Visit Jo 15 April 2018

On Sunday 15 April the Food Garden Group visited Jo's garden at Geilston Bay

The visit to Jo’s garden at Geilston Bay marked the end of the Food Garden Group’s seventh season. This season has been the rainiest out of those seven years.

Never yet has a food garden visit been cancelled (fingers crossed), and so, this time too things went ahead, in spite of the fact that early on Sunday morning rain pelted down and things seemed set for all-day rain.

Lo and behold! The rain stopped at 10.15, blue sky appeared, the sun came out, and the weather was suddenly not too bad at all, until the end of the visit, when it started raining again.

We have many ‘hardened all-weather people’ in our group, and Jo’s new super-sized deck that now overlooks her garden, filled up with a good crowd.

Jo explained that the deck was built over the sunniest part of her food garden. That had made her a bit sad, but with some of the tons of soil dug out to make way for the structure, she constructed new garden beds, and they actually produced quite well in their first food garden season.

Jo led us down to the ‘river flat’ where most of her garden is, and we discussed the challenges her block, on a steep slope to a creek, with bush opposite, has given her over the years.

These challenges included building activities up-stream that led to her garden going under water when a lot more water started coming down the creek. Also, the trees on the opposite bank have become taller and tall over time, leading to less sunshine in her garden. The local wildlife is also a constant pest. Plenty of suggestions were made, which Jo is going to consider.

On the plus-side, the deck is a beautifully sunny spot and a great addition to the house, and her block is sheltered from the worst winds that so many other gardens in and around Hobart are exposed to.

The photo above shows Jo’s netted vegie garden from the end of the deck above, and the photo below shows the same from the creek bank:

Here Jo shows us a young fig tree that she put in a mesh cage to make sure it will be spared by the very persistent wildlife.

The produce table had many really nice goodies, and the contributions to morning tea were delicious.

Many thanks to Jo for hosting this last visit of the season, and a big thank you too to everyone who came and made this visit a very enjoyable and informative event.

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