WE WALK AMONGST VEGETABLES

When pegging out our house extension in 1993 for the guest wing of Das Helwig Haus B&B, Eberhard realised that the northern veranda would abut against the rockery garden. As the house was positioned on a slope falling away to the south, the ground for the extension would have to be excavated to the sixty-centimetre depth demanded by the Stanthorpe Council. A bulldozer was hired to clear the site and push rocks and subsoil to form a hill on the south-western side of this site. The weather was hot and the pile of decomposed granite, which forms the whitish subsoil of the Granite Belt, produced a barren moonscape. The glare reflected off this site and into the kitchen and living room was horrific.

“As soon as we can, I must plant a fast growing leafy tree against the back veranda to shade our kitchen,” I said.

“Make it a deciduous tree,” Eberhard advised. “Once the new wing goes in it’ll block the sunlight from the north. During winter months we’ll need light!”

Sweet-corn beside the persimmon tree December 2004.

Now the gooseberry bushes, quince, persimmon and fig trees are well established and by December are lush with green foliage.”

This area where I’m leading our garden visitors is the service area for our home. A huge concrete rainwater tank was constructed on site and a hole was blasted out of the rocky ground beside it to admit the bio-cycle tank, which handles all the gray water from our guest accommodation before it is recycled on to shrubs.

Frank Musumeci brought his bobcat to build rock retaining walls and level off the pile of subsoil to create a broad terrace. I watched mesmerised as he wheeled the machine to and fro, selecting large rocks from within the earth and delicately dropping them into place, forming a semi-circle of boulders.  Finally, he leveled off the fill to form a platform. Later we spread topsoil over this area, which is the sunny high ground carrying the currant and gooseberry bushes, the asparagus and rhubarb. Read the rest of this entry »

ENTER THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

Once we cross the covered walkway that links our guest apartments to the northern wing of Das Helwig Haus B&B we enter the vegetable garden. On our right the rhubarb and acanthus grow gigantic leaves and the kiwi fruit vines entirely cover the lattice along the apartment veranda. This is the south western part of our garden and as such is exposed to the worst of our winter winds. All the permanently planted trees and shrubs in this region are deciduous and in the winter months the area becomes rather desolate.

Rhubarb

Winter is our busy season with guests who come to the Granite Belt to taste the wines, follow the food trail and cuddle up before a fire at night. Thus it suits me that the garden is dormant. I try to have the grape vines, quince, persimmon, cherry, mulberry, apricot and nectarine trees pruned by the end of August.

There are some years when spring is slow arriving on the Granite Belt with frosts continuing on into October. In fact, frosts have been recorded in every month of the year. Because of the cold winters the garden does not yield much produce in spring until the soil warms.

While we were holidaying in Germany during the spring of 1990 my sister-in-law, Minna Helwig, told me that we would be having a barbe kue on Samstag and I had thought she was telling me that she planned a barbecue on Saturday. Imagine my surprise therefore when she picked the first red stalks of rhubarb from her garden, discarded the poisonous leaves, and gave me the stems to wash and slice. Meanwhile Minna used fresh yeast to make the sweet bread base of a Kuchen. The rhubarb was spread across the base, sprinkled liberally with sugar, and after the dough had risen to double the original height, placed in the oven to bake. Served with generous amounts of pouring cream, this is the traditional way the first rhubarb of the season is presented to families in the village of Wolferborn and throughout other regions of Hesse.

Rhubarb clump

We continued our around the world trip to visit Margaret, a friend who lives near New Liskeard in northern Ontario, Canada. I was amazed by the size of her rhubarb clump. Obviously established years previously it seemed to require no special attention, would die back into the earth under a heavy cover of snow each year, but then burst forth in the spring to create a remarkably thick cluster of plants. I was to see many more such clumps on other farms in northern Ontario and the attitude seemed to be that rhubarb was little better than a weed. There weren’t enough ways to utilise all that rhubarb and it was frequently ignored.

My tour groups are equally astounded by the size of my rhubarb clump.

“What do you do with it all,” I’m asked.

“Each weekend I’ll ask our guests if they would like to take a bunch home with them, but very seldom will they take me up on my offer. They would rather buy my Rhubarb Relish, which is especially tasty on cold roast lamb.” During the next fifteen minutes as we wend our way through my productive back yard I’ll be advertising our jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles, which they’ll have the opportunity to buy before they board the bus. “The rhubarb must be picked until April.”

Fay's jams and jellies

Because our rhubarb is well watered and shaded from the afternoon sun by the structure of the self-contained apartments it doesn’t suffer any stress and tends to remain green in colour, not the ruby red I would prefer. As a result, if cooked alone, it is rather an unattractive khaki green colour. When I stew my rhubarb I add either strawberries or raspberries. These share their colour and flavour, thus creating a tasty and attractive compote.

“And this fern – what is it?”

“That’s the asparagus. If you look near the base,” I scoop away some soil with my bare hand, “You can see fresh spears. We only pick the stronger shoots during the first couple of months. Then we let it make fern. This is important as the fern allows the roots to receive nutrients during the summer months. Then when the winter frosts come, it dies down and we clear away dead foliage. It is an ongoing cycle. If properly looked after an asparagus bed will last a lifetime.”

“And what are these bushes?” My attention is drawn to bushy clumps on the left side of the path.”

“Red and white currants. We use them to make jellies.”

Harvesting white currants

During 1995 I planted the upper terrace at the rear of Das Helwig Haus with red and white currants. These now bear a prolific crop each spring and must be hand stripped from the bushes and converted to currant jelly. Little did I think when I began planting this huge garden to offset our home, what a rod I was creating for my own back? No matter how busy I am with other matters, by the end of October Eberhard will be drawing my attention to the asparagus needing to be picked, the rhubarb running to flower, the strawberries attracting birds and the currants hanging ripe and ready for plucking.

Fruiting strawberry plants edge the paths and draw gasps of awe from the visitors. Don Burke, of the Burkes Backyard TV program, was amazed at the healthy growth of our strawberry plants when he visited the garden in 1997. I explained to Don that each year I covered them in hay during August then set fire to the hay, allowing the fire to also burn away all the leaves of the strawberry plants. This destroyed the leaves and any disease. The ash added nutrient and the perennial plants were triggered to all shoot new leaves together, flower together and fruit together.

PAUSE BESIDE THE ROSE BOWL

FAY SHARES SOME HISTORY

On every garden tour I will always be asked, “What are those pink and red things?”

“Do you mean these?” I’ll break off a few different blooms. “These are a form of dianthus. They have the perfume of cloves, like carnations. This form is commonly called Sweet William, but the Scottish people didn’t like William of Orange, so they called them Stinking Billy.” My answer will bring a laugh. “See the variation? Although they are various shades of pinks, reds and white, each flower has a different pattern. The Dutch have another name for these - they call them ‘A Thousand Beautifuls’, and from what I’ve been told their particular word for beautiful is the same word they would use to describe a beautiful young woman.

Sweet William

Next, I’ll brush my hand over the gray foliage plant with the yellow button like flowers. “And this is Santalina, a Mediterranean herb that supposedly is a stimulant for roses. I grow it right around the rose bowl over the rocks. As you walk past, give it a brush - release the aromatic oils.”

It was an Italian born neighbour, Orris Romeo, who helped me construct the rose bowl. He brought over an old tractor fitted with a small dozer blade mounted on the
back, which swiveled in any direction. Orris used this to cut into the sloping ground at the north-western corner of the house, leaving a sharp earthen bank, and spread the soil evenly towards the house. It was in this semi-circular basin I later planted the rose bushes. Once more Orris had returned to his farm, swapping the blade for a carry-all tray. Together we surveyed the rocky outcrops around the farm gathering up boulders as large as he could roll or lever onto the carry-all. Orris dropped these into the excavation and then sat on his bottom, using the strength of his legs and back to push the rocks hard against the cut bank. Less attractive rocks were dropped down under the edge of the veranda, the tops just showing between the earth and floor boards. This barrier prevents dirt washing under the house during storms. Thus we created a terraced, rock-fringed bowl. I have so many memories associated with the Romeo family and the establishment of our garden.

Rose Bowl

Santalina herb

Early one warm morning of our first summer on the Granite Belt, when Eberhard was without a shirt, the sound of a motor bike brought him to the front veranda. The rider took off his helmet and requested directions. Eberhard couldn’t clearly hear his inquiry.

“What’s he saying?” Eberhard asked. “I think the cheeky bugger wants to know if I’m Mr. Australia?”

I was amused. “You might have a bare chest, but you would never pass for a muscle builder.”

Calling to the man, I asked, “Are you looking for Mr. Orris Romeo? ” He nodded and I instructed, “Go back out our entrance road, turn left and you will find that Romeo’s Lane is the next road on the left. Go to the end of the lane.”

After answering several more questions, I tell my visitors, “I’m going to cross over the walkway now between these rosa lavigata roses and lead you down through the vegetable garden.” This is one time when I have chosen to use the Latin name, as it was the first name by which I came to know this superb early blooming white rose.

Rosa Lavigata or Cherokee Rose

Rosa Lavagata or Cherokee Rose

“Have any of you read the book by Gavin Menzies - 1421 The Year China Discovered the World?”

A few amongst my audience will nod their heads, while others may say they saw a TV documentary on the subject.

“This is a very old Chinese rose, but its common name is the Cherokee Rose. It was given that name when discovered growing in the USA by the early settlers. How do you suppose it reached California? According to Gavin Menzies it was grown there by Chinese left behind to colonize the region when their ship was wrecked.”

WAIT FOR ME AHEAD.

FAY ESCORTS YOU THROUGH HER GARDEN

As my garden visitors alight from the bus and enter my garden, I must direct them to take the path to the right because most of them halt in front of the bed of Jacobean Lilies, awed by this first impression of my garden, and want to ask me, “What are those red flowers?”

Jacobean Lilies.

I answer them briefly that these lilies originated in Mexico and are sometimes commonly called Aztec Lily or Orchid lily because of the fleur-de-lys shape of its petals.

All my life I have been a gardener. Every spring during my childhood, Dad cleared a stand of scrub beside the Myall Creek and in the rich ashes of the fire he planted seeds of tomatoes, cucumber, pumpkins, melons, beans and corn. It had fallen to me and my sisters to carry buckets from the creek and ladle water on each plant. In every instance, in the gardens of the farm homes I had previously established I was hampered by insufficient water. Here on this Granite Belt farm fronting the Severn River I realised I had unlimited space and abundant water at my disposal and saw the potential to create the garden of my dreams.

I’ll always be asked, “Did you draw it all up on paper first – a plan?”

“No. You can’t do that in this country – too many rocks. I went with the lay of the land, creating low terraces. When I wanted to plant a tree, I dropped in a crowbar. If it went clunk, I placed the tree elsewhere.”

Laying out hoses in sweeping lines, I used a spade to permanently mark the borders of what would become spacious garden beds. Between these lines I excavated soil to half the depth of the blade to form the base of paths, throwing this topsoil over into the area intended for gardens. I repeated the process of excavating soil right across the huge area that Eberhard had pegged out for the extension. This soil I shoveled into barrows, dumping the contents on the garden beds to raise the level of the soil.

A man will always point to the rock boulders surrounding the rose bowl and the smaller rocks edging the paths and comments, “You women, you always want rocks shifted! Some poor bugger must have done a lot of hard work!”

I’ll laugh and say, “That’s true, but it was a ready resource. Our farm has lots of rocky outcrops. All these paths were built over a period years. As Confucius said, all long journeys begin with one step. These paths began with one rock.”

I had roamed the property with Eberhard’s builder’s-barrow choosing rocks to utilise, scrupulously avoiding destroying the environment from which they were removed. Small boulders of every shape and form I prized loose with pick or crowbar, before laying the barrow on its side, rolling in the rock and finally heaving the barrow upright. Back to the garden I had trundled to drop off the rocks.

Frank Musumeci was hired to drill the postholes for the steel house stumps. The same day he used his bobcat and tipping truck to load and transport river sand into a dump outside the front gate.

From this heap I had shoveled the coarse sand into the barrow, wheeled each load to the excavated pathways and backfilled them. Now I only have to rake the paths once a week to clear the fallen debris of twigs and leaves.

Being a lateral thinker, I avoid constructing formal gardens, instead favouring free form curves. “Mother Nature never produces straight lines,” I explain to my visitors. I designed all my paths as romantic winding tracks wide enough for two people to stroll hand in hand with each path intended to reveal a new view around every bend. The only path that isn’t sand is the entry through the front garden leading to the office.

Again someone who hasn’t heard me answer the question previously will ask,“What are those tall spikes?”

Foxgloves like a semi shaded position

“Foxgloves. They grow wild in the forests of Europe,” I pluck flowers and place them over my finger tips. “Here they are known as foxgloves, but in Germany they are called fingerhut – a hood for the finger. They belong to the digitalis family and as such are highly poisonous.”

Someone is sure to ask, “Digitalis is a heart stimulant, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and it was used in olden days to poison kings, hence they all had food tasters,” I’ll reply.

Another question that I’m always asked is, “How do you cope with weeds?”

“I believe that ‘one year’s seeding results in seven years weeding. I also follow a lunar calendar.”

“How does that work?”

“In the vegetable garden during the first week of the waxing moon I plant leafy annuals like lettuce; the second week it is the turn of fruiting perennials or tomatoes; after the full moon I’ll plant root vegetables - carrots and beets; finally in the last week of the waning moon I weed. If I can follow this practice of weeding for a week of every month, very few plants get the chance to seed. But, look at these,” I point to a clump of violas, “my largest weed problem is self-sown flowers.”

Violas and Californian poppy.

“Why is that?”

“Largely because they will be left to flower and some seed will drop before I clear the bed.”

“Are those violas?”

“Yes, but they are known by many different names throughout the world. The English call them Heart’s Ease, the Americans refer to them as Johnny-Jump-Ups, the Germans liken them to a Little Step-Mother, for the same reason that they pop up everywhere, and the Russians reckon they are Anna’s Eyes as they are always watching you.”

FOLLOW THIS PATH ON YOUR RIGHT

FAY ESCORTS YOU THROUGH HER GARDEN.

As the tour group alights from the bus and enters my garden I direct them to proceed along a sandy path between two garden beds blooming with annuals and perennials.

These are the ‘Petticoat’ aquilegias.

Petticoats

These are the ‘Granny’s Bonnet’ aquilegias.

Granny's bonnets near the gazebo.

It is my aim to lead my garden visitors onto a vantage point where they can lean on the veranda rail or look out from the Gazebo to photograph the roses while I take up a stance below them.

Already I will have heard them telling each other wrongly that the Sweet Williams are perennial flocks or foxgloves are Canterbury bells.

Foxglove spire.

The reality is that most of our garden visitors come from the coastal and tropical cities of our State and couldn’t tell a steer from a heifer, a colt from a filly or a flower seedling from a vegetable seedling.

Away from the country and out of a garden, I doubt that I would blunder so obviously to display my ignorance, because years ago my mother taught me that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and prove it. So, when I am in the company of experienced gardeners, I tend to remain quietly contemplative for I recognise that gardening is a lifetime of garnering knowledge and an apprenticeship which never ends. Thus long ago I made the decision not to deliberately waste my time or burden my brain by learning the Latin names of every plant in my garden. Not that I don’t know some, and not that I don’t respect the professional nurserymen and women who have memorised all that information, after all such knowledge is a requirement of their profession.

The difference is that I am not a professional gardener. I am a Philistine, who while willing to read garden manuals and listen to the voices of experience has borrowed from many philosophies to establish a garden that is Philistine in that it acknowledges no particular gardening tradition or style. I combine different leaf textures, colours, shrubs, trees, perennials and annuals to create different views for every season, as illustrated by these three photos of the view from our northern veranda.

Leaf textures and Tiger lilies adjacent to the northern veranda in January.

Early morning light diffused by fog, highlights the textures and colours of these trees and shrubs in April.

My garden is defined by most people as a cottage garden, because of the random nature of the plants. I once had a visitor describe it as a wild garden until he had wandered the paths for a period of time. Only then did he comprehend the order amongst apparent chaos. For instance on the northern side of the house I have chosen to plant many tall deciduous trees, thus creating lush green growth and shade for summer with autumn colour followed by leaf drop allowing the winter sunshine to warm our veranda. These trees are interspersed with lower growing conifers, thus providing some greening of the winter view and at all times of the year a diversity of foliage.

By May the deciduous Canadian Maple catches attention.

Once I have my group assembled to overlook the garden I give them the spiel about how Eberhard, my German born husband, and I moved to the Granite Belt in 1992 to establish a Bed and Breakfast style guesthouse amongst the wineries.

“At that time there was no garden, just a six year old timber house in the Australian homestead style.”

The day we sighted our future home was a cool and overcast day. Overnight rain had dampened the soil, stirring a fresh, earthy aroma from dank leaves. The house itself was not spectacular, just a three bedroom, rectangular, cypress pine homestead with a gable at both ends and verandas on the eastern and western sides. The wood was oiled a warm honey brown and the mint green aluminium roof repeated the colouring of the surrounding eucalyptus trees. Paint, the hue of sandstone, protected the gables and veranda floors from weathering.

“Eberhard assessed the house and knew immediately how he could add an extension, while I looked on the surrounds as a bare palette.”

This comment will bring gasps of awe and compliments from the group positioned to view the rose garden.

October roses

COME, WALK THROUGH MY GARDEN.

Fay escorts you through her garden

When I designed my garden it never crossed my mind that every year I would be opening it to the public throughout October and November. Instead of creating a seasonal spring garden I planned a garden which every month of the year would offer something special for our Bed and Breakfast guests.

Eberhard and I had spent the spring months of 1990 in Europe and when we moved to the Granite Belt, the coldest district in Queensland 1992 I realised that I could propagate many of the plants that I had seen growing in the Northern Hemisphere.

In 1993 I asked Eberhard to plough the field in front of our house to allow me to establish a wildflower meadow like I had seen in Germany. I realised that in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt I would be able to grow the red poppies, blue cornflowers and the other European flowers which had given me so much pleasure during our travels.

This photo of the geese amongst the poppies of our wildflower meadow was taken on the 26^th October, 1995 by photographer and friend, Errol Walker.

Geese in the wildflowers at Das Helwig Haus

My powers of observation came into play and I noted that it took sixteen weeks from when the poppy seed was sown for the plant to reach flowering. I recognised that it would be possible to germinate the poppy seedlings to time the flowering to begin mid October and continue on to the end of November.

With Eberhard’s approval I suggested to the Stanthorpe RSL that we should plough up our wildflower meadow and at the end of June seed it with wheat, poppies and cornflowers to represent the way the wheat fields of France had looked before the devastation of World War One. Then we would open our field to the public for a $2.00 gold coin. The RSL agreed to collect the money. They raised a thousand dollars, which was donated to Brisbane Legacy, an organization which normally earns money by selling the artificial poppies.

Several country newspapers covered the story. One of these was the Queensland Country Life. Kate Wilkie, the young journalist, wrote a feature on the village of Glen Aplin. When I read the article I noted that the district had four red products – cherries, strawberries, wines and our red Flanders poppies. I sought the support of these other tourism businesses and launched the Red November promotion, which brings numerous coach tours to these Granite Belt attractions throughout October and November.

Red wine, red strawberries, red cherries and red poppies.

Selectors for the Australian Open Garden Scheme visited our garden. They described it as young but inspirational. They asked, if we would be prepared to open under the AOG banner the following year and we agreed.

This Open Garden event resulted in a demand from coach companies and numerous clubs requesting us to open our garden over a six week period. This has grown to become an annual event for the Glen Aplin region of the Granite Belt.

During the next few weeks I will escort you through my garden pointing out to you the highlights of the spring season and answering the questions asked by my coach tour visitors.

As I do this I will explain how I constructed the garden from scratch, designing the layout, sourcing the landscaping materials and establishing one section at a time over a period of five years

Fay escorts a garden tour group in 2007

.

In years gone by the Flanders poppy spread with mankind right around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe from Russia to Great Britain. Man, with bags of wheat seed, probably carried it across the English Channel, as the poppy was a weed of wheat fields. Another alternative is that the seed was carried in soil attached to a garden implement.

There is much mythology associated with these poppies because they have grown for centuries around the Mediterranean. They appear on ancient Greek friezes and seed has been found in the tombs of the Pharaohs. One story is that they originated in China. It was then a white flower from which a potent drug was distilled, called the Flower of Forgetfulness. After a battle when much blood was shed upon a field, the poppies grew red the next year, with a black cross in the middle. These poppies are still a wild flower and each year I see variations of colour in the overall expanse of red from shades of orange to almost purple.
Throughout my childhood as I discovered the joys of embroidery I particularly liked the designs that featured what were commonly called the Field flowers. These were the red Flanders poppy, blue cornflower, golden wheat heads and sometimes the white Marguerite daisy. When holidaying in Europe with my husband in 1990 I realised a life long ambition, to see these flowers blooming amongst the wheat crops.
Two years later when we moved to live on the Granite Belt I realised that I could grow the red Flanders poppy to begin flowering in October and continue to the end of November. The poppy flower has a small cup-like seed head that perhaps contains a thousand seeds. These seeds are as small as ground black pepper and just as hard. As the seed ripens they fall as from a pepper pot on to the ground and remain there in the soil until conditions are ready for germination.
The field poppies, or Flanders poppies as they are now known, were weeds of the wheat fields of France and Belgium. Due to the devastation of World War One no wheat was planted in the fields over which the armies of Europe fought. The soil of these fields was disturbed by the shelling, trench digging and grave digging. We have all heard of the heavy rains that turned this arena into a quagmire during the winter months, but in the spring the poppies appeared with a blaze or red wherever the soil had been disturbed. The soldiers from Commonwealth countries had never seen the like and they named them the Flanders Poppy.
Each year we cultivate our Remembrance Field towards the end of June. This throws the fine seed on to the surface of the soil. Firstly we turn the soil over with a disc plough. Then harrows are dragged over the field to level the soil.

It is then necessary that the seed be kept moist for the next two weeks. It is possible that we will have a down pour of winter rain to soak the soil, but if rain doesn’t fall we apply water via overhead irrigation sprinklers.
This winter of 2008 has been cold and dry. The photo below shows the frost on the field one July morning. The poppies have germinated but are only small plants at the time this photo was taken.

The frosts have continued into August but I have great faith that once the warm weather arrives in September the poppies in the Remembrance Field will grow rapidly.