Sharing Stories
Peanut seedling
After hearing Lynda Hallinan's presentation at Hunter's Garden Marlborough last year, it was tempting to rush home and announce that we will no longer be shopping for very much; we'll grow all our own food.
After all, if Lynda can do it in a 733m2 city section, surely we can do it on our quarter-acre.
Then again, we'd have to extend our already-large gardens and the four-legged members of our family aren't likely to approve of us tearing up the lawn for food production. Where would they play football, fetch or agility games? The dog might also point out to me that bones don't grow on trees, and we definitely don't have room to grow enough animals for his annual supply.
Besides, while Lynda is happy to share her successes and joke over her failures with her audience, I'm sure that the first Get Growing challenge she set herself was much harder than she makes it sound. Although she did say she saved herself $11,000 - that's a lot of plants and seeds!
Her next challenge, to harvest 1000kg of produce from her garden in a year, may be more attainable for us. We always grow too many veges, partly because we have chooks who appreciate a good feed of greens as much as the next person, and realistically, probably like some greens a whole lot better than the other half - kale, for example.
Lynda calculated that to reach her goal, she'd need to grow an average of 2.739kg of food each day. She's not silly, either; she explained that she decided to grow easy stuff that weighed lots!
At the beginning of the year, zucchinis give a good return, and for once, Lynda didn't mind if they grew into marrows. Smashing a couple of mature marrows in the garden is a good way to get lots of self-seeded plants to start you off the following season - and also gives you extra seedlings to sell, she points out. Lynda deals with any excess crops by selling produce at her local farmers' market, and swapping or giving away goodies from her garden.
Of course, using a lot of the same veges can be challenging, particularly bulk producers like zucchini, as anyone who has grown them knows. I told a friend of the interesting recipe Lynda had for zucchini jam - an essential ingredient in the zucchini meringue pie she makes. My friend commented that I should be able to relate to that, as I also try some "interesting" recipes to use up excess veges. I suspect she was the friend I tried my zucchini chocolate cake recipe out on. I have to admit, there might just be a zucchini meringue pie on our menu this summer, although perhaps I won't tell the other half just yet.
I also related to Lynda's efforts to adjust her tastebuds to like some of the veges which do well in her climate. Her efforts to find Florence fennel recipes she liked mirrored mine with beetroot last season.
Lynda shared stories of many of the unusual crops she grows - including the peanut plant she paid $14.99 for which produced a mere 50g of peanuts. She's ahead of me there; the peanut plant I paid a similar amount for probably only yielded about 30g - but that 30g will sprout several plants for me, so I'm hoping for better returns next summer.
ILynda's experience of searching for find tasty ways to cook veges like okra also struck a chord; I grew two okra plants last year, and some of the edible seed pods dried and became this year's seeds while I was figuring out how best to cook them.
Some things grow better in some climates than others. While cherry guava grows like a weed in Auckland, it was definitely a bit of a fragile creature in our garden, and didn't even survive long enough to produce fruit, to my disappointment. I suspect the dog, then a pup, had as much to do with its demise as the frosts; I realised too late that for reasons perhaps fathomable only to other canines, the small cherry guava plant was a favourite place to sit.
While Lynda has definitely taken the challenges she has set herself in the past couple of years seriously, she's no martyr. Anyone hearing her talk will soon realise she's had fun changing her lifestyle to become more self-sufficient. Her workshop was inspiring for experienced and beginner gardeners alike - and I loved her attitude to those failed crops we all have at one time or another. They often make the best stories, she reckons.
After all, if Lynda can do it in a 733m2 city section, surely we can do it on our quarter-acre.
Then again, we'd have to extend our already-large gardens and the four-legged members of our family aren't likely to approve of us tearing up the lawn for food production. Where would they play football, fetch or agility games? The dog might also point out to me that bones don't grow on trees, and we definitely don't have room to grow enough animals for his annual supply.
Besides, while Lynda is happy to share her successes and joke over her failures with her audience, I'm sure that the first Get Growing challenge she set herself was much harder than she makes it sound. Although she did say she saved herself $11,000 - that's a lot of plants and seeds!
Her next challenge, to harvest 1000kg of produce from her garden in a year, may be more attainable for us. We always grow too many veges, partly because we have chooks who appreciate a good feed of greens as much as the next person, and realistically, probably like some greens a whole lot better than the other half - kale, for example.
Lynda calculated that to reach her goal, she'd need to grow an average of 2.739kg of food each day. She's not silly, either; she explained that she decided to grow easy stuff that weighed lots!
At the beginning of the year, zucchinis give a good return, and for once, Lynda didn't mind if they grew into marrows. Smashing a couple of mature marrows in the garden is a good way to get lots of self-seeded plants to start you off the following season - and also gives you extra seedlings to sell, she points out. Lynda deals with any excess crops by selling produce at her local farmers' market, and swapping or giving away goodies from her garden.
Of course, using a lot of the same veges can be challenging, particularly bulk producers like zucchini, as anyone who has grown them knows. I told a friend of the interesting recipe Lynda had for zucchini jam - an essential ingredient in the zucchini meringue pie she makes. My friend commented that I should be able to relate to that, as I also try some "interesting" recipes to use up excess veges. I suspect she was the friend I tried my zucchini chocolate cake recipe out on. I have to admit, there might just be a zucchini meringue pie on our menu this summer, although perhaps I won't tell the other half just yet.
I also related to Lynda's efforts to adjust her tastebuds to like some of the veges which do well in her climate. Her efforts to find Florence fennel recipes she liked mirrored mine with beetroot last season.
Lynda shared stories of many of the unusual crops she grows - including the peanut plant she paid $14.99 for which produced a mere 50g of peanuts. She's ahead of me there; the peanut plant I paid a similar amount for probably only yielded about 30g - but that 30g will sprout several plants for me, so I'm hoping for better returns next summer.
ILynda's experience of searching for find tasty ways to cook veges like okra also struck a chord; I grew two okra plants last year, and some of the edible seed pods dried and became this year's seeds while I was figuring out how best to cook them.
Some things grow better in some climates than others. While cherry guava grows like a weed in Auckland, it was definitely a bit of a fragile creature in our garden, and didn't even survive long enough to produce fruit, to my disappointment. I suspect the dog, then a pup, had as much to do with its demise as the frosts; I realised too late that for reasons perhaps fathomable only to other canines, the small cherry guava plant was a favourite place to sit.
While Lynda has definitely taken the challenges she has set herself in the past couple of years seriously, she's no martyr. Anyone hearing her talk will soon realise she's had fun changing her lifestyle to become more self-sufficient. Her workshop was inspiring for experienced and beginner gardeners alike - and I loved her attitude to those failed crops we all have at one time or another. They often make the best stories, she reckons.