THE VALUE OF SHADE

Recently, when reading Peter Andrew’s book Back From the Brink, it made me take a good look at my upright willow trees and ask myself if I was utilizing them to full advantage. I planted these trees in 1998 at the end of a drainage system to serve three purposes.

• To soak up excess water
• To create a green view  behind our vegetable garden
• To provide a wind break

I quickly became disenchanted with these trees, as they spread their roots out into the area where I had previously planted pumpkins. It was a space where the pumpkins could spread. But, with the willow trees stealing all the moisture from the ground, my pumpkin crops began to fail. We ripped the ground and pulled up the roots, but within 6 months the roots had again colonized the area. The past couple of years this ground has remained bare. The trees were serving their intended purpose, but they had restricted my use of this portion of my garden.

Pruning willow

The willow trees had grown too tall. In August 2008 while they were deciduous, I hired men to reduce the height of the trees by cutting them back with a chainsaw. I used the solid wood for the fires and the twiggy branches for support structures for climbing beans and sweet-peas. When they grew again they had a bushier shape. I have seen trees like these repeatedly cut back to fence height to create a dense hedge. Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF PERSIMMONS

This photo of persimmons hanging ripe on our tree at Das Helwig Haus B&B was taken in the autumn of 2006 when Maude, a French girl, was here for six weeks as a Wwoofer. She is shown cuddling Patches, the black and white feral female cat who arrived at our home in 2005 and adopted us.

Maude, Patches and persimmons

Since then Patches has featured in many of my photographs. Since then the tree has grown and the Satin Bower Birds have multiplied, so that it is no longer possible to allow the persimmons to remain hanging on the tree until the end of May. Read the rest of this entry »

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FOR CARMEN

Carmen was one of three Italian girls who came to WWOOF for me in August. Recently she wrote to ask:

Kookaburra by David Osburg.

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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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DRAMATIC SEASONAL CHANGE

One of the joys of living at Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt is that due to the cool mountain climate this district experiences the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn. Much of Queensland only knows the hot, humid wet season of summer and the warm dry season of winter.

In 1990 when I visited Europe in the early spring as the snow was melting I witnessed the dramatic change as tulips and pansies flowered in April just as the fruiting cherry and apple trees burst into blossom. in May they were followed by the lilac, phingst rosen and climbing red roses.

When we moved to live here at Glen Aplin in 1992 I realised I could grow these same flowers. I was agreeably surprised at how rapidly, just like I had seen in Europe, spring arrived and dramatically changed the appearance of my garden.

These photos taken in August, when the decision was made to remove large eucalyptus trees, and photos taken of the same scenes now reveal the changes.

Last month of winter at Das Helwig Haus B&B 2008

The Remembrance Field had been cultivated at the end of June. The Flanders poppies had germinated but were merely a green tinge across the soil due to the dry and frosty conditions throughout July and August.

We had made the decision to bring in heavy equipment – a large excavator on tracks, with a bucket in which a man could be raised to tie chains to the branches of these eucalyptus trees. With a chainsaw the branches and tree trunks were cut to then be swung out and dropped onto the field.

The excavator claws then gripped these heavy lengths of timber and the machine clanked away to drop them in heaps off the field, where once more a chain saw could be used to cut wood into rounds, later to be split for firewood.

Now for the “WOW” factor. Read the rest of this entry »

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PAULA – MY CHEF FOR THREE WEEKS.

It was Eberhard who met the bus from Sydney at Glen Aplin and brought Paula Snow to our home. Paula had contacted me from Boston in the USA and asked if she could come to me as a wwoofer. She had joined the WWOOF organization and discovered that Das Helwig Haus B&B was a host farm prepared to teach organic gardening and cookery skills to young international travelers who were Willing Workers on Organic Farms.

Over coffee, i discovered that she had studied cooking for three years at a culinary school, then worked under a senior chef at an Italian restaurant for two years and then under another senior chef in a  seafood restaurant for a further two years. Both restaurants were situated in the city of Washington.

“What prompted your trip to Australia? I asked.

“My Grandmother died and left me a small legacy on condition that I do something adventurous with the money. After three weeks with you, I’m heading to Cairns to go white water rafting, bungee jumping and scuba diving.”

“And why have you chosen to wwoof with us?”

“I read that you practised self-sufficiency and I want to learn ‘garden to table’ from you.”

Eberhard turned to me and asked, “What are we eating for lunch today?”

I laughed. “I’ve got a cook and a chef in the kitchen and you’re asking me what we will eat? Can’t the two of you work it out?”

Read the rest of this entry »

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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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