Visit South Hobart Rosalie 2021

 Visit South Hobart Rosalie December 2021

The rain came and went on a cool Saturday in early December when we met at Rosalie and Grant's place in South Hobart. And what an inspiring visit it was. We had visited Rosalie before, in a previous garden of hers in Sandfly. Then, as now, we were all amazed at the energy, creativity and sheer grit and determination Rosalie brings to her gardens.

Rosalie's garden in South Hobart

Here is Max introducing Rosalie to the group. 

There is a lot going on in Rosalie's garden. Rosalie and Grant bought the place a mere 3 years ago, and had tenants in it for the first 8 months, while they decided on the design of the garden.

In just over 2 years, they transformed their sloping block. They now have a native garden just behind the house, where Rosalie intends to grow bushfoods as well as other natives. There is a dedicated food garden in the narrowing back part of the block, the side of the house also contains food plants, and out the front work is in progress to make a herb garden for sharing with the neighbourhood. With her own garden moving towards completion Rosalie is talking to her neighbours about converting the 'verge' along the whole street to native garden.  A number of neighbours have already responded enthusiastically. The Hobart City Council will also be contacted for their approval.  Rosalie has offered to do a lot of the work, but hopes that this will become a community project.

Rosalie in the native bit of her garden

Rosalie explained that in her previous garden on a bush block in Sandfly she had an abundance of wildlife to contend with. When she moved to South Hobart, she decided to enclose the entire food growing area in netting before planting it. She also wanted the food growing part to be separate from the rest of the block, so it would be easier to have tenants living in the house while they are away for awhile, pursuing other interests as well as learning more about bush foods in Northern Australia.

A fence separates the food garden from the rest, with an enticing sign luring visitors in.

Once inside, you are greeted by many raised beds, fruit trees, a glass house and an abundance of food. There is even room for a couple of chickens!

the netted food garden

raised beds

happy chickens

Rosalie loves to reuse and upcycle materials and has found a great use for the pallet crates that garden centres get their stones and pavers delivered on. Rosalie uses them as raised beds, while applying the Hügelkultur method. 

Hügelkultur is a horticultural technique where a mound constructed from decaying wood debris and other compostable biomass plant materials is later (or immediately) planted as a raised bed. Rosalie lines the crate with weedmat. She sourced the timber logs from a friend with a bush property, and then added compost, manure and mulch. She plants straight into this mixture and even manages to use the sides of the boxes by growing strawberry plants out of them!

carrots and strawberries

Some of her raised beds were already there when they bought the property and they have been incorporated them into the garden.

The local native bees are not forgotten either, as there are several bee hotels in the garden.

The netting used for the food garden is very durable as it has a metal strand in it. Because it is pulled taut it presents no hazard to birds. And bees and other pollinators can find their way in easily. It is sold online by Haverford.

Tuscan kale looking good

The glass house provides a nice warm spot to grow seedlings early as well as chillis, eggplant and other warmth lovers.

and more strawberries growing out the sides!

Our food garden group is full of people with interesting ideas as well as handy tools. One of our members, Steven, brought 2 of his favourite tools along.

Steven explaining his grafting tool

This clever tool cuts your receiving and donating branch in a v-shape so they always match.

Steven's other much used gadget is his tapetool. It cleverly grabs a branch and runs a tape around it and whatever you were going to tie it to. The tape rots away in about a year, which makes it great for those fiddly branches that need to be kept in place for the season. Think tomatoes, grapes and the like. Both these tools cost around the $80 mark.

Tapetool

Rosalie has had worm farms in all her gardens and this one is no exception. She uses the worm castings whenever she plants anything. We discussed the various ways of keeping worms. There will be a detailed blogpost about this by Max B. in the near future. 

Rosalie sharing containers of her worms for people to start their own worm farms

Quite a few people went home with a 'worm take-away'.  After our discussion about worm farms four people decided to (finally) start theirs, and Rosalie was very generous in giving them a take away container full of worms and worm soil to get their worm farms started.

The morning tea table was a feast for the eye and people happily tucked in.

Thanks to everyone who brought contributions for the morning tea and the produce table, and of course to the amazing Max and Gaye who made it all happen yet again! 

A big thank you to Rosalie for sharing her inspiring garden journey with us at short notice. We had a delightful morning and we all came away with many ideas and inspiration to get gardening.