Visit Jan 4 December 2016

On Sunday 4 December the Food Garden Group visited Jan's garden at Dynnyrne:

On a beautiful day with temperatures in the low twenties ‘a small select group’ of lucky RSVPers met in Jan’s green lush productive small suburban garden in Dynnyrne.

Jan (pointing at something in the photo above) makes the most of every spot and the result is a sea of green, often multi-layered.

Jan’s garden is a great example of how much you can do with a small area. Someone observed that
there would of course be plenty more space for vegetables and fruit if Jan was willing to sacrifice her small bit of lawn, but that would decrease the charm of her lovely small oasis.

Next to the law was a nicely decorated Christmas tree (not edible, I tried). It is the first ornamental plant that made it onto this Past Visit page of our blog in the almost six years that this group has been going.

When Jan was away recently Blackbirds took full advantage of the opportunity and therefore many beds are now netted.

Fruitfly have been another problem in this garden, perhaps because the vegetation is so dense. Jan made fruitfly traps out of milk bottles (entrance just above the smiley face). They contain a mix of water, vegemite and sugar as follows: in half a litre of boiling water dissolve 1 dessert spoon of vegemite or promote, 1 table spoon of sugar or molasses and 2 teaspoons of ammonia. Fruit flies welcome!

This small army of watering cans Jan uses to store water saved up from all the taps inside and outside, because she is a great believer in re-cycling water rather than watering directly from taps. ‘Obsessed with saving water’ was the phrase she herself used. I would not dare think such a thought!

The borders of the food garden are all taken by fruit trees and in this photo Jan explains what they are and how they have been going over the last few years.

A great example of Jan’s inventiveness is her almond tree. In most gardens these take up a lot of space and you have to climb a ladder to pick them. At harvest time Jan climbs on the roof of the carport and ‘has easy pickings’.

Here is another example of many of Jan’s prolific fruit trees that espaliered against the fence or among ornamentals somehow do not take the space they take in many other gardens.

Some really nice things were brought for morning tea. Pauline was happy to provide the recipe of her much praised egg and sausage parcels. The recipe can be found under "Egg and Sausage Parcels" on this blog.

Our small group had a great time and we very much thank Jan for hosting it.

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