WEED SHRUBS WITH BERRY SEEDS

During these autumn and winter months many of the introduced shrubs growing wild along the banks of the Severn River provide berries now for Australian birds who have multiplied largely due to the weedy nature of these shrubs. Birds like the Satin Bower birds now have a winter source of food.

May view of the Severn River

It is only possible for me to access the river bank at this one place where we cleared the rubbish many years ago to allow family, guests and friends to go fishing. Now farmers are prevented from clearing trees on their river frontages by the Queensland Native Vegetation Act. What this means is that plants like blackberries, Willow trees, honeysuckle, brier roses and and Privets now flourish in these regions providing cover for wild pigs, foxes and rabbits. No one manages these areas to prevent their degradation. Read the rest of this entry »

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SUSTAINABLE GARDENING

I spent some time this week reading a book by a fellow Australian, Peter Andrews. The book is called Back from the Brink and in subtitle How Australia’s landscape can be saved. He writes of the natural geography of Australia, and to my surprise, describes how the rivers previously ran in a series of shallow ponds across high country like arteries feeding the water into capillaries that spread the water down over many terrace like flood plains. With the coming of white settlers the country was quickly changed so that all the rivers now run deeply in eroded channels through the countryside, with tributaries draining water, often salty water, into them.

I am the same age as Peter Andrews, who has worked farms in South Australia and New South Wales, while I have spent much of my life on farms in Queensland. Just as people on the land learn to read cloud formations and understand rainfall patterns, they also learn to read their land. I believe I have these skills, but in reading Peter’s book I came to better understand two things. Salinity and how water moves underground. Peter does not believe in applied irrigation or the way water is stored in many farm dams, but espouses storage of water, moving water, within the ground.

Garden poppies

This morning I photographed these red Flanders poppies in my home garden. Note that they are waist high.

Field poppies

The red Flanders poppies in the field are only knee high. Why is there a difference in growth? Before this post finishes I will explain the reason. Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF SWEET CORN

As a child the only corn I knew was maize. My father always planted a plot of this corn, much of which was fed to the pigs. If it was picked young while the kernels were still milky with juice it could be boiled and served for a dinner vegetable, but my favorite treat was to roll the young cobs across the hot metal top of our wood burning stove until some of the kernels blackened. Then I would sprinkle the cob with salt, slather it with butter and go outside to chew every last kernel off the cob while butter ran down my chin.

Back about 1983 I spent a week holidaying in Fiji at one of the expensive beach side resorts. I had slept  too late to take any of the Saturday morning excursions organized for tourists, but found the Fijian entertainment manager in the lobby trying to put together a trip for his own amusement. With nothing else to do I accepted his invitation to join him and a few other stragglers, to attend a football match in Sigatoka. We all piled into a little bus, then made a side trip to collect the children of his family, before taking the road through sugar plantations over the hills to Sigatoka. The football field was a bare area of grass surrounded by a high ring of corrugated iron sheeting. Young lads perched, seated on their rubber flip-flop sandals on this sharp edge. Men had climbed trees and were sitting on all roofs  that offered a view. We were led by our guide through a muddy area where forty-four gallon former fuel drums, set over fires, were boiling water with corn cobs still in their husks. The Fijian locals were buying this corn on the cob, pulling off the husks, dropping these on the ground, munching off the corn kernels and then dropping the chewed cob to join the other refuse under foot. I reminded me of my father’s muddy pig pens.

By the time I had my own garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B and began growing vegetables the seed of sweet corn was readily available. Now there are many seed varieties from which you can choose.  While seed packets give instructions about the distance apart and the depth to plant seed it is important to note that corn is wind pollinated and should be planted in squares, not long lines.

Sweet Corn growing at Das Helwig Haus B&B

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AN ABUNDANT SUMMER BEGINS.

Is it possible that our Queensland climate could be reverting to the type of summer weather this state hasn’t experienced for two decades? It is shaping up that way with excellent rain on the Granite Belt and a devastating storm hitting Brisbane a few days after my last Red November garden tour. Now my garden is growing like a jungle and the neigbour’s cattle are happily grazing our grass land. The Severn River is flowing and our dams are full.

I set out to take a walk with my camera on Saturday afternoon and met our flock of geese marching home to be penned for the night safe from foxes and other predators. They are always rewarded with a handful of cracked corn to encourage their return, although as a grazing bird their diet consists mainly of grasses and herbage.

Geese coming home.

I was heading down to photograph one of the dams when I began to see the occasional speckle of a white field mushrooms amongst the grass, so promptly returned for a basket and knife. Read the rest of this entry »

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A GREEN DROUGHT

The Severn River which forms one boundary of our farm flows south-west to join the largest river system in Australia, known as the Murray-Darling Rivers system. Like the Mississippi River in the USA it drains inland waters south to the sea. Early Australian explorers thought there must be an inland sea in the middle of Australia, as all the rivers they discovered on the far side of the Great Dividing Range drained westward. By following these rivers they found that they later joined with the Darling River to flow south and into the sea in what became the State of South Australia. Thus water from southern Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria flows south over several months before reaching its destination in South Australia. It is a slow flowing river and subject to periods of drought when it becomes nothing more than a series of water holes. A hundred years ago paddle steamers worked the river, carrying out wool bales and other produce from the interior. During times of drought they remained stranded waiting for “The river to come down.” During the past decade drought has once more dried this mighty river to a series of water holes.

Here on the Granite Belt at the northern end of this river system, we rely on summer storms to start the water flowing. Most years we get sufficient rain to bring our river down in a flood and on average, once in a decade we will get a mighty flood as happened in January 2008.

Flooded Severn River January 2008

Since this January flood we have received little rainfall and experienced a dry winter.  During these spring months, storms have only brought small falls. This has created a green drought. The countryside appears green, but there is little grass growth. The abundance of water in our frontage to the Severn River has provided me with the ability to irrigate my garden and Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies during this drought. Read the rest of this entry »

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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.”

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THE SEASONAL RYTHM at DAS HELWIG HAUS

The four seasons.

2008 was the coldest August recorded on the Granite Belt for 17 years. The winter was also dry. We weren’t short of water for the garden as we experienced a huge flood in January 2008, which filled our waterhole on the Severn River. We have an irrigation license allowing us to draw water from the river source.

This view shows one of the dams we built on a gully watercourse below our house at Glen Aplin. We have never needed to use water from this dam for irrigation purposes. We constructed it to beautify a swampy area formerly covered in tussock grass and to provide a refuge for wild waterfowl. It is much enjoyed by ducks and geese.

Another benefit is the tranquility afforded to guests relaxing on the verandas of Das Helwig Haus http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig. They take pleasure reclining in comfortable cane chairs overlooking the spectacular garden, with their view extending down under the skirts of the pine trees to this expanse of water.

The flooded dam below the house.

Big summer rains lead to an abundance of fruit and vegetables. The rosella bushes, which are a form of hibiscus, are so attractive that I scatter them through our garden, rather than confine them to the vegetable patch. Because they are a tropical plant we have to get fruit picked before the first frosts arrive. In 2008 I lost my rosella crop when an early frost on 30th March devastated all the field crops of the Granite Belt. In this cool mountain climate the rosella bushes require five months growth to become productive. I try to get my plants into the ground in October. The red flesh of the flower calyx is the portion used for jam or jelly and next autumn when we are hopefully harvesting a crop I will include recipes for the jam and jelly.

Following heavy summer rains an abundance of grass grows across our countryside. As we don’t have any livestock, like sheep or cattle, we are obliged to slash the grass to keep our property tidy. Each year I gather some of this cut grass for composting and mulching purposes. Usually the frosts begin in May, drying the grassland and turning it the colour of straw. Each August farmers on the Granite Belt are advised to conduct burn-offs of grassy areas as a preventative measure against bushfires later in the season. I am a great believer in the cleansing power of a controlled fire so each year take advantage of the weather conditions to spot burn our land in the manner of the original settlers – the Aboriginal people.

This fire burnt the land between the house and the dam.

This blackened appearance of our land did not last long as the heat of the fire drew up moisture from deep within the soil and triggered immediate green shoots of grass. As I had hoped we received some rain and the grass responded and the area is now greening rapidly. A winter fire like this is called a cold fire as there is usually insufficient heat to scorch the leaves on the eucalyptus trees or the trunks of deciduous trees.

The removal of an overburden of grass encourages the perennial coreopsis to burst forth with a luxuriant growth of green leaves. The yellow daisy-like flowers rapidly follow and by the end of October the countryside is turning gold.

Golden wildflowers beneath a blue spring sky.

The Granite Belt is noted for enjoying four different seasons. Here I have shown you a lush green summer view, a Wwoofer – Ursula from Germany, harvesting rosellas in the autumn, the dramatic difference of recently burnt grassland and the golden glory of the spring season as Mother Nature follows her yearly rhythm. The Granite Belt is becoming famous for its cool climate wines, but many of the sixty district wineries are boutique sized and Australians are only able to purchase the wine by visiting the district. For this reason many excellent accommodation businesses have been established during the sixteen years since we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig .

The residents and tourist operators of the Granite Belt, all know that summer is a delightful season. From the moment the spring storms moisten the fallow land of the Granite Belt the perennial coreopsis flowers begin to bloom, reaching their peak with a golden carpet of daisies across the paddocks in November. The Snow in Summer melaleuca – commonly known as a paper bark tree, provide a mass of white, honey scented blossom along the river and creeks while the apple gums – Angophora floribunda flourish in the forests on the hills at Christmas time.

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Although it is the last month of winter, it is not unusual for August to be the coldest month of the year on the Granite Belt. This year, 2008, is not proving to be the exception to the rule.
Due to the altitude the Granite Belt is the coldest district in Queensland. Visitors come to Das Helwig Haus in August hoping for starry night skies and frosty mornings when the ice will crunch under their feet. They are seldom disappointed.

Although the frosts are still with us throughout much of August I always think of it as a golden month with golden daffodils and golden wattle. There is no better view of the wattle than from the deck of Claudia’s Country Café at the Thunderbolt Farm and cellar door. Set high on the hills of the Granite Belt the view from this lookout is magnificent. Set on the eastern side of the range of hills above the valley through which flows the Severn River, the deck of this charming restaurant is protected from winter winds. In the warm glow of an afternoon’s sun, guests linger over yet another glass of wine, reluctant to stir from the tranquility of the setting.
Keith and Claudia chose to call their farm after the famous bushranger who roamed the New England Tableland as far north as the Granite Belt. In honour of Fred Ward, otherwise known as Captain Thunderbolt, because he appeared suddenly usually from behind huge granite rocks, they named two of their wines Stagecoach White and Bushranger Red.
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