Half Moon Farm | Gardener

Half Moon Farm

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22.01.2022 The amazing metallic new foliage of Makrut lime. The leaves are delicate enough at this stage to use as a garnish or even as a zesty salad ingredient. Just don’t steal too many.

20.01.2022 Home, guarded by the big old camphor laurel.

19.01.2022 For three years or so I’ve taken a daily(ish) walk by myself, by design. But today is our 22nd anniversary and I love @kyliedeearmo so much that I let her walk with me for the first time. It made for a lovely change. She’s the best.

19.01.2022 Dust haze, flying ants, 32 degrees. The greenest paddock in the district is drying out again after a month of scant rain. Where are you hiding, Lan Nina?

19.01.2022 An interesting find at one of my favourite local nurseries, @highfields_garden_centre. Murnong was made famous by Bruce Pascoe in his book Dark Emu, and it’s been great to see Indigenous farmers and gardeners leading the effort to broaden the appeal of this historically important plant. With respect to these growers utmost in my mind, I’m keen to give murnong a go here. There’s evidence that it was grown 100km or so to the south of Hampton, in similar conditions, so we’ll see what happens.

18.01.2022 My youngest had a cooking exam at school the other day. He made taco boats and garnished them with purple basil leaves picked from the garden. The teacher had no idea what they were, and asked what’s that purple minty looking stuff you’ve put on top? The kid explained, and thanks to that purple basil garnish, got an A+.

16.01.2022 Filled! This time around I used 1:1:1 mix of red soil, mushroom compost and premium garden mix. I’ll also add some rock minerals, pelletised chook fertiliser and everything will be mulched with fine sugarcane. Next job: woodchip paths.

14.01.2022 They’re not the greatest onions I’ve ever grown but hey, it’s been another difficult growing season and the good thing about some plants is that they’ll fo their thing regardless. The trick to onions is day length. Short day varieties form bulbs as the winter solstice looms. They’re best planted in summer. Long day onions form bulbs as the summer solstice approaches. They’re best planted in late autumn or early winter. Long day varieties tend to store better than short day varieties. I love them all, so my aim is to one day get my timing right so I can have home grown onions all year round!

13.01.2022 She’s a keeper

12.01.2022 When society feels like it’s falling to bits, I find great solace in scenes like this. What kind of serenity might you find in your part of the world?

12.01.2022 Wizened and wise, I’m guessing this pepper tree has seen a thing or two over the years. Pandemics, world wars, economic booms, busts, droughts, floods, human misery and human joy. We can learn so much from plants if we’d just stop and listen.

11.01.2022 Here we go! As I said a couple of weeks ago it’s the best opportunity in a decade to get plants established. Plant, plant, plant!

10.01.2022 A new vegie patch is emerging from the remnants of an old shed. This will be the ninth patch I’ve made. I’m setting it up to grow little smaller stuff like salad greens and root crops, a supplemental space to our other patch that will be used to grow staples like beans and spuds, and bulkier crops like maize and tomatoes. Between the two we should cover most of our household vegetable needs. Check back to see the finished product in a week’s time (I’m working to a deadline - my dear daughter is filming the process for a school assignment ).

10.01.2022 One of my go-to plants for attracting beneficial insects is dill. Those acid yellow flower umbels are irresistible to all kinds of things, not least of all native bees (look closely for what I think is an Austroplebeia species foraging pollen). The plants are surprisingly tough, they self seed gently around the place and the ferny leaves, which I love, are classically paired with fish, among other things. They’re friendly plants to share space with.

10.01.2022 For years I’ve said that healthy soil produces healthy plants that produce healthy people who then produce healthy communities. I now think that concept is way too linear. Healthy soil is also dependent on healthy plants. Stressed, unhealthy plants produce simple sugars that get exuded from their roots and encourage the growth of pathogens. Healthy plants produce complex sugars, fuelling a microbial community that suppresses disease. Like other natural systems the process is circular, not linear. (Thanks to John Kempf for explaining the plant/soil connection)

10.01.2022 The odds of a La Nina (or something close to it) is the reason I’m planting my 46 year old butt off at the moment. This is the best opportunity we’ve had for getting trees etc established in a decade. Go to it!

09.01.2022 Catkins. Sawtooth oak. Maeinschein (a German word describing the green-gold light that falls through young leaves in May, or in our case, September). Evocative words like these always remind me of Robert Macfarlane’s book Landmarks. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s a ripper!

09.01.2022 Purple sprouting broccoli! One of my all time favourite vegies.

06.01.2022 All tucked in for summer. Someone asked recently why I don’t mulch my vegie patch. I do. I lay down fine sugarcane mulch once the weather warms and scrape it off (or dig it into the soil) when the weather cools. In my climate zone, the former helps keep roots cool and moist, and the latter helps the sun offer a bit of extra warmth to the soil. Much of the craft of gardening is fine tuning for your unique context.

04.01.2022 Wasabi ‘Mazuma’. Whoever says wasabi is one of the most challenging plants to grow is kinda kidding themselves. It’s actually really easy. To grow it really well at a commercial standard is more challenging, but at home...I’ve found it a cinch. The plant in the pic has been through the current mega-drought without anything more than a daily watering (I’ve seen people build little humidicribs and mulch with ice and do all kinds of stuff for their wasabi plants). It’s in a pot ...with gravel in the base for drainage, and I’ve got it in a position on the eastern side of my house that gets morning sun until about 11am. I fed the plant a few weeks ago ahead of it’s spring flush of growth and it’s responding well. Soon, I’ll pull it out of the pot and divide it. I reckon it’s worth having a few plants on the go for decent stem production (the stem is the bit you grate, but all parts of the plant are edible) and if you’ve ever experienced the gastrogasmic sensation of eating real wasabi, you’ll agree that it’s worth the effort. Sometimes the mythology around plants is completely misplaced. In the case of wasabi, it should be around the act if eating the plant, not the act of growing it. The later is pretty simple. See more

04.01.2022 I reckon these bovines and those hills are anticipating some drought busting rain as much as I am. That’s Mt Perseverance off there in the distance, the highest point in the district. For me, it’s a symbol of what the last few years have required. I’m ready for some proper relief.

03.01.2022 Kylie and I are back from a couple of days in the big smoke celebrating our anniversary. My city tolerance lasts about two days max, so we always manage to squeeze in some of our favourite things: gardens, books, food, design, and a little slice of something woody.

03.01.2022 Everyone’s familiar with the classic red bottlebrush flowers, but not so common are those that flower pink, crimson, mauve, green, lemon and white. All are mega attractive to nectar feeding birds, insects and marsupials. Imagine the possibilities of a mixed bottlebrush windbreak or hedge featuring a range of different colours

01.01.2022 The new garden is three quarters done. Just a bit of fishing up to do on either side and a few rows of seeds to sow. To date it’s cost me about $500 to make (most of that was for soil and amendments to fill the beds), a fairly small investment for a lifetime of good food and deep satisfaction.