Its funny how the human heart can spin on a dime.

Last week I harvested my first turnips. They were looking a little moth eaten, though the leafy tops had expanded admirably through heat and neglect (my experiment with not watering). Not expecting much I pulled a few up for dinner only to find them huge and healthy. This was an important little moment for me, as up to then the vege garden had only yielded less substantial things like lettuce and cucumbers. Sure they are nice, but hardly hearty enough to get by on. And I am still well aware that one bunch of turnips doesnt get a family far, but it is a start. And I have only harvested a small percentage of the larger row (just thinning them out really).

The vege beds that were recently manured and fertilised with seed meal, then briefly rested before sowing (too briefly according to any book you might read), have all germinated fantastically. Ill be thinning heavily in a few weeks I think (but better that than having to resow). The cool weather has finally arrived (at least six weeks late) and a night of gentle soaking rains have perked everything up again.

The chicken shed is basically done, so our hens and a troupe of muscovy ducks will be arriving soon. The muscovy are to be put out in the orchard in a movable pen to help clear the rows for later field crops. Plants like the grains, drying legumes, sweet potato, and roving pumpkins dont belong in a well tended veggie garden. So the rows (I have left about a meter between the rows of trees) will be cycled through crops, allowing the pasture to be improved as it goes back out of field crops.

My first ornamental garden has started making obvious growth also, and my weed control strategies have been a totalitarian success. Only three times as much space to put under mulch and I will be able to breath a real sigh of relief! The ornamental gardens are a strategic investment. In the short term they should provide a source of income if I set up a small nursery, though the business model isn't set in stone in advance. In the longer run if things get really desperate they represent a quarter acre of partially improved soil, so we can yank out the roses and lavenders and stick in some stodgy spuds and yams.

I was a bit disappointed to see a Jackie French article in the paper on balcony self sufficieny. I too would encourage people to garden as much as their circumstances allow, but to call what you could grow on a balcony "self sufficiency" is highly misleading, especially when you take account of all the resources that would go into such an endeavor. Even on two fertile acres I expect we will never be "self sufficient". We will still rely on the outside world for a lot of things and need to stay a part of it. Growing some veggies in pots can be an invaluable learning experience, but the economics of it only work for leafy greens and herbs that can grow fast, and which represent a premium product that is costly (or impossible) to get to market intact. I wish she had encouraged people to connect with their neighborhood and find house dwellers who had space and interest in a veggie patch but no time to tend it. Also as she says you may be able to get away with "ten minutes a week" in the garden in a cooler climate, but here in sunny Brisbane keeping pots of demanding veggies moist and happy is lots of work, especially on a windy balcony. I think giving people the impression that growing food is easy and fast is misleading, and probably leads to those that do start out giving up when it turns out harder than they expected. I think I spend more than ten minutes a week just picking snow peas and lettuces, let alone growing them.....

I was pondering the other day the economics of one person in an extended family spending most of their time growing food for the other members. Say one person in ten manages to grow half the food by calories, probably 75% by dollar value given the high cost of fresh veg and fruit versus starchy staples like rice or grains. Ten people spending a meagre $50 a week on food each, gives a tax free saving of $375, which is the equivalent wage of the worker, and not that far off what I earn part time at the moment. Add in spiraling fresh food prices and the situation looks ever better. The problem comes in when you consider the inputs (high for intensive farming, lower for the more hands on stuff), but more from the "value" of the land it takes up (ridiculously inflated in todays economy). I am very lucky I convinced my baby boomer parents to move to this farm and let me conduct this little experiment. They were initially grumbly. "You are digging up perfectly manageable lawn". "It will become a mess of weeds!". Then with the weeds under control...."It looks like a desert!". Then with crops starting..."you need to spray those caterpillars!" and "you aren't watering things enough". But things kept on progressing. The veg garden is about 2/3 dug now and the summer-crop half will get a full rotation of green manure crops to get the soil moving soon.

But the best part has been their surprise when they saw the bunch of fat turnips in the sink.

"Did you grow those?".

I could only nod silently.