Visit Ross 25 February 2018

On Sunday 25 February the Food Garden Group visited Ross and Elizabeth's garden at Lindisfarne 

The first thing everyone noticed on arrival was the warm wood fire in the impressive outdoor sandstone fire place. Although is was February, the day was overcast and not very warm, so the gesture and the warmth of the fire were very much appreciated.

Ross and Elizabeth welcomed the crowd, and immediately a wide variety of food garden subjects came up: the fruit fly threat, a new remedy against codling moth, Ross’s collection of rare tomato varieties, and on it went.

Ross and Elizabeth explained that they had spent far less time on the garden this season than normal because they had been busy adding a balcony to their home.  Well, the garden looked great, in spite of  this.

As you can see, it is a large garden by suburban standards, with a hothouse, and a chook run at the bottom of the block.

The chooks will probably ‘harvest’ the low-hanging fruit of this peach tree, but that will leave a nice amount of fruit for Ross and Elizabeth. The tree, in the middle of the chook run is obviously quite happy there and fruit if protected from birds because it is completely caged in.

The grapes were a different story this season. Ross explained that ‘when you think it is time to cover the ripening grapes with a net, you should have done it a fortnight ago’. This season nearly all his grapes were taken by birds.  All I found was two sorry 'leftovers' (see photo).

Another row of grapes produced plenty one season, and then never a single grape again in following years.  The beauty of food garden visits is that problems get solved!  Because Ross told us this, he will now be contacted by a friend of one of the people who were there, someone who knows a fair bit about grapes, to find out how this problem can be remedied.

Ross & Elizabeth's pear tree had an abundant crop, in spite of being much affected by cherry slugs.

Other interesting crops were ……

Purple Pole Beans

rare completely black 'Red Black' tomatoes

'Peter Cundall' pumpkins

The produce table was laden with goodies (plants, fruit, produce, seeds, materials).

Morning tea, well, the photo says it all, and that is after some of the plates had already been emptied.

I learn a lot at every food garden visit, and today was no exception. Ross felt that a lot of things had gone wrong in their garden this season, but that can make things more interesting.  It certainly sparked some good discussions this time.

We have a great Food Gardeners Tasmania Facebook page, but meeting fellow food gardeners face to face in a garden is so much more rewarding.

Many thanks to Ross and Elizabeth for hosting a very successful food garden visit, and thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm, friendship, knowledge, and what they brought for the produce and morning tea tables.

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