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Commenced:
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01/06/2009 |
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Submitted:
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20/02/2012 |
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Last updated:
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07/10/2015 |
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Location:
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Rossmore, NSW, AU |
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Climate zone:
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Mediterranean |
To increase the bio diversity and fertility of the existing orchard to produce all poultry, fruit and vegetable needs for our family (and a few friends)
Providing for your family at a grass roots level strikes a chord with most people ... it most certainly did with me.
Having moved back onto acres that I grew up on to assist my aging parents and no longer having to live on a small house block where the privacy of a bathroom was a myth to your immediate neighbour, my need to be able to produce our basic edible essentials took over.
As a child, you could find me with either a stick or a spade turning over stones looking for fossils (try telling a 5 year old that fossils don't exist in the roadbase Dad just installed as a driveway!). My fascination of all things soil related grew from these memorable moments and make me giggle as my own children do the same today. But my career took me down the technology path whereas my heart always remained in nature.
On the acreage I grew up, my father plotted out a nice little orchard and designated a specific place for everything .... chickens, lawn, orchard, vege garden, etc and managed it as he was taught ... lots of manure and synthetic fertilisers for the plants, poision anything that moved, kill off anything that wasn't planted by him and ensure that the grass was razed to the ground. It was tidy. Slowly, over time, he had to use more fertiliser to get the same results, more weed killer to keep things in check, the orchard trees stopped growing and some started to show signs of stress and die. He put this down to him aging and not being able to be out there to actively manage it as he had when he was younger.
Once I moved into the granny flat with my family (rather ironic I know) I set to work on experimenting on how to bring the depleted soils back to life and try to show my father how to learn from what nature is telling him and take small steps to remedy it.
This is an ongoing journey that is evolving with every season and the lessons that I have learned in practice from my father, my children and my friends have been the best rewards thus far.
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