Visit Clarendon Vale - Steven - January 2021

 Visit Clarendon Vale - Steven - January 2021

Steven and Kathryn's garden in Clarendon Vale is brilliant example of what can be achieved in a short time. When our group visited their garden on a cool and windy Saturday morning we were all amazed and inspired by the transformation from a 'blank slate' property just over 2 years ago into a productive and diverse food garden today.

Here is Max, introducing Steven to the group.

In September 2018, when Steven and Kathryn bought their property, they immediately saw the potential to grow food, and set about transforming their garden.

From this in September 2018,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

to this in January 2021:        

And from this

To a much more productive this:

Even the narrow strip to the side of the house was transformed.

Before:

And the same area after:

The whole yard is fenced and Steven has used all the fences for espaliered fruit trees.

The back of the garage has been nominated to become a wall full of small fruits. There are blackberries, raspberries as well as climbing beans.

The driveway has lots of flowers, and a wonderful array of table grapes along both fences.

You will also find a row of hazelnuts there. Steven plans to keep them in check by coppicing them when needed.

Steven discovered that their soil is very dense clay. He made himself a broadfork and added gypsum to the loosened soil, before adding half compost, half loamy garden soil and building his raised vegetable beds.

Since Steven and Kathryn reckon you can never have enough asparagus, they sowed a wide variety of seeds and were delighted to find they all came up. They are now enjoying seeing their asparagus beds thrive. Among others they got "Mary Washington", "Precoce d'Argenteuil" (a French early variety), and "UC 157 F2" from Inspiration Seeds, as well as a few smaller amounts of seeds from Southern Harvest.

There is also room for some beautiful big sunflowers.

Steven planted several avocado trees. To give them a sheltered position they are surrounded by a screen and extra netting is thrown over the top of the structure whenever frosts are forecast. This works really well, and the little trees are looking very good. Like all his trees, Steven plans to not let them get too tall, they will be cut back each year to keep them at his preferred height.

A passionfruit is covering one side of the garden shed and in the bed in front potatoes, tomatoes and beans are growing well.

The first tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Strawberry plants are kept off the ground by growing them in terracotta pipes.

The picking lettuce is looking good.

One of the beds of very healthy looking corn.

The produce table yielded some nice finds for people, as did the seed sharing box. One of the fun things of these garden visits is that you never know what new and valuable thing you are going to learn or what contact you are going to make with a kindred soul. Some people have commented recently that it would be nice to see more young people making the effort to come to these garden visits, and this time quite a few new gardeners did.  There were discussions about preserving, the use of different jars for different methods, and ideas and phone numbers were exchanged. This link to a Fowlers Preserving Facebook Group might be useful for many people who like to preserve their harvest: Fowlers Preserving

A big thank you to Steven and Kathryn for opening their garden to the club and showing us what amazing things you can achieve in just a couple of years. Inspiration indeed!