Visit Loes 22 February 2015

On Sunday 22 February we visited Loes's garden at Coningham
On a very warm and humid day we had a great time in Loes's pleasantly green and ornamental garden at Coningham.

Loes (with white shirt in the middle) welcomes everyone

Loes explained that when she bought the property two years ago, the garden was an absolute mess covered with weed mat, weeds and depleted sandy soil. Loes is clearly a very energetic, healthy and determined person to have achieved so much in her garden in just two years, especially as she is not one of our younger members. A great example to all of us.

This is a photo of one of two large healthy capsicum plants sheltered by the roof of her outside BBQ area. Bought at the Botanical Gardens plant sale in September and sprayed regularly with Powerfeed (an organic spray by the makers of Seasol) the plants are positively thriving.

This is an obviously very happy Jonagold apple tree that, Loes told us, is not watered or fed a lot, just mulched with composted pine bark.  The property has a septic tank and a grey-water draining system that (Loes did not know how) keeps trees and lawns very nicely watered without much human intervention.

Here Loes shows us her veggie garden. Note the farm gate used as support for raspberries

Never seen this before.  It is an endive plant allowed to flower and go to seed.

Some of us went home with a few 'Walking Onion' bulbs.

Morning tea was once again a feast. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. Loes's homemade lemon cordial with mint leaves was just the thing for this warm day. She also made wonderful little zucchini muffins that disappeared very quickly and anyone who likes to make them, you can now because she gave us the recipe. It can be found in the recipe section under "Muffins, Zucchini"


The produce table was also overflowing with contributions varying from the first early season apples to beans, pumpkin and seedlings. Well done, everyone!


We all went home impressed, hoping that, like Loes, we will have the vision, energy, determination and planning skills to achieve what she achieved in this garden. 

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