Back to page 2
What we hadn't thought of when we first contemplated a vege garden was that this
placwhip maker ,about mee had never been settled on. Apart from a few fur trappers and loggers in the
old days this was virgin country and for all those
years had belonged to the local wildlife. Just because some Johnny come latelies
had decided to move in didn't mean they were going to stop using their
established routes to the cleared fields below us where all that lovely green
grass was growing. Of coarse if they came across a nice vege garden with nice
fresh vegetables growing in it along the way all the better, they could have a
little snack to tide them over until they could get to the real food further on.
Through our garden come a variety of animals, wallabies, (small kangaroos)
possums, wombats, echidnas, Tasmanian devils, quolls, (a small native cat
with very, very sharp teeth), bandicoots and rabbits. Rabbits, possums and
wallabies are the main offenders. They love fresh vegetables and most of the
flowering plants that you like to grow in your garden, especially roses, they love
roses. The
flowers, the petals, everything about a rose just turns them into frenzied little
eating machines. You can go to bed a night thinking," That little yellow rose
bush is doing really well, the flowers are just beautiful, it's a wonder the
possums haven't found it". Low and behold you get up the next morning and
all that's left of the rose bush are some twigs. We don't grow vegetables anymore
and the flower garden consists of plants that through trial and error we have
found the local animals won't eat unless
their really, really hungry.
I declared war on them at first and out came the
gun and the lead pills but as you get older and the grandkids come along you
become more tolerant and now it's very nice to be able to go out into the garden
at night and be able to see a variety of wild animals either passing through or
eating a bit of grass before they move on. It's gotten to stage where I have a
family of tiny little sugar glider possums come and stay the winter with me in
my workshop because it's nice and warm for them in there. Getting a feed of honey
and water and the occasional apple helps convince them they should stay as well.
The
garden is about 2 acres of mostly natives now and that keeps Christine very busy
at times especially in Autumn when there's a lot of pruning to do.
All our pruned
bits and pieces go through a humungous garden chipper we have, it can chip
branches up to 4 inches thick, and that is all put back on the garden as mulch.
Our water comes from a permanent spring fed creek and the bonus is that because
we are in such mountainous terrain
we have the added advantage of gravity feed.
After the workshop was up there was a little more room
in the cabin but the original idea was always to build the cabin and then build
a permanent house. These things take time and money of coarse and ours took not
all that much money because we did a lot of the work ourselves but it took a lot
of time.