Feeding the Family

I've just harvested the first of the tomatoes, egg plants and zucchinis, for this year, and we've been eating kale, broccoli and lettuce for a few months now. The beans are on their way. There is always something good to eat from the garden.

Joe, in the story below, has the right idea, how to feed the family from your own back yard.

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http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2770119.htm


Feeding the Family

Gardening Australia Magazine, January 2010

JOSH BYRNE meets an 85-year-old inner city gardener in Perth who has been growing vegetables for his family for more than 40 years, and has valuable skills to pass on to the next generation.

Joe Faroane emigrated from Italy to Australia in 1953 with his wife, Domenica. Five years later, they bought their property in inner suburban Perth. It was a very different landscape then, complete with horse stables and trotting yards. In 1969 most of the stables were pulled down and, with horse manure readily available, Joe set about creating a productive vegetable garden. Now, more than 40 years on, Joe is still producing food for his family.

Joe grew up in a village in Calabria, where all the families grew their own vegetables in 'market-style' gardens at home. Many of his gardening practices have been gleaned from this Italian tradition, and others he has developed through years of trial and error.

Enough for everyone
The Faroane's backyard is a production powerhouse. With about 200m² under cultivation, Joe produces plenty of food for himself and Domenica as well as their three sons and their families.

The garden is laid out like a traditional market garden, with neat networks of trellises and beds that are clearly marked out. When I visited, the summer crops of tomato, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini and beans were well underway.

Domenica preserves and pickles much of the produce to last them throughout the year. Corn and beans are blanched and frozen, tomatoes and eggplants are preserved in oils, and lima and kidney beans are dried for use in soups. She also makes her own tomato sauce, which is stored in old beer bottles. Wreaths of garlic hang in the shed to dry and sacks of potatoes are stored for months.

Crop rotation
Crop rotation forms the basis of Joe's garden plan for reducing the incidence of pests and diseases. He also staggers his plantings to extend the period when fresh produce is available, ensuring there is always something ready to harvest.

Joe meticulously saves his own seed for the following season's crops. During my visit he showed me his collection of labelled jars filled with seeds, and kindly offered me some tomato seeds. Joe has long since forgotten the name of the variety, but that doesn't bother him. He has been growing it for decades and knows it grows well in his garden, plus it's tasty - that's all that matters.
To build up the sandy soil, Joe applies sheep manure, which is readily available in Perth, and aged lawn clippings. He also digs in food scraps to rot before planting crops, and applies a small amount of fertiliser at planting. Plants are watered three times per week in warm weather.
I'm particularly impressed with the extensive trellising system Joe uses for climbing beans and for staking tomatoes. Made from a combination of salvaged steel poles and fencing wire, the trellis makes excellent use of vertical space. Joe keeps tomatoes to 2-3 main leaders by regularly pinching out the axial (side) shoots. This eases congestion in the tightly spaced rows and also results in
the development of good-sized fruit.

Dying tradition
This sort of market-style garden is rapidly becoming a rarity in Perth as demand for inner city land continues to grow. Once a common occurrence, Joe's productive garden is now an isolated entity that's surrounded by townhouses. Not only has the physical landscape changed, but the cultural shift has meant the gardening skills employed by Joe and others of his generation are disappearing along with the heirloom vegetable varieties they have traditionally grown. Gardeners such as Joe keep these ideas, skills and stocks of vegetables alive, and we need to learn from them while we can.

According to Joe's daughter-in-law, Francesca, Joe's teenage grandchildren are realising the importance of carrying on his gardening practices in their own gardens. She says the first generation after Joe took it for granted there would always be a box full of produce on their doorstep every second day. But now there is a growing realisation by the second generation, as Joe gets older, that his legacy is something special and they would like to see it continue.
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