not have hinges! The vertical rod that rotates (on the left of the gate) rests in the concave bottom of a dug-in upside down Champagne bottle and aided by a metal strip at the top this means that this gate works perfectly without hinges.

Here Annie breaks charcoal and sea shells into small pieces

Annie collects the debris from her wood heater, filters out the ash and then pulverises the charcoal with a block buster. She crushes sea shells in the same manner, then adds a mixture of the two to her soil and potting mixes.

Every pot is given a timber border that provides shade and coolness

Most of her vegetables grow in raised beds, but here she follows her own approach as well. Annie has ample access to old wooden apple crates and uses the timber to make a container around each pot. The air circulation and shade the wooden container provides to each pot means that the soil stays cooler and plants can do with less water.

Here we see some of these pots in yet another shade providing enclosure

The black cotton threads work well to keep the birds out

Many of her wooden plant pot enclosures have black cotton threads stretched across them which do a good job keeping birds away. Simple, but effective!

Annie waters each pot via a watering hole

Here is Annie's mushroom farm in a bath tub on the shady side of her house:

The lid keeps the mushrooms in the dark

Annie inherited many fruit trees from the previous owners of the property, but they were all neglected and desperately needed pruning. Max K, our fruit tree expert, offered to demonstrate how to go about this. He was eagerly watched as he showed his skills a number of apple and stone fruit trees and many questions were asked. He also discussed the need to thin apples soon after they form.

Max K provides a really helpful pruning lesson

The morning tea at the end was delicious and even the weather cooperated.

Look what people brought!

Many thanks Annie for hosting this very interesting visit. We were inspired by your resourceful and innovative approach to food-gardening. Many thanks also to Max K for once again sharing his skills and expertise in the area of pruning. Those who brought morning tea, produce, seeds and seedlings, you did a terrific job. Everyone had a really great time.

This text was previously published on the Food Garden Group blog. It was written by Max Bee.