Having moved to the property only a few years prior, Cliff has made significant progress setting up his food garden on the site of an old sheep farm and tackling some of the location’s challenges. The soil is a black cracking clay over bluestone, which is full of nutrients when moist, but low rainfall in the area can make it difficult to work with the soil for extended periods.
Wind is probably the most prominent gardening issue in the area, and apart from planting around 300 native trees around the property boundary, Cliff has installed some interesting windbreaks to protect his fruit trees.
Firstly, his large, netted structure has been designed for wind, rather than pest protection. It has windbreak material around the exterior, with netting (*) only used on the roof. Both products were purchased from a company named Netpro ( https://www.netprocanopies.com/ ) .
* when choosing netting, consider the size of the holes – you want a minimum of 7mm holes to let the bees in, but too much larger and cabbage white butterflies can get through as well. Note that shade cloth has a very different weave to wind-break material (this seems impossible to source in Tasmania). Shade cloth is readily available but not suited for wind protection.
Before the structure was built all the new trees were given individual protection. These are being relocated for other plantings elsewhere.
Outside the netting, the loquat trees are thriving within these tall shelters, and the yuzu citrus has its own wind and frost protection cover.
Everyone was very interested to hear about Cliff’s fruit tree grafting. The low productivity apricot tree in the photo below was given a severe prune (it is now rootstock), and three different apricot varieties were added via more than 20 grafts. The bark/cleft grafts have been wrapped in budding tape and then cloth tape, then painted with a flexible wet area sealing paint (refer image below), that won’t crack and that ensures no air or moisture gets into the graft while it is bonding with the rootstock.
Cliff has scores of different fruit trees around the property, including pome fruits, stone fruits, pomegranate, mulberry, autumn raspberries, marion berry and grapes, with plans to add further net structures to house fig trees.
He has employed a unique method for encouraging the fruit trees to develop a deep root system – boxing the area to raise them up slightly, then letting the grass grow up around them. The grass, tap-root weeds and clover is let grow up to point of seeding then slashed and mulched. Then the grass roots will die off adding more organic material and pores deeper into the subsoil.
Because the grass dominates the upper soil layer, it forces the tree to send its roots deeper to find a more consistent source of water and nutrients.
Cliff has built a series of veggie beds from recycled materials, bringing in some soil and then building up with thick layers of mulch and manure.
The veggies were lush and productive, with broad beans, sugar snap and snow peas, broccoli, (enormous) carrots and a range of greens.
Many of the beds had inter-plantings of flowers for pollination, and 4 comfrey beds are harvested and fermented in a couple of rubbish bins to create a “tea” for fertilising the garden. The compost ‘bin’ is a wire cage easily moved and the bottom third used on the garden. The un-composted top layers are returned to restart for next springtime.
There were many tasty contributions for morning tea, with the produce table offering a range of opportunities including berry fruit cuttings, lemons, tree chillis, parsnip seeds and bacon.
All In all, it was a delightful morning to kick off the season, take in some new gardening ideas, catch up with old FGG friends, and welcome new members to the group.
Many thanks to Cliff for hosting this visit and to all those who came and contributed delicious things to the morning tea table and plants, seeds and produce to the produce tables.
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