Visit Mandy 23 April 2017

On Sunday 23 April the Food Garden Group visited Mandy's garden at Snug:

After over night rain the weather gods decided to hold off on more rain and this allowed an almost record crowd to have a great time in Mandy's completely-netted food and ornamental garden.

Mandy pointed out that the area might be no bigger than the average suburban garden, but the fact that it is completely dedicated to and designed for growing fruit, vegetables, ornamentals and chooks, makes this garden very efficient, productive and attractive.

Mandy's fully netted food and ornamental garden

Mandy's land is sloping down from the road to the Snug River. When she bought the land some five years ago Mandy planned to have her house built along the road, but she was not allowed to do so, so she then put her netted garden there and is now very happy with the result.

Here Mandy welcomes us and explains how the netted area was constructed

Mandy has a real eye for combining produce and ornamentals and that makes this garden a delightful area to be in. Many of us felt inspired to try and achieve the same in our gardens.

Mandy has 2 x 4 raised beds for vegetables

On the road side of the netted area is a row of fruit trees espaliered in a shape that I had not seen before.

I asked Mandy how she had managed to have two small espaliered apple trees with 20 - 30 big apples without thinning and without coddling moth holes, and her answer was good stock (from Woodbridge Nursery) and beginners luck, because I did not do anything special to achieve this. The trees are of course protected by the netting and Mandy's 'improved clay' must also be a reason.

And look at these grapes. Mandy must be doing something right.

These Aubergines in one of her raised beds were also very happy.

Look how ornamental these Mustard plants are:

In the photo below you can just see the border of espaliered stone fruit trees on the right. There is a corridor within the netted area, on three sides of the garden, that Mandy uses for her chooks.

I hope to describe this garden in more detail (layout, components, construction etc.) in a future blog post to inspire those who have problems with wildlife to build their netted areas.

At the entrance to the garden is a solar panel that collects electricity for lights that are at the top of poles. This allows Mandy to garden after dark.

These are standard garbage bins fitted with a worm habitat retro kit. Mandy uses them successfully as worm farms (for more info see http://www.wormsdownunder.com.au ).

Mandy very kindly offered to show her award-winning passive solar home to those that were interested. It is one thing to be aware of energy-efficient building, but to see in real life how successful this can be was appreciated by many of us.

Morning tea was a veritable smorgasbord!

And the produce table was also thriving!

Many thanks Mandy for hosting this wonderful food garden visit, and thank you everyone for your contributions to morning and produce table, and making this a successful event.

Everyone had a wonderful time.

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