More
about Some of the Books
They Came on Viking Ships
Rainstones
Seasons of Content (1997 Harper Collins)
This is perhaps my best loved
book. It's about a year in the valley- the people, the wombats, the peaches and
the recipes, from lovely stinky hand lotion from the garden to peaches in
champagne....stories and potions that mooch along together. It's written for
adults, but older kids enjoy it too.
Children's Books
What made Jackie write HITLER'S DAUGHTER?
When I was 14, trying to do my German homework, I came across a passage I couldn't translate. My mother called a friend of hers who spoke German to help me.
It was late by then. He came over, and my mother went to bed, and we worked on the translation. But I think something in the story we were translating must have moved him (and perhaps he'd been drinking too- he hadn't known he was going to be called out to help a kid with her homework.) Because there in the silent house he began to tell me quite a different story.
He told me about a 14 year old boy, in Hitler's Germany, who joined the Nazi Party, because his parents were Nazis, his teachers were nazis. All he had ever heard or read said it was good to be a Nazi. He believed it all- the duty to rid the race of anyone who was blind, or lame, who was Jewish or Gypsy or homosexual, or anyone who believed in their religion more than Hitler, or who disagreed with his policies and had the courage to say so.
He became a guard in a concentration camp, because that is what 14 year old boys were doing in Germany at the end of the war. And when the war was over he was illegally smuggled out of Germany, with his parents, as many Nazi war criminals were.
He said to me 'When you are 14, and the world around you is insane, how do you know what is good and what is evil? How do you know?"
(And I've changed some of the circumstances here, because he was a good man, who had spent his life trying to atone for what he'd done. And he had only been 14)
I forgot his words for many years. Then ten years ago I took my mother, my brother, my cousin and my 14 year old son to the theatre to see Cabaret for my mother's 70th birthday. The play is set in Germany, just as Hitler is coming to power. Half way through the teenage waiter sings the most beautiful song 'Tomorrow belongs to me.'
I watched as my son stared at the singer entranced. As he said to me later 'That song was about me and my friends. Tomorrow belongs to us.'
Then half way through the song it changes. The lights come up...you realise the waiter is wearing a Nazi uniform. The orchestra stands, and they too are wearing Nazi uniforms. And my son sat there in shock, because he had been identifying with a Nazi song. He said he realised how he so easily may have become a Nazi, if he had been 14 in Hitler's Germany.
How do you know what is good and evil when you are 14, and the world around you is insane?
If you are 14, and you realise evil is happening, what can you do? No one listens to 14 year olds...or do they?
If you are Hitler's Daughter, after the war, do you have to say you are sorry for what your father has done, and that you had no part of?
(And no, I don't have answers to those questions. But I think they are good ones to ask.)
Slave Girl (U.K.)
Rover (U.S.A and Canada)
About five years ago I was reading some of the Icelandic Sagas, the history poems written about eight hundred years ago. The sagas tell the stories of Erik the Red, founder of the Greenland colony, and his son Leif, who sailed to 'Vinland' or present day North America.
But there too was Freydis, Leif's sister, who according to one saga also lead an expedition to Vinland. Why do we remember Leif, when Freydis is forgotten?
The more I read the more fascinated I became. Only two of the sagas mention Freydis. In one she is a total villain, who murders the rest of the expedition to get all the profits for herself, and who takes her husband's axe to kill the other women. But in the other she is a modest dutiful heroine, who saves them all when the skraelings- the native Americans- attack.
The men flee, but Freydis is nine months pregnant and can't run. So she takes up the sword of a fallen Viking, rips her bodice open, slaps the sword against her breast, and charges them, and saves them all.
Which makes sense if you think about it- bows and arrows only work at a distance. Up close an iron sword would win.
So what happened to Freydis? Why has this extraordinary women been forgotten?
Mostly, I think, she was just too strong a character for later poets and historians to cope with. By then the Roman Church had taken over from the Celtic, and they were trying hard to wipe out references to strong women, (St Brigid, for example, was a Bishop, but that but was mostly forgotten too).
'They came in Viking Ships' tells Freydis's story from the point of view of Hekja, a Scottish thrall, or slave, and her dog Snarf, as they are captured by the Vikings, taken to the Greenland colony, and then to the new colony in Vinland. The book was picked up by Harper Collins UK, US and Canada too, even before it came out here. It's an extraordinary story, though that is due mostly to Freydis Eriksdottir, not me.
A book of five longish short
stories, including the much loved Dancing Dinosaurs.(actually all the stories
in this lot are much loved).
I got the idea of Dusty and
the Dragon from a giant goanna here, called Lacy. She is taller and wider than
me and much more bad tempered, especially when she's been eating fermented
peaches in mid-summer. She is even worse with a hangover - she just climbs the
trees and looks mean. 'Jacob
Saw' was for a blind friend, who came down here and 'saw' everything - by using
her hands and smelling the air - and with her guide dog, Katy, who is wonderful
- very quiet and loyal till she is let off the chain - then she starts playing
and going mad because she is 'off duty.'
Shortlisted CBC Junior Fiction
1992, Shortlisted 1991 NSW Premiers Award, Shortlisted WA Children's Book of
the Year and the odd other award too.
The Roo That Won The Melbourne Cup (1991 HarperCollins)
A book about a roo and the
Melbourne Cup and Aunty Mugg, who'd always dared to be just a bit different.
The Boy Who Had Wings (1992 HarperCollins)
I wrote this in the days when
I still went caving and wondered what an intelligent cave living species might
be like.
Shortlisted 1993 WA Children's Book of the Year
Walking the Boundaries (1993 HarperCollins)
All Martin has to do is walk
around the boundaries and he'll own the farm and be rich. But as he walks he
discovers that boundaries aren't just lines on a map. He meets Meg from last
century, Wullamudulla from 40,000 years ago following the path of his born
snake ancestor, Dracula - a diprotonditid from 1,000,000 years ago - a bit like
a prehistoric wombat but the size of a mini bus - and they all have very
difernt ideas of what owning land means.
A book about time, culture and
the land....
I think 'Walking the
Boundaries' is one of the books closest to my heart. The boundaries in the
books are very much the boundaries of our farm, along with some of the nature
reserve above us and Wullamudulla's language is that of the local tribe, as far
as I have been able to reconstruct it - the last tribal member died in 1892 and
is buried just below our boundary.
It took me a long time to
research, as the language is no longer spoken, and I had to go back to diaries
and letters written last century. I wanted to use the language that was spoken
here, not another that was recorded in some other place... but it was very
difficult to find some of the words I wanted to use.
I'm not sure where the idea of
the book came from - I was walking up the gorge one day (in a sarong and bare
feet) and suddenly thought: I could be walking up here 1,000 years ago... or
1,000 years in the future and it would be much the same. And if anyone from the
past or future saw me down here, it would be hard for them to tell what era I
came from too - and suddenly the story arrived without my thinking about it,
almost as though the gorge was whispering it.
'Walking the Boundaries' is
different from my other books - the story almost seemed to write itself and
only a few words were changed after the first draft - usually most of my books
are reworked much more than that.
Dracula, of course, is based
on the wombats around the house here - and most of the other elements in the
story, like the history of Meg's family and Ted's house (which isn't ours) are
based on things around here too.
When the the editor who worked
on the book came down to our place for the first time, her husband was
astounded how she knew the way and recognised exactly where she was - but as
she said, she knew the valley from reading the book.
There are now several 'outdoor'
courses based on 'Walking the Boundaries' - all based on the one developed at
Birrigai Outdoor Centre in the ACT. The kids follow the paths of Martin and Meg
and Wullamudulla over two days (or three in one course) - and they really do
get to eat spotted dick and possum. The Wilderness School in Adelaide runs one
of them.
The wombat in residence while I was writing W the B was Rikki the Wrestler -
very obstreperous and loved to leap out and bite your knee caps or bowl you
over - then he'd leap back and wait for you to pounce on him. The present
wombat is Pudge - very dainty and cuddly - she'll delicately scratch on the
door rather than try to gnaw through it. (We had to reinforce all the doors for
Rikki - and even then he ate through two layers of reinforcing.). Luckily the
rest of the house is made of stone.
Walking the Boundaries was shortlisted for the 1994 Royal Blind Society Award,
shortlisted 1994 Human Rights Award, shortlisted 1994 WA Children's Book of the
Year, Cool Awards, CBC Notable Book, a few others I can't remember...
The Children of the Valley Series (5 books in the series; 1992 -
1996, Aird Books) The Music From the Sea, City in the Sand (1993), House of a
Hundred Animals (1993), The Metal Men (1994) and The Tribe That sang to Trees
(1996).
These are set many years in
the future. As far as the people of the Valley know, they are the only ones
left in the world. The only people who leave the safety of the Valley are the
Collectors, who hunt for metal or new plants in the world outside - except for
two children, Possum, from the House of the Three Jasmines, and Mopoke of Iron
Fist, with their companion the crippled collector, Desert Wind.
The Valley in these books is
based on the valley we live in here - but hundreds of years in the future.
Mopoke and Possum aren't based
on anyone in particular,..though they do have hints of my son Edward and
Victoria Clutterbuck's (the illustrator's) daughter Celene. But I think both
would be insulted if they thought either character was based on them. I don't
see myself as Desert Wind, though one reviewer at least assumed I was - though
I probably do have small bits of her character and of Big Wattie's too.
I don't base any character on
any one person, but they are all comprised of bits of people I have known (that
sounds a bit as though I hack at them with a cleaver and stick them together
again, but it isn't quite like that). I suppose many of them are bits of myself
too.
My favourite character is
Prickleberry Three Tooth - the story teller who is too old for the adventures
in the series. I would have liked to write more about him and in the original
plan he was a central character in three of the books.
No, that's not how I imagine
Australia will be in the future though it has threads of possible futures. But
it's how I imagine the Araluen Valley and the districts around it would fare if
the future in the books came to pass.
The names for people and
places just jump on me when I'm not looking - I very rarely work them out
consciously. But the names come after the background and the theme so they are
probably unconsciously related.
Hairy Charlie and the Frog (1994 CIS)
A picture book - all Hairy
Charlie wants to do is get his mail in peace... but the frog likes his letter
box too! Out of print, I think...CIS sold it to Reed Books, and when I ask Reed
books about it they just say someone will ring back...and they never do
Shortlisted Wilderness Society Children's Book of the Year
Hairy Charlie and the Pumpkin (1994 CIS)
The sequel..another one
swallowed up by Reed Books and I can't find out what's happened to it
Twelve Bottles Popping! (CIS)
A book of things to make for
Christmas...it disappeared when Reed Books bought the right to it. If anyone
can get Reed Books to discover what they've done with it, I'll be forever
grateful.
Somewhere Around the Corner ( 1994 HarperCollins)
Just think yourself around the
corner and you'll be safe - so Barbara escapes from the violent demonstration
back to the 1930's, to Poverty Gully and the young Jim, Elaine, Gully Jack and
Sargeant Ryan and Dulcie of the dairy farm, where she discovers that if you can
send your mind around the corner and dream of a better world, you might find
it.
Why I wrote 'Somewhere Around the Corner'.
'Somewhere Around the Corner'
was written in celebration of the Poverty Gully 'susso camp' that was once just
below our property, where people on the 'dole' or 'sustenance' or 'susso', a
form of Government assistance (mostly food), camped or built their shanties.
The Australian Depression
lasted from 1929, following the American stock market crash, until 1938/9, when
Australia entered World War II. Officially one person in three or four was
unemployed, but this didn't include women who had lost their jobs or teenagers
who had never had one. In some areas nine out of ten people were officially
unemployed, and perhaps nineteen out of twenty looking for work. Drought and
falling prices meant that many farmers also lived in poverty.
Families who had fallen behind
with their rent were evicted into the street; clothes, furniture and toys were
seized and sold to settle debts. Riots developed when people tried to prevent
them, with many injuries and a couple of deaths. The newspaper and newsreel
images of these evictions - a young pregnant woman clinging to a door jamb
while being pulled at by a policeman, small children crying, old people looking
lost and confused - helped change Australia's social conscience .
'Susso' camps sprang up
outside all the major cities. Thousands of people camped in shanties and tents,
with children scrabbling in the rubbish dumps. The unemployed were generally
given food tickets (the 'dole' or 'susso') that had to be used at certain
stores, not money, though gradually with dole strikes and unemployment marches
this changed. Some men worked for 'sustenance' on public works, perhaps one day
a fortnight or one week in five, building roads with picks and shovels or
planting forests in rain and mud or heat and flies, living in tents, often
hungry, without medical treatment or proper tools or clothes.
Thousands of people 'took to
the road', 'jumped the rattler' ( or goods trains) and descended on towns along
the railway lines. Confrontations between the unemployed and townspeople were
often violent, as communities grew afraid of the growing numbers of unemployed.
Poverty Gully was different.
Most 'susso' camps are
recalled with horror. People speak about the quarrels, the starvation, the mud,
the dust, the weevils in the flour. When I asked about Poverty Gully people
poured another cup of tea and smiled as they remembered.
'Yeah, we had the dances
Friday night - it had to be Friday 'cause if we danced on Saturday night we had
to stop at twelve for Sunday and we liked to dance all night. You remember
those dances Ned? I used to go barebacked all Friday so I had my shirt clean
for dancing. My word that Gully Jack could play the fiddle. You remember that
time he danced with the wattle tree?'
'Wednesday was bridge night.
It must be years since I played bridge. None of us could play in the valley but
Big Barney decided he'd teach us... you remember Barney, Ned? His wife used to
write poetry, we had some good times then... '
I tried to work out what made
Poverty Gully different
Partly I think it was because
it was a long journey from any major town. Most came to look for gold and only
the most determined stayed on. Poverty Gully also had resources that camps
close to the cities lacked - a plague of rabbits to trap and eat and skins to
sell, a creek for eels (the gold mining killed the fish), wood to burn and to
use for shanties, good soil and locals who could explain how to grow things.
Mostly I think it was the fact
that the local farmers were in much the same situation as the 'dolies'. While
other 'susso' communities simmered with the tensions of poverty the valley
people worked together, and produced poets and peach orchards and doctors and
musicians. That is their legacy, though the shanties have fallen down.
Poverty Gully was abandoned at
the beginning of World War Two. Blackberries and thornbush grow where the
shanties stood and lyrebirds scratch where there were once hundreds of people.
Most Australian children don't
know about the susso camps or why the swaggies roamed the roads. The Depression
is a time that most people try to forget. Poverty Gully is still spoken of with
affection by those who knew it, or who can recall the stories of their parents.
Most of the characters are
based on real people, though they've been muddled and merged together. Dulcie
of the Dairy Farm did feed soup to the susso kids, and scones and home made
jam, but she didn't marry Sergeant Ryan. Gully Jack did fall in love with her,
but he never told her so. Ned Wisbey remembers looking out the window at 4 am
and seeeing Gully Jack dancing with a wattle sapling, singing 'swing her in the
corner Dulcie'. But he never spoke a word to her, said Ned, and he lived and
died a bachelor.
Some of Bubba/Barbara's
experiences are my own.
The story is true to the
spirit of the valley though - the people who worked together, who refused to be
forgotten.... and who established what is now a multi-million dollar peach
industry from peach stones they foraged in rubbish bins, clearing the slopes by
hand and carrying water in kerosense tin buckets. (Ned Wisbey didn't have a
pair of shoes till he was in his twenties, and washed his only shirt on Friday's
so it would be clean for the dance. He and Bess spend their winters in Europe
now or somewhere where there's sun... but he spends his summer's gossiping in
the peach sheds, still without a shirt or shoes.)
1995 CBC Honor Book for Younger Readers; shortlisted 1995 WA Children's Book of
the Year; shortlisted 1995 ACT COOL Award; shortlisted 1995 NSW Family
Therapist's Award
The Secret Beach(1995 HarperCollins)
A book about a women who lived
with mermaids for ten years... and a girl who is tired of being human.
I've never seen a mermaid- but
I used to spend days wandering along the beach by myself trying to hear them
sing above the waves. (When I was younger I lived on an island off the
Queensland coast for a while. There was a pet dingo and emus who dashed into
the school yard to pinch our lunches.)
CBC Notable Book
Alien Games (HarperCollins 1995)
Five sci-fi stories with a
difference.
Annie's Pouch (HarperCollins 1990)
A book about the strange and
special friendship of a girl and a wallaby, a wombat and the other creatures
near her farm.
CBC Notable Book
Mermaids (Picture book. HarperCollins 1995)
I wrote the poems, Bernard
Rosa did the illustrations. They look just like photos of mermaids (maybe they
are ... ).
Shortlisted for a couple of things I can't remember....
Mind's Eye (Short stories. HarperCollins1996)
Mind's Eye is a collection of
five longish short stories... as the blurb says - 'in the mind's eye anything
can happen - from a blind singer who sees songs in the wind, a lonely bunyip
who only wants one thing for Christmas, a boy who watches... but finds he is
watched in turn...'.
The final story is based on my
Grandmother's memories of the 1919 influenza epidemic, when schools and
churches were closed and the adults all either ill or tending the sick. She and
her brother rode around the farms on their bicycles to tend the animals,
through a land deserted by people, with only the cows bawling to be milked, the
lonely dogs, the hens that may not have been fed for days or weeks. The 1919
epidemic is an almost forgotten part of Australian history - so many people
died, but it was overshadowed by World War 1 - and when it was over people only
wanted to forget.
Beyond The Boundaries (Sequel to 'Walking the Boundaries'.
HarperCollins 1996, US publisher Henry Holt, German publisher Dressler; French
publisher Hachette Jeunesse)
Summerland (HarperCollins 1996)
Iddy has come to a perfect
world - if only she can remember who she is and why she's there.
This is a book about ecaping
into the word of imagintion - and using what you find there to solve your
problems.
A Wombat called Bosco ( HarperCollins 1996)
A giant miracle working wombat
- who only kids can see....
The Warrior ( HarperCollins 1996)
A book based on 25 years of
living with wombats. A realistic story of a young wombat who defends his
territory.
CBC Notable Book
The Book of Unicorns (Harper Collins/ Angus and Robertson 1997)
Five very different stories
about unicorns, interweaving the fantastic into the commomnplace.
Dancing With Ben Hall (HarperCollins 1997)
A book of true stories - ones
my grandmother told me, stories about the animals I've known. Even a true ghost
story (I promise...).
According to the Publisher's
blurb: 'There is a village near here called
Major's Creek. It's just up the road from us; a winding, narrow road filled
with wallaby tails and lyrebirds.
This is a wonderful collection
from one of our most successful authors. These stories give children - and
adults - an insight into Australian history and the bush in a very personalised
way.
The stories are all drawn from
Jackie's own family history and experiences and will enchant you, from the tale
of the cunning wombat Moriarty to a meeting with Henry Lawson, and her great
grandmother's dance with the bushranger Ben Hall.
RRP $9.95 ISBN 0207187479 Published: May 1997
CBC Notable book
The Boy With Silver Eyes (Lothian 1997)
Short, bloodthirsty and
exciting...
Daughter of the Regiment (Harper Collins 1998)
This is about a boy who
discovers a hole in time in the chook house and sees Cissie, who lives with her
parents and the soldiers150 years ago. But then her parents die and she becomes
the Daughter of the Regiment....
This is based on a true story,
of an orphaned child in the 1820s.
Shortlisted CBC Young Fiction book of the Year 1999
The Soldier on the Hill (Harper Collins 1997)
It is 1942 and Joey Smith, an
evacuee from Sydney, sees a Japanese soldier in the hills behind the town
But in 1942 many people have
nightmares about invasion. Is the soldier real? Why does he stay on the hill
above the farm?
This is a story about
adventure, friendship, loss and prejudice - and above all a day to day account
of life in a country town in 1942 - the fears, the rationing, the extraordinary
dedication of women and children raising money for the war effort or making
camouflage nets. Of Aunt Lallie who keeps organising to try to forget, the
telegraph boy who must deliver the telegrams that everyone dreads, Miss
Tidcombe who believes the invasion has started because someone is stealing her
cats and Myrtle,the baker's daughter, who comes to believe in the soldier too.
RRP: $12.95 Published September 1997
CBC Notable Book
How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri Invaded my Maths Class and Turned Me Into
A Writer (HarperCollins July 1998)
A book about how to daydream,
make compost, eavesdrop, eat chocolate and other good writing techniques. See 'writing
tips' for a couple of extracts.
The Little Book of Big Questions (Allen and Unwin, 1998)
This book tackles the BIG
questions - for kids, but adults too.. Why isn't life fair? What happens when
you die? What killed the dinosaurs (it may not be what you think)? Do aliens
exist? Are humans more intelligent than animals?
I wish someone could have written
this book thirty five years ago, so I could have read it then.
When I was twelve I wrote to
the Professor of Physics at Uni of Queensland asking what was the difference
between living and non-living material. He couldn't answer and passed it onto
the Professor of Philosophy - both wrote back to me with long lists of possible
books on the subject, none of which our school or local library had heard of...
And thirty odd years later I
still haven't got a satisfactory answer.
This book gives answers... but
it also inspires kids to think of more questions.... and more answers....
because none of the answers in this book are 'final' ones. Maybe one of the
kids reading this book will find a totally different answer in twenty, thirty
or fifty years time...
CBC Notable Book
There's a Wallaby at the Bottom of my Garden (Koala
Books 1997)
A true story about Fred the
wallaby, who likes apricots and toast with marmalade.
There's an Echidna at the Bottom of my Garden (Koala
Books 1998)
This is a true story about
George the echidna, who likes ants and termites but not the smell of gum boots
Felix Smith Has Every Right to be a Crocdile (Koala
Books 1998)
A picture book for 4 - 6 year
olds.
CBC Notable Book
Stories to Eat with a Banana (HarperCollins/Angus and
Robertson Bluegum, 1998)
Five hilarious stories about a
phaery (NOT fairy, thank you very much) named Phredde.
Phredde is the phaery of
grunge. She's tiny, ferocious and Pru's best friend. When Phredde's around odd
things can happen, but what with Pru's brother turning into a werewolf and the
teacher with fangs, Pru needs all the help she can get...
Magic, fantasy, real life -
Pru's beginning to wonder if there really is a difference.
A collection of hilarious
stories to read when your brain wants something light to munch on - like a
banana.
CBC Notable Book
Tajore Arkle (1999 Harper Collins)
Tajore Arkle is the secret
world I lived in from about the age of three to 14. It's a world where the only
green is in the toxic Rift, where Pastseers 'remember' blue skies, and manna
grows in caves on the rock.
Hitler's Daughter(1999 Harper Collins)
The bombs are falling, the
smoke is rising from the concentration vcamps, but all hitler's daughter knows
are the lessons with Fraulein Gelber and the hedgehogs she rescues from the
cold.
Did Hitler's daughter exist?
Is it all too long ago to really matter......
How to Guzzle Your Garden (Harper Collins 1999)
When I was a kid I hated
gardening. Gardeing was all about holding the hose over the gerbneras on Sunday
afternoon when i'd rather have been doing something much more interesting.
Then I discovered gardens you
could eat...
This book tells you about all
sorts of things to grow and munch on, from how to turn your school into
something you can eat to growing parsley in your joggers or potatoes in a
bucket or making wattle pikelets.
Stories to eat with a Watermelon (Harper Collins 1999)
The sequel to Stories to eat
with a Banana...Phredde and Pru go off to save Sleeping Beauty from the
handsome Prince, and meet a frog named Bruce who is no help whatsoever. Also
girl eating rose bushes, pirate ships, a giant Thingummie, piranas in the moat
and a werewolf brother who will keep lifting his leg on the geraniums.
Charlie's Gold (Koala book 1999)
A story for 5-10 year olds
about peaches, gold and bushrangers.
The Book of Challenges... Are you ever BORED?
Do you ever feel there's nothing really challenging in your life?
You need this book!
The Book of Challenges lists
an enormous number of the greatest challenges for kids all over Australia.
Whether you're interested in
parachuting over a beach to caring for orphaned wallabies, searching for aliens
or dinosaurs (fossilised ones that is) ,sea kayaking from island to island,
abseiling or publishing your first book on the internet, digging up diamonds or
long distance bicycling or horseriding, this is the book for you!
(ps If there's nothing at all
in this book which challenges or fascinates you, you're a rock disguised as a
human!)
Missing You, Love Sarah ( a novel, March/ April Harper Collins)
Bert and the Band (a picture book, Koala Books March/ April)
Lady Dance (a novel, Harper Collins September)
Bam Wham Stomp and other fun ways to kill pests (Harper
Collins June/ July)
Captain Purrfect (for 5-10 year olds, Koala Books)
Stories to Eat with a Blood Plum (Harper Collins November...the
third in the Phredde series)
Gardening books
The Wilderness Garden (Aird Books 1993): a radical new view of Australian
growing methods $16.95 Australian.
There is no need to dig your
garden - or weed it or cart great armfuls of mulch. There's no need to mow the
lawn either, spray poisons at the pests or fungicide on the spots on your rose
leaves.
No one tends the bush - yet it
survives much better than cultivated plantations (except when humans
interfere). All a garden needs is to be planted, fed occasionally and enjoyed.
This books shows you how.
Australians inherited their
gardening traditions from last century Europe. It's a tradition of neat, dug
gardens, fanatical elimination of weeds and preferably 20 gardeners to do all
the work.
Most of the work we do in our
gardens is unnecessary. It's also bad for the gardens. Digging is backbreaking
- it also breaks down the soil strcuture so you get hard clumps, kills
earthworms, soil bacteria, mycohorriza and other useful soil life.
You don't have to dig your
garden- just use one of the non dig methods in chapter 1. You don't have to
weed your garden either- learn to live with your weeds instead. (see chapter
2).
You don't have to water your
garden every afternoon after work, or run up a bill for excess water
(chapter3). You don't have to buy expensive and polluting pesticides - most
pest control is unnecessary, as well as dangerous.
You can become a hunter
gatherer in your backyard, harvesting your perennial lettuce and silverbeet and
brocolli year after year, without the effort of spring planting.
Some people like digging,
weeding and cutting neat edges (we all have our own areas of masochism.) This
is a book for people who would rather enjoy their garden and its produce than
sweat in the dust and sun. Gardens shouldn't be hard work - they should be fun.
Rethinking Gardening
Most Australian gardens follow
a pattern - a bit of lawn, some flower beds, maybe a vegie patch out back and a
few trees and shrubs. The lawn needs mowing and the flower beds need weeding
and the vegie bed usually gets neglected and the trees are pruned - or hacked-
when you remember and the usually fruit when your on holidays so the fruit flies
get it instread of you.
Our garden is different. It's
about 2 acres, and gets about an hour's work a week. This includes lawn mowing.
Yet it provides most of our vegetables, nearly all our fruit, enough flowers to
pick an armful every day - and also supports two wombats, the occasional
wallaby, at least seven snakes, countless lizards, frogs and small animals and
over a hundred species of birds.
Everything grows together.
Pumpkins climb up the avocado trees, strawberries ramble under the kiwifruit
and limes, chokoes wander in the oranges, daisies poke through the lemon
branches and there are wild parsnips and carrots and parsley coming up in the
drive.
It's a mess. But it works.
Our place is surroubnded by
bush. That's where I learnt to garden. The wild fruit trees and vines on the
hills above us don't need pruning or fertilising - but go on fruiting just the
same. The birds eat some of them but there's still plenty for us. Weeds grow
along the banks of the creek and in the paddocks where the soil is overgrazed
or disturbed - but usually not in the untouched bush. The bush above us isn't
separated into flower areas and grass areas and tree and vegetables. (There are
wild vegetables there - you just need to know what to look for). It is a single
entity - enormous complexity that functions as a whole.
I've tried to pattern my
garden after the bush. There are no bare spaces, neatly dug - bare ground means
weeds. The trees and shrubs are planted close together - they grow tall to
reach the light; the birds eat the top fruit and I get the rest, hidden from
the birds in the tangled branches. I rarely prune, except to hack back the
growth - the fruit is small if you don't prune but you get more of it. It's
better for the tree too (see Chapter ).
Things get cut back thoughout
the year not just in winter, planted throughout the year - not just in spring,
the traditional planting time. Crops planted in spring get soft and sappy and
are vulnerable to pests - pests breed up in spring, but the predators that eat
them - and do your pest control for you - don't breed up till it gets warmer.
Plant later and you won't get so many pests.
Unfortunately we inherited our
spring planting ideas from Europe - where you need to plant early to get a
harvest. We don't here. We don't need bare soil between the rows either to
maximise sunlight - our plants are better closely planted to maximise leaf
cover to keep in moisture and built up carbon dioxide and keep down rampant weeds.
It's time we started working
out Australian ways to grow things. Australian gardens needn't follow the
European pattern. Let your vegetables wander under the shrubs - most will take
some patchy shade. Grow flowers with your trees and your vegetables - they'll
attract predators to keep down pests, but they're also fun. Have a lawn if you
must - but remember that lawns needn't be grass, needn't be mowed - and can
still be rolled on by kids and dogs and host the barbecue on Sunday afternoons.
Household Self Sufficiency $16.95 Australian (1994 Aird
Books)
This is a book for those who are sick of acrid commercial synthetics; who are
broke or canny with their cash; who dream of self sufficiency or at least self
reliance, without unending dependence on chemist shops and hardware stores; who
have medieval type fantasies of still rooms and brewing their own lotions and
potions.
Most of all though it's a book
for people who like doing things: who will get pleasure from pounding up rose
petals, mixing their own paints, making their own mattresses, who don't want to
throw away a shirt because it's stained or use yet another chemical to get rid
of the flies in the kitchen. It's a book for people who enjoy the process as
well as the end result: for people who want to enjoy and be part of every
aspect of their lives.
If civilisation collapsed
tomorrow (which I profoundly hope it won't) our household could putter on in
much the same way that it does now without the hassles of deadlines, banking,
and phone offers of attractive metal cladding for our house at dinner time.
We'd make our own sponges,
shampoos, pots and perfumes, still collect eggs from the chooks and oil from
the walnuts... and probably I'd tell stories or sing them, the way my ancestors
did, instead of bruising my knuckles on the computer.
(Yes I know we'd also be faced
with side effects of what actually destroyed civilisation - fiery winds or
radiation, nuclear winters or at least gangs of dispossessed and, to be honest,
I no longer WANT to make my own toothbrushes et al - though it was fun to do it
for a while - but let me enjoy my fantasy)
When I was a kid our school
motto was 'Knowledge is power'. I spent five years ignoring it on my hat, blazer
and book labels... it was only much later that I recognised its worth.
Knowledge IS power. I will
probably never make soap again, or build my own house (I certainly hope I won't
anyway... I'm at the laze-among-the-daffodils-and-look-forward-to-grandchildren
stage of my life now, not the heft-up-another-rock-and-bag-of-cement-darling
stage). But I've done it once; I know how to do it and, if necessary, I can do
it again.
Knowledge does give you power
- and confidence. Knowledge can't be taken away from you, no matter what else
goes wrong in the world. Meteors may fall, gangs of the alienated take to the
streets or sabotage centralised power systems; strikes and natural or man-made
disasters strike food supply systems - but if you KNOW what to do, you may
survive.
And not just in major world
crises either - in domestic crises like job losses or just when you're purse is
stretched too tight, when you feel helpless in the face of family illness or a
friend's depression, at any time when you don't want to, or aren't able to,
rely on other people or impersonal medical, social or financial services... the
more you know how to do for yourself the better prepared you'll be.
(There's a corollory to this -
once you've built your own house, made your own paper, brewed up a remedy for
haemarrhoids and boiled up your own ink from wattle galls - you start getting
the suspicion that maybe you can cope with anything, whatever new fiendish
scheme fate throws up at you - you just smile and reach for the chamomile tea
and mutter 'I can cope with that'. And mostly you can.
When I was much younger I took
pride in being almost self sufficient, in growing and making as much as I could
myself. Now I don't. It's too much work (and I'd rather buy stuff my friends
and neighbours have made instead... but that's enother story.)
Many things, though, we still
make for ourselves, firstly for the sheer pleasure of it. I love mooching down
to the garden and picking chamomile flowers and rose hips and hop flowers,
elderberry blooms and echinacea root for lotions and potions. Secondly because
we need much less money to live on, but thirdly - and probably most importantly
- because after years of using homemade lotions, cleansers et al I can't stand
commercial synthetic products - their smell, their feel and their side effects.
It really isn't any more work
to make your own cleaners than it is to buy them: the whole process takes
minutes, if not seconds once you know what you're doing. It only takes a few
minutes to whip up flea powder, moisturising lotion, perfumes (Bryan gave me
Arpège for my birthday a few years ago, but it's mostly untouched... instead I
use home made perfumes that suit my skin and my mood... and Bryan's nostrils
too).
It takes a bit longer to
produce lipstick, deodorant, soap, home made turpentine and paint - but it can
be infinitely rewarding.
To some extent this book is my
lazy way out. In the past year alone I've answered over a thousand letters asking
for recipes I've given on radio or TV, or in past issues of magazines. Now this
book is out I can just say 'Go to the library and look up the index' (but of
course the letters will probably ask a whole new lot of questions... and anyway
I LIKE getting letters ... mostly ... )
Even if you don't try all the
recipes in this book (roughly twenty years worth, so be warned), have a go with
some of them - not just because you'll save money or avoid the consequences of
many commercial products. But also because 'home made' really does make life
richer. When you use a home made cleanser or perfume or soap you'll immerse
yourself in dozens of memories - the scent of the petals you've used for
fragrance, the feel of the spoon as you stirred them.
'The Ultimate Household
Handbook' is the third of a set of five complementary books. The first is 'Backyard
Self Sufficiency (Aird books, $14.95). This tells you how to grow everything -
from olive oil to porridge oats and year round tomatoes - in your backyard.
Then second is 'Switch etc etc
' (Aird Books, $ ) - which describes home made power, water, sewerage and
garbage systems. The fourth will come out in 1995 and is a book of harvests -
how to make your own chocolate, mulberry wine, dried potatoes, ginger plums,
dehydrated zucchini and the fifth will be a book on building alternatives.
Hopefully with all five books
you'll be able to make ANYTHING... if you decide you really want to and if you
don't ... well at least you'll have the knowledge for an emergency ... or to
fantasise instead.
The Organic Garden Problem Solver (1994 HarperCollins)
Organic Control of Household Pests. $13.95 Australian (1993 Aird
Books)
A sample:
Dust Mites
Asthma, hayfever and eczema are
often at least partially due to the dust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssius, or
to dust mite residues. Perhaps one in three people have some allergic reaction
to dust mites. Dust mites are tiny - just visible to the naked eye - and need
warm moist living conditions.
Dust mites may trigger an
attack of asthma or eczema; they may also make it worse or predispose you to
other triggers. There is some evidence that the more you can reduce dust mites
the more a child's asthma will be reduced. Even if you can't rid your house
entirely - and you probably can't - the more you can reduce the dust mite
population, the more the asthma will respond.
As an asthmatic I've noticed
that when I go into houses of other asthmatics I often start to wheeze - dust
mites in the air.
I've also noticed that my son's
sunnies fog up when he unpacks his suitcase - from the dust mite residues in
the clothes.
Prevention
We avoid wall to wall carpets
in our house. Instead we have tiles, cork tiles and polished wood floors with
small and large mats. These can be taken outside and hung in the sun regularly
- sunlight is a good, old fashioned dust mite control.
RINSE ALL CLOTHES WITH HALF A
CUPFUL OF TEA TREE OIL OR LAVENDER OIL OR EUCALYPTUS OIL TO ONE LOAD OF
WASHING.
This will kill about 85% of
the dust mites.
Hang wet clothes in strong
sunlight, or use a dryer - long, slow drying lets dust mites survive.
NEVER fill a washing machine
more than half full; and use VERY hot water washes too.
As well:
. avoid long curtains that sweep the floor - and wash curtains regularly.
Venetian blinds or wooden slats or plasticised fabric or oilcloth may be better
in asthmatic's bedrooms.
. vacuum mattresses regularly.
. cover mattresses with plastic sheets; even better, cover mattresses with
zippered plastic or canvas dust coats.
. vacuum every day, especially under beds and sofas; mop floors with a damp mop
every day; mop skirtings too. Close textured carpets can also be damp mopped if
you use discretion.
. take all rugs outside at least once a week; beat them thoroughly away from
tthe house and leave an hour or two in the sun.
. avoid air conditioning and central heating . Dust mites love central heating.
There is evidence that dust mites are a worse problem since most houses began
to be heated through winter - cold houses reduced populations; now they
overwinter and numbers continue to grow all year round.
. in humid areas make sure your house has plenty of cross ventilation.
. take all removable blankets, mats etc outside in the sun for the day every
ten days.
. old houses appear to have the worst dust mite problems. If you have wooden
floors (not a concrete slab) make sure they are well sealed. If necessary get a
sealing gun and do it yourself. Also seal along crevices around skirting boards
and cornices - any cracks where mites can accumulate and breed. This should
also be done for controlling other pests, and to prevent insulation fibres or
under floor pest residues affecting anyone in the house
. dacron or foam rubber is best for children's toys or uphlstered chairs - cut
them open and change the stuffing if you can (restuffing a teddy bear may seem
daunting but it's easier than it seems, even for someone who can't sew well,
like me).
. avoid feather pillows
. remember that there will be more mites in hot humid weather, and strengthen
preventative controls accordingly.
Pets
Dust mites breed in old hair
and skin - both of which are shed by pets. (You may also be allergic to the pet
itself.)
If you do have a pet:
. try and restrict it to certain areas such as the kitchen, laundry, verandah
or any area that doesn't have carpets and is easily swept
. don't let pets sit on sofas and beds. If you want them up there, cover sofas
with washable blankets - and wash at least once a week.
. be prepared for daily sweeping or vacuuming - and vacuum long curtains too.
. brush and wash your pet regularly - outside.
Dust Mites and Sex
Dust mites breed very rapidly
on semen residues left after sex. Unromantic as it sounds, if you have asthma
and enjoy sex it may be advisable to use a plastic sheet under your normal
sheets and wash it every few days. Otherwise the mattresses or mattress cover
may become impregnated. The same goes for interludes on bear skin rugs by the
fire, on the sofa or picnic blankets. If there's a wet patch, wash it.
Industrial Strength Vacuum cleaners
These are reputed to eradicate
dust mites. They don't - but they will reduce the numbers. Make sure you empty
the bag outside. The stronger the vacuum cleaner the more effective it will be
- but even the strongest vacuum cleaner isn't as good as sealed floors like
cork tiles or sealed wood and small mats that can be beaten outside.
Room Ionisers
These are said to generate
charged particles - negative ions - into the air. The negative ions are said to
bind to particles in the air like pollen and dust mites. If this occurs it will
happen in only a very small area around the ioniser. Room ionisers appear to
have little effect on allergic reactions.
Air Filters
These may help a lot,
especially in the bedroom. The most appropriate air filters use glass fibre to
trap pollens and dust and mite residues. Some air filter models with electrostatic
precipitators emit ozone and can precipitate coughing fits or cause nose and
eye irritation. If you are considering an air filter hire one first to check
its effectiveness.
Miticides
They are very effective if
used correctly, though prevention must still be rigorously used to prevent
further build up.
Their effects may still be
preferable to the often fatal effects of asthma. On the other hand, if you
reorganise you house correctly, miticides shouldn't be necessary.
Organic Control of Common Weeds (1993 Aird Books, revised edition
1997)
This book tells you why weeds
aren't an enemy - and how to control them with everything from the vampire
technique to boiling water, 'natural' home grown herbicides, various simple
mulches, solarisation, steam..and dozens of others ways
Weed Myths
Weeds are bad guys.
On the contrary - humans are
the bad guys. Weeds attempt to correct the mess that humans have made.
Weeds are colonisers. They
invade disturbed land - and that land has usually been disturbed by incompetent
human usage, though you do get natural weed invasions after flood, fire and
storm.
Weeds stabilise disturbed
ground so that other species - eventually - can take their place. Weeds are, in
effect, natural bandaids.
This is not much consolation
to a farmer, who clears a paddock - or overgrazes it - and gets Patterson's
Curse and thistles - or to a gardener who has mown their lawn too short or
tried to grow grass under shady trees and ended up with an oxalis carpet
instead. It's even less consolation when you inherit the fruits of someone else's
mismanagement (we've been trying to undo a century of land abuse on this place
for the last quarter of a century). But it is essential to any weed management
to understand why weeds are there - not as an alien invasion, but as
(temporary) cover.
Myth no 2
Weeds are just plants growing
in the wrong place.
Weeds are plants growing in
the RIGHT place - which is why they become weeds. No plant is a weed all the
time. (Though come to think of it I'm not sure where thistles are valued -
except as the floral emblem of Scotland.)
Myth no 3
'A weed is a plant whose
virtues have not yet been discovered.' Waldo Emerson, and much quoted since.
Not exactly. ALL weeds have
some virtues - and some are very virtuous indeed, like blackberry whose fruit
makes one of the most glorious jellies the world has seen, which stabilises
overgrazed and eroded ground magnificently and provides shelter and safe
nesting sites for small birds - but if I had twenty wishes, one of them would
be to get rid of blackberry on our place, virtues and all.
A plant can be virtuous and
still be a weed - it is simply that its disadvantages outweigh its virtues.
Weeds may take over land you want for something else, poison stock, harbour
pests, edge out more useful or more attractive species... I know I've said that
weeds aren't villains and that they ALWAYS have a useful to role to play - but
there are STILL MANY TIMES YOU WANT TO REPLACE THEM WITH OTHER PLANTS - which
is why, of course, I've written this book.
Myth no 4
There is no such thing as a
weed.
Well, not exactly either. You
can't give a list of plants and say these are ALWAYS weeds - though you can
give a list of plants that are declared noxious weeds in various States and if
you don't do something about them you're in trouble. But even these weeds are
not ALWAYS weeds.
You can, however, give a
description of what makes a weed. Weeds usually breed fast; they spread beyond
their natural habitat taking the place of other species; they are usually
unpalatable to humans and other animals (something that animals love to munch
on rarely survives to be a weed). Not all weeds have all these characteristics
- couch grass for example is an enormously troublesome weed, and so is
paspalum, but both are happily chomped by many grazers - but both do share the
other characteristics.
Myth no 5
You need herbicides to
effectively get rid of weeds.
Herbicides DON"T
effectively get rid of weeds - though they can be useful bandaids if their side
effects aren't worse than the problem.
Herbicides TEMPORARILY get rid
of weeds - all too often leaving bare ground behind. Which also happens with
poor pasture or bad cultivation practices in vegie or flower gardens - then the
weed seeds or roots regrow in the bare ground - and the problem is as bad as it
ever was - till you apply herbicide again.
IF YOU HAVE WEEDS YOU NEED TO
WORK OUT WHY AND CORRECT THE PROBLEM.
The Eight Rules of Effective Weed Control
1. Work out why the weeds have invaded - and correct the problem. THERE IS
ALWAYS A REASON.
2. Work out HOW the weeds have invaded ie over the edge of your garden, in
mulch, stock feed - and make sure it doesn't happen again.
3. START SMALL - if you clear great spaces without filling them with grass,
flowers, vegie, trees et al, you'll just get weeds leaping in to do what they
do best - stabilise the disturbed soil again
4. There are always several ways to tackle any weed problem. Work out a list of
strategies and, if necessary, combine them.
5. What will happen if the weed isn't eradicated? Many weeds can be left
(especially annuals where good growing practice may mean they won't reappear
next year). Others need to be removed AT ONCE before they spread. Others like
blackberry may need to be managed then eradicated.
6. DON"T PANIC. The problem may look insouble - it isn't.
7. Don't look for magic solutions. Fairy Godmothers have turned frogs into
princes and let maidens sleep for a hundred years - but no fairy story has ever
even dared assume that ANYONE has a magic solution to weed control. Weed
control is ALWAYS a lot of work - herbicides or not. In fact fairy stories are
better at providing weeds (cf the brambles in 'The Sleeping Beauty') than at
removing them.
8. Don't try to use land for something it isn't suited for. If your land is
persistently going to weeds, it's trying to tell you something. Listen.
4. Cost Effective Labour
Many people - from farmers to
gardeners - assume that herbicides are more effective than tilling weeds by
hand. This is not necessarily so.
If you are ever tempted to use
a herbicde, do your sums first. Work out how much you'll need; how much it will
cost. Work out how long it will take to apply it and how much that will cost in
labour.
Now work out how much it will
take/cost to get rid of the weeds by hand.
In most cases, it's cheaper without
the herbicides.and if you don't want to do it.... well, labour is one thing the
world isn't short of - pay wages instead of herbicide bills.
A to Z of Useful Plants ( 1993 Aird Books)
New Plants from Old ( 1994 Aird Books)
How to grow plants from seed,
borrow cuttings, plant the stuff you buy in supermarkets and turn it into a
garden
The Books of Thyme, Mint, Lavender, Rosemary, Parsley, Basil, Chilli, and
Garlic (1994 HarperCollins)...may be out of proint
An extract:
Garlic (Allium sativum) might
be described as a pungent bulbous cultivated perennial - but this definition in
no way gives even a hint of the magic and allure of garlic.
Like many people, my early
years were spent garlicless. My love affair with garlic started in my early
twenties when former peasant dishes became high cuisine - and a widening
interest in herbal remedies brought back a lot of the lore of our great
grandparents. This seems to have been the fate of garlic - alternately loved
and abandoned for thousands of years
Garlic is traditionally a
peasant spice and remedy. In Ancient Egypt it was fed to labourers building the
pyramids to give them strength (and possibly increased resistance to waterborne
diseases); it was sacrificed to the Ancient Egyptian gods (garlic cloves were
found in the tomb of Tutankhamen dating from around 1352 BC) and Egyptian
husbands of the same era were said to chew garlic on the way home from their
mistresses so their wives would not suspect they'd engaged in dalliance.
Roman and Greek warriors ate
garlic to give them strength and courage, and it was an important part of the
stores of military triremes. In Ancient Greece athletes chewed garlic before
the Olympic games to give them vitality and endurance (and lovers ate it to
give them endurance of another kind).
The Romans applied a plaster
of crushed garlic to cure haemorrhoids; and there is a Muslim legend that when
Satan stepped out of the Garden of Eden garlic sprang up under his left foot.
The prophet Mohammed is said to have advised that garlic be applied to the
bites of vipers or the sting of a scorpion, and in many parts of the world
garlic is still applied to relieve the effect of venom. Garlic was held to be a
sacred herb ('moly') with magic healing properties by European gypsies.
Garlic was not so well
regarded in some aristocratic circles. The Roman patrician Virgil recommended
it as a food for labourers to give them strength for the harvest. The priestess
Medea is said to have smeared her lover Jason (a hero of ancient Greece) with
garlic to repel her father's savage bulls. Presumably they were aristocratic
bulls and not enamoured of peasant smells.
In 1368 King Alphonso of
Castile instituted a new order of knights - one of the prerequisites being that
any member who had eaten garlic should not come into the King's presence for a
month.
Garlic originated - and still
grows wild - in central Asia around Uzbekhistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, in
the Altaic Mountains of Siberia and in the Ural Mountains near the Caspian Sea.
(Italian chefs however may insist it originated in Sicily, and occasional
Indian cooks claim it as theirs too).
Garlic has been domesticated
in China for at least 5,000 years, in the Middle East for at least 4,000 years
and it is mentioned in the earliest Indian Vedic writings. The Romans brought
garlic to much of northern Europe and Columbus, reversing the trend to take New
World plants back to the Old, took garlic to what is now the Dominican
Republic. From there garlic eating spread across South and Central America.
Garlic has a similarly long
medical history. The Codex Exelser, an Egyptian medical papyrus from about 1500
BC, lists 22 garlic remedies for heart problems, worms and as a general tonic.
According to Pliny the Ancient Eygptians used garlic to repel scorpions and
serpents and he and Dioscorides valued it as a treatment for asthma, worms and
as a tonic and diuretic.
In the Middle Ages garlic was
esteemed as a cure for leprosy and deafness (and it may in fact have helped
skin conditions that resembled leprosy and some hearing problems). It was
believed that garlic 'neutralised foul air' and so prevented pestilence.
Medieval doctors wore masks stuffed with garlic to save them from the plague
and during the Great Plague garlic cost more than its weight in gold in London.
Garlic was one of the ingredients in the Four Thieves Vinegar, used by
Marseilles grave robbers in the 1722 plague to give them resistance to infection
from the corpses they robbed. The seventeenth century farrier Gervase Markham
fed horses that had nightmares balls of garlic, liquorice and aniseed.
In Victorian England bruised
garlic cloves were applied to the chests of consumptive children, or bound to
the feet to ease inflammation of the brain. Even as late as World War 1 garlic
juice was still applied to wounds as an antiseptic by the British Army (and
probably quite effective it was too).
Why Garlic Stinks
It is mostly the sulphur
compounds in garlic that make it smell - and most of these are found in the
pale yellow garlic oil, which makes up about a tenth of the weight of the
clove. The most important of these is alliin, which is odourless, but is
converted to allicin, one of the main active ingredients in garlic and making
up to .4% of the clove. Allicin smells.
Garlic's aroma is excreted via
the lungs and skin - which is why your breath and sweat may smell of garlic.
How to Stop Garlic Smelling
An old gardening tradition
asserts that garlic is sweeter but less pungent when grown in warm climates -
in cold areas it will be bitter and biting. This, however, may have more to do
with the local varieties grown than with climate. According to medieval lore, if
garlic is both planted and harvested when the moon is below the horizon, the
garlic will be far less pungent. I haven't tried it.
How to Stop Your Breath Smelling of Garlic
Eat a few sprigs of fresh
parsley (chew well) or nibble a slice of raw ginger or chomp on a few fresh
mint leaves. I have been told by a French friend that good red wine will also
remove the smell of garlic (or at least change it into an acceptable perfume).
It didn't- but the experiment was fun.
It has also been claimed that
eating lots of garlic reduces the smell - that it is only the occasional garlic
binger who gets smelly breath. This is a remedy for garlic addicts.
It is mostly raw garlic in
salads or semi-raw garlic in garlic bread however that flavours the breath -
cooked garlic is much sweeter and less pungent. Perhaps the final remedy is
just encourage everyone to eat a lot of garlic so no one notices the odour any
more.
How to Stop Your hands Smelling of Garlic
Scrub garlicky hands with salt
in cold water and lemon juice, then wash with warm soapy water, or place half a
cup of bicarbonate of soda in a the blender with the juice of 2 lemons and a
bunch of parsley. Blend thoroughly. Keep in a jar in the fridge and dip your
fingers in it after peeling garlic. Wash with cold then warm soapy water.
How to stop Your Fridge Smelling of Garlic
If your fridge smells of
garlic (never leave garlic in the fridge - or an uncovered dish of garlic sauce
- but accidents do happen) leave a little jar of bicarbonate of soda open on
the shelves with a few drops of vanilla sprinkled on it.
Garlic and Animals
Many wild and domestic animals
will feed on garlic - I once watched a gourmet wallaby taking alternate bites
of garlic leaf and lettuce. Wild garlic can be a pest if dairy cattle eat it as
it can taint the taste of the milk. And gorillas and various other primates
have been noted browsing on wild garlic.
Large amounts of garlic (both
the leaves and bulbs) have been fed to stock to both treat them for worms and
to stop them getting infested. Garlic is also fed to animals as a general
tonic, to ease mastitis, to increase the performance of stallions and bulls and
to help fevers and other illnesses - recipes appear in the section on medicinal
garlic as these garlic remedies can also be used for many animals.
Garlic is usually fed to stock
chopped up in bran and moistened with molasses to disguise the taste - animals
are fonder of the leaves than the strong but more medicinally active cloves.
Garlic and Fleas and Ticks.
Feeding garlic regularly to
cats and dogs is said to help repel ticks and fleas. About one clove per day is
the normal dose for a medium sized dog, with about a quarter of that for cats
and about twice that for very large dogs.
Garlic Paste for Scaly Leg on Hens
Crush six cloves of garlic and
add to three dessertspoons powdered sulphur and two dessertspoons sorbolene
cream. Rub well into the affected legs, leave for 24 hours and wash off with
hot soapy water. Peel off the softened skin and repeat.
Back Yard Self Sufficiency (Aird Books 1993 $14.95
Australian,)
Once upon a time.....
When I was a child we lived in
a new subdivision. Around us were neat gardens with shrubs and lawns, a small vegie
garden or a few fruit trees. Except next door.
Mr Doo lived next door. He was
one of the last Chinese market gardeners of the area. Like us, he had only a
quarter acre. Unlike us, he used it all.
Thick clipped rows of trees
and wide banks of vegetables, so closely planted it was hard to tell the celery
from the cabbages; banks of edible chrysanthemums and tall red flowered vines
on poles that dripped with beans. Mr Doo made his living on the same ground
that provided us with lawn to mow on Sundays, a few roses and a sandpit, and
had enough to give away as well.
Years later I learnt the old
Australian ideal of self sufficiency from our next door neighbour. Jean learnt
self sufficiency many decades ago - but it wasn't called self sufficiency then.
It was just what everyone did in the depression, when money was short,
supermarkets never thought of - and the nearest shop a day's journey away.
I remember my first dinner at
Jean's. A roast chook- and indian game, small and sweet, with the chicken taste
I'd forgotten from my childhood (today's frozen birds and even most free range
ones don't taste of much at all). Potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, two sorts
of beans and a small golden beetroot, all from the garden. Raspberries and
cream for dessert - and through the window you could see the cow that gave the
cream, chomping up the hill. It was sponge cake for supper, made with duck eggs
and more of Sally's cream, and home grown passionfruit on top and home made
raspberry jam.
Of the whole meal only a
little flour and sugar were brought in.
Lunch was salad from the
garden, and home made cottage cheese . Breakfast was a soft boiled egg and
toast. She shopped only once a month. Apart from the cow (and in small areas
you can substitute a goat) everything was grown on a plot as small as a normal
suburban garden, and tended by a woman in her seventies.
In many countries a quarter
acre is regarded as a lot of land. Most Australians waste their garden. A backyard
should be able to feed you, entertain you and give you joy - a good garden
should be as thick as a fulfilled life.
A self sufficient garden needn't
mean digging up the dahlias and putting the lawn down to potatoes. It just
needs planning.
Almost Self Sufficient
I grow things because I enjoy
it. The garden bulges with too many lettuce, radishes, parsnips, the apples are
crowded into the mulberries and the strawberries are rambling through
everything so it's lucky the birds and wombats like them too.
I like having too much of
everything. Maybe it's a leftover siege mentality from my ancestors - when you
never knew if you had to survive war or plague - or just a winter with no
supermarkets, cans or freeze dried peas.
There's a difference, though,
between growing most of what you eat and growing everything. It's easy to grow
most of your fruit and vegetables on about a quarter acre- at least once you
get into the swing of it. Its almost as easy to grow most of your own tea,
mustard, herbs and spices. It's much much harder to produce everything.
For a while my son and I were
almost completely self sufficient in food and a few other staples. This was
from necessity, not choice. My income paid for petrol, preschool and not much
else. We lived, and ate quite well. But I was glad when it was over.
Self sufficiency is as insular
as it is exhausting. You turn in on yourself. And there is little leeway for a
crisis.
During that time I got
pneumonia. It's hard to be self sufficient when you're ill. Friends may be
willing to help - but while neighbours a hundred years ago might have harvested
your apple trees and collected your eggs, now adays they are more likely to
expect to pick up your groceries for you. Neither the vegetable garden or the
orchard need much work - but we had to pick the food, prepare it.
I began to long for canned
tomatoes, lettuce that didn't have to be washed, potatoes ready washed, not in
the ground. It's harvesting that's the most work in self sufficiency.
Growing nearly everything is
easy. It's the final jump that is the trouble.
I'll probably never make our
own soap again. But I'm glad to know I can do it. You can buy lovely home made
soap in Braidwood, and I'll cherish that instead. I'll buy Sandy's pots and
Robyn's rugs and Peter's honey, and let some one else do the milking. The
knowledge is still there to do those things if they are needed. But now I
choose the jobs with which I fill my life.
This book is not for those who
want to be totally self sufficient. For those I have just this advice - don't
do it. This book outlines the basic areas of self sufficiency. It is up to you
which ones you want to practice.
How Much Work is 'Almost Self Sufficiency'?
The Urban Hunter Gatherer
Most of us don't have time to
tend a garden - nurture it and coax it along. Luckily you don't have to break
your back or dedicate your Sunday afternoons to be able to grow most of your
own food.
Our garden provides most of
our fruit and vegetables. Apart from the picking, it gets roughly half an hour
a week, including lawn mowing. Through most of winter it doesn't even get this
- and many weeks will go by when we don't do any work in the garden at all.
Of course it's a mess. But it's
a productive mess. (And I think a beautiful one.) If we came back in a hundred
years it would still be providing food. It is a system that has been set up to
feed us - and many other species - with a minimum of work and a maximum of
productivity and beauty.
How do we do it?
Firstly it is planted -
thickly - with productive perennial species- and many annuals that reseed
themselves. Most gardens are badly underplanted. Thicker planting not only
means you fit more in - it means that weeds can't enter, the ground is covered
with greenery and doesn't dry out as fast; accumulated weeds and 'wastes' add
organic matter to the soil - as do the bacteria associated with nitrogen fixers
like clover, broom, wattles, lupins, casaurinas and the sweet peas that clamber
through the trees.
We've got strawberries under
fruit trees, 'wild' potato beds, garlic patches that grow themselves,
indestructable providers like chokoes and Jerusalem artichokes and foliage turnips
and hops and banana passionfruit. They are healthy plants in healthy fertile
soil.
This is the second point.
Healthy plants need less work. To have healthy plants you need healthy soil.
Ours used not to be - it was so worked out that even grass wouldn't grow. but
we mulched - and grew green mnaure crops (plants grown just to be slashed to
add to the soil) and added hen manure and other organic matter - and now the
soil is rich and black.
We don't use pesticides
either. Why bother? We grow flowering shrubs and let vegetables go to seed to
attract predators to do our pest control for us- and so much is growing that a
little loss doesn't matter. We don't use herbicides either (except for
testing). Every plant has a use - even if it's just to be dug up to make
compost or liquid manure.
Thirdly, we use 'no dig', low
work gardens that need the minimum of maintenace from year to year.
The more you interfere with
nature the more you have to maintain. A wombat track doesn't need maintaining -
a bitumen road does. The more you weed your garden, the more weeds appear in
the bare ground. the more you prune your trees the more you have to prune the
lush new growth - and the more you have to feed them to make up for the
prunings you've taken.
No one maintains the bush, but
it keeps on feeding countless species. Once you establish a self sufficient
system it should keep feeding you... and feeding you... and keep growing in
productivity and beauty.
Why Grow Your Own?
I like growing our own food.
It makes life richer. If you buy potatoes from the supermarket that's all you
get - potatoes. This evening's spuds give memories too - grubbing them up with
Edward this morning and listening to the lyrebird sing and smelling the soft
damp soil. I remember Bryan mulching them with the wild oats he'd mown in the
asparagus patch (and accidentally mowing the asparagus too). I remember when
the spuds were first planted, years ago, and Mrs Hobbins down the road showed
me how to bandicoot them so you always had a crop. There are a million memories
in those potatoes.
There is something deeply
satisfying in working with life's necessities - crops and shelter, children,
other species.
There are other reasons, too,
for growing your own. There is the knowledge that we as a household did not
contribute to the Bhopal disaster, or any other of the tragedies that go to
making pesticides for the wealthy. We don't support the fertilizer industry -
our fertility is home grown or scavenged. And if it relied on people like us
the food processing industry would go bust.
Every one of us, I think, has
a little of our ancestors' 'siege mentality' - a need to fill the cupboards and
bolt the door. Growing your own is the best security you can have. It means
your food is always fresh and unpolluted. It means you never have to worry
about the cost of fruit and vegetables. (This year we fed most of our late
peaches to the chooks - our friends were sick of them, and so were we. Strawberries?
I haven't bothered picking them for weeks. As for beans - I think my family
would go on strike if they were given the hard stringy things you buy in shops
- or worse, watery frozen slips of green plastic. They like butter beans, or
young five penny beans, or new Purple Kings.)
For us it's true wealth to
give away the kiwi fruit, press limes on satiated friends, take armfuls of
daffodils up to town to celebrate the spring and baskets of roses all through
summer. Our standard of living is far higher than anyone on our income could
expect - because we produce things ourselves that we would otherwise have to
buy - and because any of the joys in our lives, from flowers to watching the
birds splutter in the fountain, are things we don't have to pay for.
Anyone who has ever watched a
child's face as they fill a basket of oranges or as they disappear to spend an
hour in the raspberry beds, or let a child watch the progress of a seed as it
becomes a vine and sprouts large melons - then let them pick it, all their own
work - will know there is something very basic and very good about growing your
own. This is after all what life's about - food and shelter, life and death and
growing things. There is no better way to contact this than in a garden.
I, like all humans, am part of
the earth. To work it, watch it, live within its rhythms - for me, that is the
deepest satisfaction.
Chapter 1
Planning the Self Sufficient Garden
Knowing What to Plant
Getting to Know Yourself
Few of us today really know
what we eat. This is because most of the food we eat is bought on impulse- or
near impulse- weekly or even daily as we need it.
How many people know how many
potatoes they eat a year- or even a week? How many apples, how much parsley,
how many bunches of grapes?
Even adding together what you
buy now won't necessarily tell you what you may decide to eat home grown.
Peaches are expensive- but we feed the surplus to our geese. That means we don't
buy goose food- or any number of 'cheaper' alternatives to peaches and cream
for dessert.
Leftover avocados go into the
compost, the harder bits of asparagus, beetroot that get a bit shrivelled. In
the self sufficient garden nothing is wasted- because everything is recycled.
What you don't eat goes to growing more, via the compost bin.
Home grown means you can
indulge your taste for luxury.
It's taken me many years to
work out what our family eats- how many brocolli plants we like, or brussel
sprouts, how many artichokes, how many late peaches or early apricots..I've
learnt what veg to plant near the kitchen door to grab when its raining or I
want to prepare a meal quickly. I've leant when to expect visitors (like at
Christmas and school holidays) and to plant my garden accordingly.
Looking at Your Garden
If you want a 'self sufficient
' garden you need to be able to look at your garden. Work out different ways of
using space. I'm not advocating you dig up your roses or plant the kids
sandpit. But nearly every garden has large areas that aren't used- the shady
bit along the side, the awkward corner of the lawn where no one plays, the
unused ground below the trees- even the strips of lawn beneath the clothes line
or up the drive.
Start from the outside and
work in.
Fences
Most fences don't grow
anything. I hate naked fences - they look better green. Try
. perennial climbing beans- they'll come up every year and give you thick wide
beans you can eat young and tender or keep till they are old for 'dried' beans.
They'll also cover your fence with greenery and bright red flowers
. chokos- eat the shoots as well as the fruit
. hops- hops die down in winter and ramble all over the place in summer. Eat
the young shoots in early spring; make beer from the flowers or use them to
stuff hop pillows.
. passionfruit in frost free places; banana passionfruit in cold areas
. loganberries, marionberries, boysenberries and other climbing berries,
trained up wire stapled to the fence
. grapes - there are hundreds of grape varieties in Australia - suitable for
any area, from snowy winters to tropical summers
. flowering climbers like clematis, wonga vine, perennial sweet peas
bougainvillea, jasmine, rambling roses - to attract birds, predaceous insects
and for pleasure
. edible Chinese convulvulus
. sweet potatoes (temperate areas only)
. or use your fence to stake up tomatoes, peas, broad beans.
Fruit Trees
The area next to the fence is
the best for large fruit trees. Hedge your garden boundaries with tall fruit
trees. Plant them 2 metres apart. They'll grow tall to reach the sun and the
branches will tangle - but this means birds won't find most of the fruit
(though you will) and tall trees bear as much fruit as wide ones - you just
have to climb the tree or use a fruit picker on a tall stick to get the crop.
This way you'll be able to have a far greater variety of fruit than you would
with a normally planted orchard.
With close planting a normal
backyard block will have at least twenty fruit trees. The selection is up to
you- what grows best in your area and what you like to eat. As a basic rule I'd
suggest three apples (late early and medium) one valencia and one navel orange
if frost permits; one lemon (in cold areas try bush lemons or citronelles- the
other trees will help shelter them from the frost); a loquat for earliest of
all fruit, and the rest according to preference. Remember that early and late
varieties may be separated by three months or more- two plums of the same
variety may be too may for you to use if they cropped at the same time; but a
January ripener will be finished by the time late season ones come in.
Plant dwarf fruit trees along
paths as a hedge - dwarf apples, dawf peaches, pomegranates or nectarines - or
trees like hazelnuts that can be trimmed to a neat hedge
Small fruit
Next to the trees plant 'small
fruit' - raspberries, blueberries tamarilloes, pepinoes, pineapples,
tamarilloes, elder trees for flowers and berries, kumquats, guavas strawberry
guavas, chilean hazelnuts.
Most 'small fruit' is
naturally an understory crop anyway- they accept shade for at least part of the
day. They will also cast much less shade over the next part of your garden. You
can also plant 'small fruit' among the 'permanent' beds.
Permanent Beds
These are the crops you plant
once and harvest for the rest of your life. I think they're wonderful - a bit
of mulching and they keep rewarding you.
Asparagus
This is the first spring crop
- fat tender spears that will keep shooting for months. We eat asparagus twice
a day from September to December. Modern varieties crop in two years. Don't be
put off by its reputation as hard to grow - asparagus just needs feeding. Ours
has survived scratching lyrebirds, drought, fire and flooding - but with a bit
of mulch it's good as new.
Artichokes
Artichokes are a form of
thistle. Once established they crop every spring, tolerate drought and heavy
frost and keep multiplying. Their foliage is grey and pretty. Eat them small.
Dandelions
Eat the young spring greens as
a salad or like silver beet- they are bitter in summer heat but can be blanched
in boiling water. Eat the roots like parsnip or bake and grind for coffee.
Rhubarb
Some rhubarbs are small and
red; some fat and green; some produce through winter but most die down. All are
hardy once established. the more you feed and mulch them the more you'll get.
Rocket
This is a peppery salad green;
it reseeds itself after flowering and spreads. Very hardy.
Sorrel
Once you have sorrel you'll
always have it. It's perennial but seeds and spreads. A bit bitter but makes a
good soup, sauce for fish or addition to salads.
Chicory
Eat the leaves; dig up the
root in autumn and eat like parsnip.
Sweet potatoes
These are frost tender. Plant
a sprouting sweet potato and let it ramble. The tubers you don't dig up will
shoot next year.
Ginger. for warm areas only. Grow like sweet potatoes.
Kumeras
These are really an annual but
will come up every year from bits left from last year. They are 'New Zealand
sweet potato'- really a form of oxalis- and tolerate frost. Keep them weed
free. Buy the tubers from a good greengrocer.
Plants for out of the Way Corners
Horseradish
This is a good 'under tree'
crop. Plant a piece of root and it will ramble all over the moist ground. The
leaves are also edible (like silverbeet) but a bit hot for most tastes.
Jerusalem Artichokes
These are a form of sunflower
- wonderful tall colour in late summer. Plant a few and they'll multiply like
the loaves and fishes and you'll never be rid of them. Dig up the tubers in
autumn and bake them, boil, them, fry them or make soup. Tasty but gas
producing.
Arrowroot
You can eat this like sweet
potato, or grate it and wash out the starch for arrowroot thickener. It looks
like a canna lily - it is, canna edulis, high as you waist and pretty.
Bamboo
Eat the shoots in spring-
these fresh 'bamboo shoots' taste better than any out of a can. Slice them into
boiling water and leave for ten minutes or till they are no longer bitter.
Vegetable Gardens
These will be the most work in
your self sufficient garden - annuals that need tending and replanting.
Actually the 'permanent beds' will give more than enough to feed you-just not
the staples like tomatoes and potatoes and corn that we're used to.
Plant your vegie garden in the
sunniest place you have, to get the most vegies per square metre.
I tend to have a 'basic'
garden that I plant every year- enough to keep us in most vegetables for most
meals with very little work. Then if I have time I plant the 'luxuries'. Basic
crops include silverbeet (a dozen plants will give you most of your greens for
a year), tomatoes because they grow themselves, as do pumpkins. Broccoli can be
planted once and harvested for the next year, as long as you pick it every
day.Vegetable gardens don't have to be a lot of work. (In a later article I'll
talk about 'ten minute' gardens- gardens that take ten minutes to make and
plant, and only ten minutes of work a week.)
Consider 'indestructables'
like Chinese mustard, Chinese cabbage, Chinese celery and collards. These are
all frost, heat and drought hardy greens, slightly tougher than their Aussie
counterparts. Collards are like cabbage leaves - eat them the same way. They
are slightly tougher but very, very hardy and prolific.
If you really enjoy growing
your own there's no reason why you shouldn't have a bed of rice or wheat. I've
grown both in the backyard - a square metre will give you a bucketful. The
taste is wonderful.
House Walls
This is one of the most
valuable areas of your garden. House walls store a lot of heat - and you can
use them as a microclimate to grow fruit that may not survive in the open
garden. We grow passionfruit on a pergola next to the walls here, bananas up
the walls and sweet potatoes, cardamom and other frost tender plants in a
garden below them.
Plant espaliered fruit trees -
heat loving ones - next to the heat absorbing wall of your house. Put frost
tender ones like avocados and oranges facing north. (This way even many
Tasmanian gardens can grow sub tropical fruit - walled gardens are good too)
Pergolas
Pergolas cool the house in
summer.Look for deciduous bearers like grapes, kiwi fruit, perennial peas,
chokos or hops. Consider passionfruit or pepper in hot areas.
Lawns
Look at your lawn - work out
how much of it is used - then plant the rest. Let pumpkins wander over it;
plant potatoes; fill up the edges with small fruit like pepinoes,
brambleberries, raspberries, kumquats, blueberries.
Under the clothes line
This is a low use area -
trodden on only when you hang out the washing or bring it in. Surround the base
of your clothes line with a couple of rosemary bushes or lavender (it'll make
the clothes smell all the sweeter); pave underneath it, leaving lots of spaces
for herbs like marjoram, oregano, chamomile and mints that don't mind being
trodden on.
Under the Trees, Round the Back and Under the Pergola - Edible Plants for Shady
Areas
Many plants need shade or semi
shade - especially those that originated as understorey plants in forests. Make
use of shady spots with a ground cover of:
Asparagus
Asparagus tolerates semi-shade
from a pergola above it - but not deep shade. I grow asparagus under the kiwi
fruit - the asparagus bears before the kiwi fruit comes into leaf in spring.
Blueberries
Blueberries tolerate light but
not deep shade. You can also plant them where they get morning sun but
afternoon shade.
Cape gooseberries
These grow well under trees -
especially in frosty areas where the trees give some protection
Lettuce
In hot areas lettuce grows
best under a pergola; even in temperate area lettuce tolerate light shade and
will grow under trees such as peach or almond that don't shade the ground
completely.
Parsley
See lettuce. We grow parsley
under the kiwi fruit - or rather it grows itself, reseeding every year.
Sorrel
This is a leafy, slightly
bitter green. Grow it under trees.
Strawberries
These are forest plants and
grow best under trees. They are shallow rooted and won't compete with tree
roots. Make sure they have plenty of phosphorus.
Don't grow grass in your shady
areas - it'll choke out the fruit. I grow violets instead.
Growing Upwards
Even in a very small garden
you can 'borrow space' - by growing upward. Put up trellises and grow vegetables
vertically instead of horizontally. Wherever possible I grow climbing
varieties. They take up less room- and you only need to weed the small area at
the base of the trellis. We grow climbing tomatoes, beans, peas as well as the
standard cucumbers and melons.
Consider window boxes. Stick
poles in the middle of the garden for grapes to wander up - they don't have to
be spread out - a ten foot pole give a lot of grapes and takes almost no room -
or chokos or passionfruit. Grow passionfruit or grape vines through your trees.
Make terraces for flowers,
vegetables and small fruits like gooseberries and raspberries. Terraces give
you much more planting space than flat ground. You can make terraces with
railway sleepers or bricks or rocks, or even old tyres scavenged from the local
garage. Build them as high as you can be bothered- the more tiers the more
space.
Three Tier Planting
What I've described above is a
classic peasant garden. Peasant gardens are 'three tier' gardens' - a framework
of trees with small bushes and low crops between them. The third tier is
animals - chooks, ducks, rabbits,guinea pigs, geese, guinea fowl. See chapter .
Rethink all waste space. Plant
the drive with strawberries - you'll squash a few berries sometimes - but that's
better than no harvest at all. Plant out the nature strip - preferably with
plants that passers by won't recognise are edible and pinch - tea camellias,
loquats, medlars, pomegranates, japonica (make jam or stew the fruit), Irish
strawberries, guavas, hibiscus, kurrajong, elderberries, oaks for acorns for
hen food, jojoba, white mulberries, bamboo for shoots.
Even a small backyard should
be able to grow about 40 trees, thousands of strawberry plants, several dozen
berry bushes and climbing berries and a good number of fruiting shrubs.
Self sufficient gardens are
beautiful - a ramble of productivity, a profusion of smells and colour. We've
forgotten how beautiful edible plants can be: fat red apples and tendrils of
grapes, bountiful chokos and soft feathery fennel, the wide bright blooms of
passionfruit, the scent of orange blossom on a summer night. It's like a Garden
of Eden in your own backyard.
Jackie French's Guide to Companion Planting in Australia and New Zealand $10.95
Australian, Aird Books
Companion Planting : What REALLY Happens When Basil meets Tomato
It was love at first sight -
just like the books explained - the ones that tell you how parsnips hate
celery, and celery like cabbages. He was tall, green and handsome, the perfect
basil plant, and she was a blushing tomato, a country girl at heart.
He swept her off her feet
(well, shook her to the roots anyway) and they produced prolifically all
season, and were buried in the same compost heap that winter. (Yes, I know that's
not romantic but we do need a bit of realism here).
Actually, if I had my way
myths like 'basil loves tomato' would be composted too. 'Tomatoes love basil'
is one of the great companion planting fallacies. Tomatoes grown here with
basil don't do any better or any worse than those grown without it: but if you
condemn poor old basil to live his life next to tomatoes he'll probably get
black spot.
There are a lot of companion
planting myths around - like growing marigolds to repel nematodes. Marigolds
can repel nematodes - they'll repel them away from the marigold roots, and
right into the arms of the poor flowers or vegies you're trying to protect. Not
that it matters much - the main pest species of nematodes in Australia don't
care one way or another about marigolds (most of them can't stand mustard
though - but that's another story).
So many companion planting
hints have been passed on from book to book, all based on European observations
- whereas Australia has quite different pests and predators, and garden
relationships - and the 'companion planting' that works overseas may not work
here at all.
In fact it's often hard to
tell whether companion planting works or not. Most people who practice
companion planting are exceptional, caring gardeners. When their loving touch
gets rid of pests, produces blooms that stun the neighbours or cabbages as
large as watermelons, they praise companion planting.
They should be singing their
own praises instead.
To know whether one plant
really grows better or worse with another you need to have at least two similar
plots - say one with tomatoes without basil, one with both tomatoes and basil,
and maybe another with basil all on his lonesome. Take lots of notes: measure
how long the seed takes to germinate, how fast the seedlings grow, when they
fruit, how much and how often. Then compare each plot's performance - and do it
all over again next year as well.
Having said all that, I now
have to praise companion planting. It's because of companion planting that I
don't have to use pesticides any more (except to test one sometimes), rarely
weed and hardly ever fertilise.
This year, for example, I
planted pansies with my onions. Onions are slow growing and are easily overcome
by weeds - but the faster growing, spreading pansies kept the weeds down and
insulated the soil around the onion bulbs. We got bigger onions - and for much
less work. (The pansies were pretty too.)
I've harvested the onions
today, in fact, and weighed them - and in one square metre so thick with
pansies that you'd never know there were onions there at all I gathered 23
kiloes of the fattest, sweetest, most delicious onions you have ever tasted. (I
admit a bit of bias here - all gardeners are fanatic about their produce).
The pansies are still
flowering. I suspect the onions helped protect them from aphids and fungal
problems - but I'll test that next year.
This to me is the essence of
companion planting - designing a system where the plants do the work. You don't
need long lists of what loves what, either - in most cases, you can simply work
it out yourself.
Fertilising with Companion Planting
Many plants 'fix' nitrogen
from the air - or, more correctly, the bacteria associated with their roots do.
You can use these plants as home grown fertiliser to feed your garden.
We grow masses of perennial
climbing sweet peas - those lovely pink and white ones that come up every year
and flower through most of
summer. In autumn I pull down their debris and use it to feed nearby trees or
vegies. Try growing peas, beans, lupins, broad beans and other 'nitrogen'
fixers, and using the old plants to fertilise others next door. If you can bear
to slash them down as soon as they flower they'll be much richer in nutrients
before they've put most of their effort into next year's seeds - the beans or
peas etc.
I also use the trimmings from
our wattle trees as fertilizer/mulch. It's nitrogen rich, breaks down quickly
into stunning black soil (worms adore it) - and a light prune keeps the wattles
healthier and in better shape too.
Other 'nitrogen fixers'
include casuarinas, honey locusts, sweet peas, soy beans, clover, peanuts,
kennedias, broom (use sterile varieties that don't spread), woad and tree
lucerne. The latter makes a lovely street tree by the way - evergreen, heat,
drought and frost tolerant, with masses of honey scented white flowers all
spring. Tree lucerne can be kept severely pruned - and the prunings make some
of the best mulch I know.
Weeding with Companion Planting
Many plants suppress the
growth of other plants, or inhibit the germination of their seeds. This makes
sense when you think about it. A plant wants to make sure its own progeny
survives - and will do its best to wipe out the competition. (Even barracking
parents at children's sports are far less ruthless than their plant
equivalents).
Every spring I let some of my
radishes, as well as cabbages and other brassicas, go to seed. The flowering
vegies suppress the growth of everything around them. Then I water the garden,
pull them out and have a relatively weed free garden, already dug over by the
deep roots ready for planting - and the old radishes and cabbages can rot down
to become mulch later in the year.
I use a thick barrier of
marigolds to suppress any couch grass that thinks it's going to invade the
garden beds, and a thick hedge of comfrey to keep out kikuyu. The comfrey dies
down each winter, about the same time the kikuyu stops growing. I slash the
comfrey too three or four times each summer for home grown (and wonderfully
rich) mulch. Don't ever dig around comfrey - it spreads.
You need to be wary of some
growth suppressors though. Sunflowers suppress the growth of most plants around
them - wonderful for clearing up a weedy patch, but not so good if you want
other plants clustered around their legs. I sometimes grow climbing beans up
our sunflowers. The plants are never as tall or as prolific as those grown
elsewhere, but they produce beans up to two weeks earlier - good for an early
crop - and the sunflowers seem to do better with the beans.
Attracting Predators with Companion Planting
Predators - from birds to
dragonflies to tiny wasps (not the great ugly European wasps but Australia's
enormous range of smaller good guys) - can control all your pests for you. When
we first came here we had every pest on the Southern Tablelands. Now we don't
have any major pest problems at all. We've still got a few pests - but they're
kept in check by an enormous number of predators.
As I write I can see a tiny
warbler picking off mites from the kiwi fruit leaves and a blue wren gobbling
aphids on the roses. I know there are hoverfly in the grevillea and their
larvae must be eating something... and the yellow robins and pollistes wasps
cleaned all our pear and cherry slug up too before I could even take a photo of
them (one year I'll get the camera out in time - but at the moment our photo
library just has some not very good shots of where the pests were before the
predators started guzzling)
Many garden predators are
blossom feeders, and it's their larvae that like to eat pests. Birds also adore
blossom - either to eat directly (even nectar feeders may eat pests when they're
nesting - or if there are a lot of pests about - birds are great opportunists-
you should se the honeyeaters dart about after flying ants round here) but also
birds feed on the insects that are attracted to blossom- and then they move ont
your veg nearby and clean up the insects there too.
Every garden needs blossom all
year round. The best for attracting birds and other predators are probably
those with tubular flowers (my favourite is pineapple sage - sweet smelling
leaves with briliant red flowers and clouds of tiny birds), or any of the
prolific native flowerers like grevilleas - especially the grevilleas that
flower most of the year, like 'Robyn Gordon'. After all, most predators are
natives too. A word of warning about grevilleas - many people are allergic to
them, especially the hybrids of G. banksii. Before buying a grevillea stroke a
bit of it on the soft skin under your arm pit. If you come up in a rash avoid handling
that particular grevillea.
Confusing Pests with Companion Planting
Pests recognise their food
supply either by its shape or by its scent. Most of our gardens are like a
supermarket for pests - they can wander up and down the neat, straight,
weedless rows saying 'I'll have a bit of this and a whole lot of that.'
Confuse them. Don't plant
straight rows of anything - mix up your plants so you don't have great blocks
of any one shape or scent - plant flowers among the vegies and vegies among the
flowers for a productive (and beautiful) pest deceiving garden.
After all, this is what
companion planting is about - letting your garden do the work for you , while
you sit back and enjoy the flowers and bounty.
The Chook Book ($13.95 Australian 1993 Aird Books)
I love chooks. There's nothing
more beautiful than a mob of White Leghorns like sailing ships flying with the
wind, comfortable Australorps with their fluffy black knickers dedicatedly
sifting through the old tomato bed for insects and tit bits, or a tribe of
Rhode Island Reds scratching under the lavender. There's no sound as domestic,
either, as a mob of chooks clucking in the backyard. It gives you a feeling of
safety and security. No matter what disasters are around you you've got eggs
and meat and entertainment down in your backyard.
I think I began to love chooks
and eggs at my great grandparents' household. Together with my great aunt they
went through at least two dozen eggs a day - fried or poached eggs for
breakfast, with perhaps a toasted scone from the day before; pikelets for
morning tea; a ham and egg pie for lunch or egg and lettuce sandwiches, with
stewed fruit and custard (which had even more eggs in it than the ham and egg
pie); sponge cake or tiny cream cakes and lamingtons for afternoon tea; a roast
for dinner (chook preferably) with lots of veg and more stewed fruit and
custard or pavlova or icecream - I had home made icecream there for the first
time, richer in eggs than anything else we'd eaten the whole day.
The eggs- and the chooks- came
from the backyard, and their clucking was a happy background as we ate our
cream cakes for morning tea. The hens ate the scraps and the weeds and snails
and elderly lettuces or cabbages from the garden and their manure fed my great
grandfather's prize dahlias. In fact I think that is most treasured memory of
my great grandparents- my great grandfather's calloused hands resting on his
massive belly while the two women passed him plate after plate of cake and the
hens cackled out the back.
They died in their nineties,
soon after each other, and I don't know what happened to their chooks.
Later I discovered the joy of
living with my own chooks- White Leghorns all dignified and brainless, canny
Australorps scratching through the asparagus; big bummed domestic Rhode Island
Reds pecking the woolly aphids from the apple trees; Perce the Chinese Fighting
Cock who attacked everything male- but only from behind; Rodney rooster proud
and cocky, all fifties brilliantine and black and green feathers strutting like
he owned the world.
It's no coincidence that most
peasant cultures include chook keeping. Backyard chook keeping makes sense.
Everyone can keep hens. Even
if you haven't optimum conditions, they will still be better than those that
battery hens experience- crammed in small wire cages and fed with antibiotics
to keep them alive. Anyone who eats eggs or hens from the battery poultry
industry helps keep this system going. Instead- have a brood of cluckers
pecking by your back fence.
I'd hate to be without chooks
now. I love the domestic sound of chooks clucking. I love roosters crowing at
dawn. I also love not having to worry about the pests that they clean out of
the orchard; wondering what to do with meat and prawn heads and other scraps
(chooks are so much easier than compost) I love their eggs. I love their meat.
But most of all I just love chooks.
Why You need Chooks
Chooks will give you the sort
of egg you can rarely buy; meat that hasn't been seen commercially for thirty
years; manure for your garden, they solve your compost problems (see page ) and
give infinite pleasure.
They'll also save you money.
Switch! - a book of home made power, water and garbage
systems %14.95 Austrlian (1994 with Bryan Sullivan, Aird Books)
This is a book for enthusiasts, who either want to do things for themselves -
either for moral, financial or ecological reasons, or just for the sheer
pleasure of it - and for people who may never do any of them - but do at least
like to know that such things can be done.
Most of us accept lives that
have been largely designed for us - jobs that other people have created 'job
specifications' for; houses designed by other people to fit needs that may not
be ours; neighbourhoods where we have no say in the amenities; timetables not
of our choosing even leisure is mostly preprepared by media experts, sporting
committees et al.
Designing your own power
system, dealing with your own garbage, coping with your own sewerage etc are
just some of the ways we can take control of our lives. You may choose to do
this for ethical reasons - because the alternatives are wasteful, exploitative
or polluting. You may also choose them because they are an integral part of
your life. Life is short. It's a pity to waste any of it.
By this I don't mean that we
need to accept unpleasant chores as part of our lives- but then I don't believe
that dealing with your own garbage, waste, water or power is necessarily
unpleasant. (Babies smell a bit too and need both care and maintenance - but I
wouldn't have liked them to be excluded from my life).
Many people prefer to have
their lives run for them. That's their choice. This is a book for people who
delight in designing their own lives - or at least understanding the processes
around them.
Integrated Houses
Often houses suffer from too
many independent experts. The house is built by one company, power is connected
by a second, water from a third, sewerage and garbage all performed by other
people. Food is brought in from somewhere else - like the power and water - and
the inhabitants go to other places too to work or learn. (Even entertainment is
piped in via the TV.)
Houses should be designed by
the inhabitants as places where they would live, love, play, learn, work, eat,
grow and, hopefully, be happy. That is they should be deliberately created
according to an ideal, rather than accidentally accumulated according to
society's habits.
Our place is mentioned in
other parts of the book - see heating and cooling and power systems. It's built
out of local stone and timber from local sawmills and second hand bits and
pieces scavenged from all over the place. It cost about $5000 to lock up stage
a dozen years ago, but has been added to and modified so many times since that
I'd hate to add up what it's cost. Luckily we've never had to - it's just been
created as we've had the time and money. Like our power system though, this 'bits
and pieces over many years' system is its greatest advantage - we've spent
money only when we've had it and haven't had to borrow to build or extend our
house - and our plans for the house have gradually changed as our needs have changed
too.
Like most owner-builders round
here I doubt that the house will ever be finished. There's always another room
we'd like to build or extend - and whenever we have spare money, spare time and
a windfall of materials - or just an idea we can't resist - we keep on
building.
The house is powered by the
sun - both actively, through photovoltaic panels that give us our electricity -
and passively as the sun heats the house (and helps cool it - see chapter ) and
heats our hot water. Water comes from the creek except in a drought, but
mostly, for house use, from rainwater collected on the roof and stored in two
tanks. Sewerage wastes go into a septic tank (we'd rather have had a
composting toilet but that's a long story - I wouldn't go the septic route
again) except where urine is deposited directly and discreetly onto a fruit
tree - see chapter . Eventually the septic wastes will be buried up above the
orchard with deep rooted plants on top of them - probably wattles - which will
in turn be slashed to feed the fruit trees - so the nutrients won't be lost,
just out of the system for a few decades.
The garden heats us, warms us,
entertains us (a dozen bower birds cavorting on the pergola or spinebills
dipping their beaks into the grevilleas) and mostly feeds us. (At one stage it
fed us entirely, but I've lost the fanaticism of self sufficiency. If I want
out-of-season watermelon or mangoes now I buy them, or even potatoes if it's
cold and wet and I don't feel like trekking down the back and digging.)
There's no formal separation
between house and garden. The warm or cool areas out the front and back are as
much rooms as the kitchen and used as such, for sitting, talking, eating or
entertaining. The house wastes feed the garden and the garden feeds us...
flowers are stuck in vases and dead ones are tossed under the loquat trees as
food and mulch; lavender scents the sheets and repels clothes moths and the
pyrethrum flowers make our fly spray (the garden, in fact, gives us a lot more
than food)... the pergola shields us from the sun and gives us kiwi fruit and
chooks scramble round the lot eating a large part of our 'garbage'. and giving
eggs and fertiliser, meat and entertainment.
Three areas in particular are
a basic part of the house. The first is the courtyard out the back, facing
north, and just outside the kitchen door - paved with stone and terraced up the
hill. It traps heat in winter - and the heat travels up the stairs into our
bedroom and in fact helps warm the entire house. In summer the doors and
windows opening onto it are kept closed, except at dusk, when I water the
paving so that a cool breeze floods into the house - and the door is left open
till the sunlight hits the pavers again the next day. At night the air rises
swiftly from the hot stones, creating a breeze that wafts through the house
(sometimes too enthusiastically).
The courtyard is a sort of
living larder, with tiers of 'every day' vegetables and herbs. I gather a
harvest from the courtyard at least twice a day - handfuls of parsley and wild
perennial celery and herbs and garlic chives and about twenty sorts of
perennial greens, as well as many of the medicinal or useful herbs like aloe
vera, gotu kola and sacred basil that form the basis of our household
pharmacopaeia. The area is mostly fed from the dust pan detritus from the house
- dust pan detritus is usually very high in nutrients - and a bit of manure
from the hens once a year.
The second area is the front
courtyard - always kept green even in mid-summer (it's very small, so not much
water is involved), sheltered by tall trees and vines and hanging baskets of
primulas or fuchsias or petunias and parsley. The trees and shrubs are angled
so that the wind - which in our valley is either from the north or south, even
if it is blowing from the west or east up top - funnels through to the house so
that none of the breezes are lost. It's almost always cool in summer, almost
always warm in winter, always floriferous, also sweet scented, with a tiny
fountain between a dozen sorts of mint for us and the birds (In summer the
tinkle of water is incredibly refreshing; in winter most of the mints die back
and the fountain glints above hot rocks.)
The third area is to the
south. It's our main source of cool air, just as the area to the north is our
source of heat. The eaves are wide, the poles are crowded with jasmine and
honeysuckle and the space in front is filled with garden beds of moisture
lovers like lettuce, celery, mints, silver beet, parsley, ferns. The soil here
is always moist, the area is usually semi-shaded and the air passing over it is
continually cooled. When we leave the study door open the cool air is dragged
in as the hot air is expelled up in the attic. As our winds go north-south we've
modified the house so that we have north-south facing doors and other openings
too, so we can coax the wind into the house. The main doorway, however, faces
east, so that if there's a gale blowing it doesn't blast into the house every
time we go in or out.
(This means too that the house
smells different every season - of curry bush and jasmine in spring and autumn
when the bathroom windows are wide open, of lavender and parsley in winter from
the north and mint and lettuce in summer from the south, with a hint of
honeysuckle too.)
The house, the garden and
ourselves are interdependent, part of each others' lives. Yes, I know that
every one and the environment are interdependent - but for us it is a very
direct thing, part of our day to day lives. We can never forget our dependence
on the world around; we can never close our eyes to our impact on it, or its
impact on us.
(This has its bad side too -
we get very grouchy in droughts; touchy during bush fire season; gloomy when it's
been wet for two months... but there are a lot of highs to
compensate.)
Our house is just one of many
around here - and even more around Australia - that has been deliberately
designed as part of the inhabitants' lives. Such houses and their gardens aren't
static - they continually change as the lives of their inhabitants change -
vegie gardens that dwindle as their owners get older and kids leave home; decks
and paved areas added as the house is (more or less) finished and the
inhabitants have more time to sit and watch the view. It can be a shock,
sometimes, to visit houses in the suburbs and see how little impact their
occupiers have made on them. The 'hand made' or 'home designed' houses here are
strikingly individual - though I doubt that any were intended to reflect their
owners' dreams and passions, as well as necessity and convenience.
While we were talking to
alternative power, water, sewerage and garbage systems owners while writing
this book, one of the most striking points was how fond they all were of their
systems - as though they were friends or one of the family - perhaps a rich
uncle who gave power and other treats, or a mate who didn't quite give all that
was needed - but you didn't want to insult because you liked them.... even - in
some cases - small children who had to be coaxed and taught- but who showed
enormous promise... just another year or two and they'd be right.
All the projects in this book
take work and commitment - both financial and emotional. Perhaps it sounds odd
to encourage people to take up systems that will cause them more work - and say
that they'll find it fulfilling if they do. But whether the people we talked to
created their systems for economic, environmental or other reasons, this is
what it boiled down to - in the long run, they found it fun.
The Salad Garden (1993 Text publishing but bought by Reed Books...so
who knows what's happened to it! It seems to have got lost in the system..and
anyone I speak to at Reed promises to find out..but never get back to me. (If
anyone at Reed books reads this....it would be a lovely generous thing to do to
at least answer some of my enquiries!)
Top Ten Veg (Aird Books 1995)
A book about veg
An extract:
The Revenge of the Lettuces
'Lettuce delighteth to grow in manured, fat, moist and dunged ground: it must
be sowen in faire weather in places where there is plenty of water....and
prospereth if sowen very thin.'
Palladius (don't have a date
for him)
Lettuce is a soft, shy,
delicate looking plant..which is why few gardeners expect lettuce to be so
consistently bloody minded.
Lettuce wreaks a terrible
revenge on anyone who neglects it. It instantly turns bitter if its growth is
checked in any way - or else it bolts to seed. Too little water, too little
feeding or too hot a summer all can contribute to a lettuce failure.
Lettuce has another cunning
habit...the downfall of amny a gardener.
Letuce seed is very small..a
bit like flattened grains of sand..and lettuce is remarkably easy to
germninate.
Too easy. You think you've
sown a conservative sprinkle of lettuce seed..and suddenly you have enough
lettuce to feed Australia.
You spend the whole of Saturday
planting out 3,458 lettuce seedlings, which means that there isn't room in the
garden for anything else, like lovely firm Ronde de Nice zuchinni or salsify.
(I've only just discovered
salsify ... why the heck didn't I grow it before?. It's like a rather skinny,
richer, subtler parsnip, and grows as` easily as a carrot but much more of a
show off plant...'Yes, our salsify is growing beautifully this year...What? You've
never tried it? Oh, dear....')
Salsify guarantees garden
oneupmanship. But back to the lettuces.
Lettuce was once a weed
growing along the banks of the Nile, back in the days when cats were Goddesses
( a fact that no cat ever forgets). Lettuce were being happily cultivated...and
one assumes consumed.... by the 7th century BC in China.
Lettuce was eaten both raw and
cooked - the cooking probably removed a lot of the bitterness. It was also used
medicinally 'they extract it's juice at the time of the wheat harvest (autumn,
when it would be going to seed and bitter), and it is said that it purges away
dropsy and takes away dimness of sight and removes ulcers on the eye.'
(Theophrastus, 320 BC)
Lettuce can be planted at any time of the year - just choose a winter or summer
or all year round variety. Lettuce won't grow in cold weather, though, so if
your ground is too cold to sit on comfortably your lettuce will just sit there
sulking then go to seed as soon as it warms
up. Lettuce seeds may not
germinate over 30 C. Don't panic. Spread the seeds on wet blotting paper, cover
with another sheet of wet blotting paper and keep them in a plastic bag in the
fridge for two or three days, then scrape them carefully onto the soil, cover
and keep moist. Lettuce doesn't
like competition. Make sure the soil is well weeded and there aren't other
plants crowding it - if lettuce is too crowded it may grow slowly (and become
bitter) or too much humidity will turn the lettuce slimy.
On the other hand lettuce do
seem to like being crowded together - just not with other plants - and are
sweeter and more tender if they are shoulder to shoulder with their friends. I
plant lettuce about as far apart as the width of my hand.
Keep lettuce seedlings
mulched. This will help keep the soil cool and moist and help feed them. Well
mulched lettuce are much less likely to turn bitter or 'bolt' to seed.
Water every second day - or
every day in hot weather, preferably in the evening - hot wet lettuce can rot.
Feed every week with liquid fertiliser.
There are dozens of lettuce
varieties around - summer and winter varieties as well as all year rounders,
frilly ones, curly leafed ones, crisp hearted lettuce and broad leafed tougher
ones. Try them all. Lettuce has as great a range of tastes as apples.
We grow red and green
Mignonette lettuces all year round. They are small - one meal's worth - and
sweet, and take both frost and extreme heat. Cos - either red or green - is
another all year rounder, and is an excellent lettuce for just picking off the
occasional leaf as you need it. Cos lettuce doesn't heart, and the leaves are
tougher than most commercial lettuce.
In very hot weather I find
that the red lettuces survive better - especially Red Salad Bowl lettuce - a
mound of frills and wonderful to pick leaf by leaf.
You can now buy punnets of
mixed lettuce - very good value. you can also buy packets of 'mesclun mix'
seed, which will give you a mix of delicious and ornamental leaves for salads,
including lettuce, rocket, endive and others.
If you're lettuce has decided
to tusulk, and turn bitter, you MIGHT try covering it with a box or old flower
pot for a week. I say 'might' because while this sometimes eliminates the
bitterness, all too often all you get are pale angry lettuces.
You might also try pureeing
your lettuce stalks to make a (very) green deodorant, guaranteed aluminium
free. It is also guarnteed to turn your white T shirt an interesting shade of
green, and your armpits even greener so they look like they haven't been washed
since the flood.
Or you could munch your
lettuce stalks before you go to bed. As all readers of Beatrix Potter's Peter
rabbit know, lettiuce is a soporific..though you'd have to be a baby rabbit for
it to have much effect..or be exceptionally fond of lettuce.
On the other hand, if you've
got an insomniac baby rabbit, both problems have been solved.
And what if you've just got
too many lettuces, bitter or not? Well, according to the medieval herbalist
Culpepper ''The juice mixed or boiled with oil of roses, applied to the
forehead and temples, procures sleep, and cured the headache proceeding from a
hot cause..'
Culpepper so recommended
lettuce to dampen lust - either eaten or applied directly to the affected
parts.
If you care to try this it is
a good idea to mention to your partner exactly why you are doing it, or they
may get the wrong idea entirely.
NB Avoid salad dressing if
applying lettuce as an an-aphrodisiac.
Eating lettuce seeds was also
supposed to make a man sterile. This is probably not a reliable form of
contraception.
But for true cases of
desperation...well, it's taken me about a quarter century of gardening to
finally accept that you don't have to eat EVERYTHING your vegie garden
produces. Lettuces makes the most excellent mulch...rich in nitrogen, and
totally weed free.
It doesn't even need salad
dressing.
Lettuce salad
Like bread, rice and other
basics, a lettuce salad can be wonderful - or horrible.
Firstly, make sure the lettuce
is fresh. It must also be dry - either drain it well, or better still, just
wipe it with a damp cloth, instead of rinsing it. Never soak lettuce - if it's
limp try putting it in the fridge to crisp it, not in water.
Mix in the dressing at the
last minute, or it'll go soggy. Don't beat a lettuce salad like a cake - the
most gentle mixing possible is best, either with a broad spoon or even with
your hands.
Lettuce and crouton salad
Take large chunks of very
fresh french bread. Toast it very lightly. The outside should be crisp while
the inside is soft. Dress your lettuce salad, then add the toasted bread chunks
at the last minute. Serve at once. The light toasting will help stop the
dressing soaking into the bread (as long as the lettuce isn't swimming in
vinaigrette).
Thin slivers of cold chicken
and a few pistacios also go well mixed into this salad with the bread.
Lettuce Soup
This is good when you want to
use up all those lettuce seedlings you planted too lavishly or if you're a
canny soul and just can't bear to waste the outside leaves and don't have a
rabbit.
Simmer one cup of lettuce (I
know it's hard to judge this but the exact proportions don't matter) in three
cups of chicken stock for five minutes or thereabouts. Purée. Heat again or
chill. Serve with a splash of cream or light sour cream and maybe a sprinkle of
well chopped parsley or a little winter or summer savoury or fresh dill.
Soil Food - 3,764 ways to feed your garden (Aird Books 1995)
Most gardeners and farmers regard fertility as something you buy in bags. Even
organic growers often think in terms of artificial fertiliser equivalents - so
many tonnes or bags of hen manure, compost or blood and bone.
No one feeds the bush - yet
wild flowers and fruit grow and nutrients are recycled very nicely. There are
ENDLESS alternative ways to feed your plants - and many of them require no work
from you once the system has been set up.
Plants can be fed by the
animals, fish or birds that live among them, that spread their own dung as they
feed; they can be fed by 'companion plants' whose deep roots forage for
nutrients and transfer it to the surface of the soil as their leaves break
down; they can be fed through the actions of bacteria that fix nitrogen from
the air into the soil; a bush community can even mostly just recycle its
nutrient, the leaves and dead insects et al feeding the soil... and yes, plants
can be fed by manufactured fertilisers and by the laborious tending of human
beings.
For decades we have been
taught that fertility comes from a packet or else is hauled laboriously in
smelly truck loads.
The earth takes care of its
own. Treat it well - learn to live with it, instead of exploiting it and your
soil will create its own fertility.
How To Feed Your Garden
Feeding your garden falls into
five basic categories.
. buying or scavenging fertiliser (either artificial fertilisers, 'organic'
fertilisers like manures, blood and bone, or mulching materials).
. recycling - garden and kitchen waste, urine, animal waste, paper - anything
that will decompose except human, dog, cat and pig feces and any other waste
that may be infected.
. growing your own fertilisers - with deep rooted perennials, green manure and 'nitrogen
fixing' plants, (rhizobia bacteria fix nitrogen in association with legumes and
other roots while other free living bacteria like azobacter and clostridium
pasteurianum also fix nitrogen from the air) or by growing algae
. keeping small animals, whether sheep, chooks or earthworms, for their dung
and the increased nitrogen fixing soil microflora associated with it.
. making nutrients already in your soil more available to the plants.
Most good gardeners will
proably opt for a combination of most or all of these. How you fertilise boils
down to amatter of personal choice- what suits your routine, your district,
your pocket- and the particular bond you have with your land. (Some people
adore sweating with their acres- the more their backs ache the closer to the
soil they feel. Others prefer to just watch the roses grow...and both ends of
the spectrum and all areas in between can have productive sustainable gardens...)
This book is intended to give
you a choice.
Leaf through it, and find the
feeding methods that appeal to you- that seem fun, make sense and suit your
climate and what's available. Gardening is mostly inspiration, a matter of
finding a style you identify with, then adding just a touch of sweat (or more
if that's your fancy).
Brrowse a while and find t
what suits you. Then go into your garden and breed and multiply.
Plants That Never say Die $12.95 Australian (Lothian Books 1995)
This is a hymn to perversity - to people who fall in love with an area - or are
simply stuck with it - and want to turn it into Eden. Gardens of Eden are
possible anywhere - if you choose the right plants for the soil and the
climate.
It's a book based on
(reluctant) experience. In my thirty odd years of gardening (I was a late
bloomer) I've faced humidity, drought so bad the ground was bare and hard for
three years and the creek flats filled with dead or dying animals; locust
plagues so severe even the green hose was eaten, tap dancing possums who guzzle
the garden in between performances, and climatic extremes where one day will be
46 C and the lettuce wilt even under the sprinkler and three days later there's
snow sifting down onto the avocados.
We have friends who are
attempting to revegetate a barren headland with strong salt winds 342 days of
the year (the rest of the time it's foggy); other friends who battle with
saline soils and others who have chosen to live above a marsh where they expect
frost any day of the year..
This is a book of survivors -
plants that will tolerate brown thumbs, heat, shade, drought, salt, wind,
possums, wallabies and infinite neglect.
These 'survivors' often have a
bad repuation. How any people have taken a dislike to hyndrangeas beuase they
associate them with dank mildewy back yards? How many people hate red hot
pokers because they're mostly seen as a garish flash in an otherwide barren
garden?
All plants need the right surroundings
to be beautiful. The trick is to choose that do well without fuss in your area-
and to plant a lot of them. (Most gardens are badly underplanted.)
Some people like cosseting
their plants- spraying pruning and weeding. This isn't a book for them. Gardens
needn't be hard work - or heart breaking. But you do need the strength to break
free of the stereotype that says that all gardens need to have the same plants
no matter what the soil or climate or time the gardener has to assist the
inhabitants.
Gardens in the Bush
These are my secret passion:
gardens that have been abandoned years, decades or a century before: burnt,
blown, trampled by cattle or guzzled by wallabies... and that still survive.
Sometimes all that is left are
bulbs - secret displays of daffodils or iris or freesias that suddenly explode
into colour where a month before there was just a barren paddock. Often it's
shrubs that remain - drought hardy single camellias that mark where a homestead
stood who knows how many years ago, the coral blossom in mid-winter on ancient,
lichen-encrusted japonica bushes that have formed spiny thickets that deter all
herbivores.
More often it's fruit trees -
possibly because old gardens had more fruit trees than any other plant - pears
that tower thirty metres or more with small hard fruit, loquats with rich heady
fragrance that hits you as you walk across the paddock, plum harvests that
delight the birds and wallabies, old apples twisted and lichened, ancient
walnuts with baby walnuts at their feet.
Then there are the roadside
fruits: apple branches weighted with an incredible crop (and you wonder just
how much petrol/lead they've absorbed), tropical mangoes under clouds of fruit
fly. Around here we have wild peaches that fruit in spite of experts' claims
that peaches need to be pruned every year for a good crop - these grew from
peach stones thrown from the cars of passers by after they'd bought a case or
two or three at the orchards - and then they fruit every year for decades. Our
farm even has `feral avocados' - the currawongs carry off the fruit and drop
the seeds into the blackberries, where they germinate among the damp and
darkness and emerge a decade later to finally shade out their host.
Coconuts thrive washed up on
beaches, passionfruit and kiwi fruit colonise the banks of creeks, cape
gooseberry shelters from the sun in any moist spot it can find..
These are the survivors, like
our ancestors, tough enough to breed so their line continues... not quite so
tough (or useless) that we call them weeds.
This book is about these
plants.
The Pumpkin Book (Aird Books 1996)
Everything you never thought
you wanted to know about pumpkins!
An extract
'Dinner's in the oven,' yelled
my mother, diving out the back door, down the steps and past the cockatoo, out
to yet anouther meeting and leaving me to see the younger kids didn't feed
their lamb chops to the dog. 'Yours is the one without the pumpkin.'
Mine was always the one
without the pumpkin. I hated pumpkin. Pumpkin looked like something the dog
brought up. It was wet. It was slimy. It tasted of nothing in particular -
except faintly of pumpkin, which was worse.
I hated pumpkin all through my
childhood. Then I moved to a house near the uni with three friends. And life
changed.
I discovered sex. I discovered
Jane Austen. And I discovered pumpkin.
The pumpkin discovery was
accidental. The aunt of the next door neighbour of the mother of one of my
house mates (I think that's how it went) was a gardener. And as every avid
gardener knows, in autumn you have too many pumpkins (and tomatoes and zucchini
- but they're another story.) So she gave them
away.
She gave one to the dentist
and three to the doctor and one to the milkman and finally, all other avenues
glutted with pumpkin, she gave one to her niece to give to her neighbour to
give to us.
And we were stuck with it.
None of us knew much about
cooking. None of us really wanted to. (Sex and Jane Austen and other academic
and extra curricular pursuits were much more fun.) Nor did we have any spare
cash to buy interesting ingredients.
But there was the pumpkin. And
we were broke. And economy said 'Eat it.'.
So we did. We had it boiled,
which tasted just like the mashed pumpkin my mother served, ie disgusting. We
had it baked, which would have been interesting if we could have afforded roast
lamb to go with it, but we couldn't, and it didn't taste all that crash hot
with boiled soya beans which were our staple (and gaseous) protein at the time.
There was leftover mashed
pumpkin in the fridge and left over baked pumpkin in the oven... and somehow in
a burst of culinary creativity I made what I referred to as 'pumpkin bread' -
really a very basic cake with pumpkin added.
And it was beautiful.
That was the end of the
pumpkin and the start of two years (till I finished my degree and finally left
uni) of making pumpkin bread. I would probably still be making it if I hadn't
married my first husband, who hated pumpkin bread - but that's another story
too and one I won't go into.
The pumpkin bread has led to
pumpkin fruit cake, pumpkin soup, stuffed pumpkin, spiced purées, pumpkin
gnocchi, pumpkin and bean soup.(My second husband loves pumpkin.) (Though I gew
up in Queensland I confess I never made a pumpkin scone till I came south.) It's
led to a quarter of a century's happy symbiosis with pumpkin vines: I keep them
fed and watered and give them... well, not quite enough room in my garden to be
honest, and they give me pumpkins and pumpkins and more pumpkins.
As I write it's autumn. The
pumpkins are ripening. I wish they weren't. Not quite so many anyway. I always
grow too many pumpkins. They look so wonderful snarling over the garden. And
anyway it's an atavistic thing - you know when you've got pumpkins in the
garden and the larder you'll never starve. Just get awfully sick of pumpkin.
So I plant them. And I tend
them. And now I have to pick them and cure them on the chookshed roof (all
summer a goanna sits on the roof hissing at the chooks and looking longingly in
at the eggs - we have a goanna proof chook shed with a high window that only
the cooks can fly through. Goannas haven't yet learnt to fly. But come winter
the space is vacant and the pumpkins can sit there till their skins harden. And
then we take them indoors and store them till we need them.
This is the hard part -
finding a spot to store your pumpkins. If they all go in the garage there's no
room for the car. Or a guest in the spare room. We've got pumpkins marching up
the steps, two to every stair, pumpkins lining the hallway like sentinels on
parade - which is all very well till they start to go off and you have
interesting moist patches spreading through the house. (Pumpkins don't have to
go off - at least not till spring - if you treat them properly. See further
on.)
And we eat them which is the
easy part. We rarely eat pumpkin in summer - by then we're sick of it, and
anyway, you don't get really good ones - strong rich and fragrant - till late
summer and autumn. That was the trouble with Mum's pumpkin - she served it all
through the year (and yes, it was stringy and watery
too).
You need to be a good cook to
serve pumpkin well. Like all great peasant staples - bread, rice, polenta et al
- pumpkin needs to be picked at the right time and served wth confidence and
precision and a touch of imagination too.
From being a pumpkin hater I've
become a pumpkin lover. This book was written with the zeal of a convert. (It
probably shows).
Growing Flowers Naturally, $19.95 Australian (Aird Books)
Flowers are magic - literally magic, the product of millions of years of
evolution to make them irresistible to birds, bees, wasps and other pollinators
- and humans as well.
Flowers have deep roots in the
human psyche. Flowers make us think of love, passion, harmony, peace,
plenitude, beauty. Flowers are perhaps the most powerful - and omnipresent - of
all human symbols. We carry flowers to friends in hospital, at a baby's birth
or at a funeral; brides wear garlands of flowers or carry bouquets; flowers can
be pinned on the lapel or on the ankle - or lovingly placed in a vase to bring
their power indoors.
About twenty years ago I
decided I'd never feel poor if I had enough flowers - vases of flowers all
through the house, from the blue rosemary flowers above my desk to the roses by
the bedside, the lilies and proteas of the living room, the sweet scented
cottage flowers on the kitchen table... armfuls of flowers to give to friends,
baskets full to take as gifts when I go visiting. And it's true - since I
filled my life with flowers my life's been richer - in many ways, not just with
flowers.
Twelve reasons to grow flowers
1. They make the world more beautiful
2. Flowers smell good. Good smells make you happier.
3. Flowers tell you the season
Once humans lived with the natural
world - harvested the plants in season, breathed in cool air or hot. Nowadays
most of us spend about 90% of the time indoors, according to a recent CSIRO
survey - in a world where we are insulated from the ebb and flow of the passing
year.
Flowers are one of the few
seasonal harbingers we still keep with us - even if they are simply from the
florist we pass on the way to work. Daffodils in spring and roses in summer,
the season of chrysanthemums for Mother's day or gladdies at Christmas. Flowers
are at least a hint of the world of nature out of doors.
4. Flowers attract predators that will help kill the pests in your garden
Flowers make you garden
healthier. Most predators - the birds and insects that eat the pests in your
garden - are attracted either by nectar, or by the insects that feed on the
nectar. If you have a year round supply of flowers in your garden (it must be
year round - predators don't like to diet - they either die or move on) you'll
always have a nucleus of 'defenders' whose population will build up in response
to a build up of pests.
Plant masses of flowers
through your garden - natives for the birds or any tubular flower, especially
the many grevilleas and sages that flower most of the year.
Flowers can also be made into
pesticides - see pyrethrum and marigold or feverfew sprays in Chapter .
5. You never feel poor if you have bunches of flowers to give away and masses
through your house
6. Flowers like sweet peas, lupins, woad, broom, wisteria can fix nitrogen and
help fertilise your garden.
The bacteria associated with
many plants 'fix' nitrogen from the air, making it available as valuable
fertiliser for other plants when they break down - the best form of natural
fertilising I know.
A well designed flower bed
should be able to grow most of its own fertility - especially if it isn't
heavily harvested with nutrients taken away in the form of armloads of flowers.
7. Flowers lead to seeds - to replant your garden
8. Flowers taste good - see Chapter .
9. Flowers like chamomile, borage and foxgloves appear to make the plants they
grow with more vigorous - see Companion Planting and Flowers
10. Most flowers have 'cottage kitchen' uses - you can make wines with them or
make calendula ointment if you cut yourself in the garden. Our ancestors were a
canny lot - they grew only what was useful - and preferably it was beautiful
too. This meant that not only did they select for beautiful forms of useful
plants - they also discovered uses for particularly lovely flowers like roses,
see Chapter .
11. Flowers can help weed control - see Chapter . Marigolds repel couch grass,
dahlias will stop grass intruding in your garden, a thick crop of poppies will
help clean up weeds, cornflowers stop some weed seeds germinating, thickly sown
sunflowers will stunt weeds and choke them out
12. Any sourpuss smiles if you give them flowers.
Memories are made of flowers -
the flowers you were given at your child's birth, the first rose your lover
gave you, forget-me-nots from Grandma's garden. I like to keep mine hidden in a
book - one that I know that I'll reread - a surprise of beauty and memories
every time I open their pages.
Making Money From Your Garden ($9. 95 Australian, Earthgarden,
1997)
Over a hundred ways in which
you can make money from your garden.....
This is abook about how to
make money at home - either small amounts of extra cash, or in some cases,
enough to live on. It is also a book about looking at the world a little
differently.
This morning I read of a
Tahitian child's incomprehension when told about French unemployment. 'Why don't
they just go fishing?' she asked.
Of course, the answer is
obvious ... or is it?
As a culture we have lost out
traditrional 'fishing grounds'. Not just the rivers of fish, but in most cases
the land to cultivate, the bush to forage in. But most of all we have lost both
the knowledge of HOW to forage and the confidence to believe that we can.
No, I'm not talking here about
traditional foraging but foraging the cities and the countryside in which we
live.
Because foraging IS still
possible - we are just not taught where to look. But even more, we are not
taught that we CAN look.
Most of us today live
prepackaged lives - our houses are designed and built by someone else, our
entertainment and information is predigested on TV; our education is designed
by people we have never met and, for most of us, the way we earn our living is
designed and organised by someone else as well.
You don't have to 'have a job'
ie be a traditional employee, to make money. (The few years when I was a
traditonal employee were perhaps the worst of my life). Of course, it is easier
if more boring (I show my prejudices here) to do work that has been arranged by
someone else, and just pick up the pay cheque... but it is also possible to
work out new ways of making a living ... niches that no one is yet filling.
So. .. this is why I've
written this book. On one level it will give you a thousand odd ways to make
money ... but on the other hand (I hope) it will also expand your ideas of what
is possible.
What this book will do
This is a book of ideas and,
hopefully, at least one will send you enthusiastically wanting to delve into it
further.
Jackie French's Household Herbal $9.95 Australian (EarthGarden,
1998)
This is a book about my
favourite herbs and favourite herbal products. I wish it could have been twenty
times as long (no, make that forty). But that would have made it expensive ...
So this is a compromise. I'm
sorry if I've left out your favourites or stopped talking about a subject just
as you were getting interested. Hopefully, this book will stimulate you to read
more about herbs, plant more herbs, love and be lavish with herbs.
Herbs find their way into
every part of our lives here. Their use, their sheer generosity - are my
passion. I hope I've communicated just a bit of that to you.
Cooking with herbs
Medicinal Herbs
Herbs for Pets
Cleaning things with herbs
Cosmetic herbs
Aphrodisiac Herbs
Pesticide herbs
How to grow herbs
Seasons of Content (1997 Harper Collins)
This is perhaps my best loved
book. It's about a year in the valley- the people, the wombats, the peaches and
the recipes, from lovely stinky hand lotion from the garden to peaches in
champagne....stories and potions that mooch along together. It's written for
adults, but older kids enjoy it too.
Natural Solutions (1999 Women's Weekly Home Library)
A book of recipes for
everything from home made cleansers to first aid, perfume, home made gifts for
kids and blokes and poodles.
An extract:
How to Clean Problem Bits in Each Room in the House.
Kitchens
Burnt saucepans
Fill with sorrel or rhubarb
leaves and water - but don't leave more than overnight.
Leave aluminium saucepans out
in the sun and wait for the burn to blister off the base.
Add one teaspoon bicarbonate
of soda to one glass of water; bring to the boil. Allow to cool and stand
overnight then scrub lightly. Repeat if necessary. Or rinse, dust the moist
burnt bottom with salt and leave in the sun for a few days till the burnt bit
cracks off.
Horsetail (Equisetum spp.) is
extremely rich in silica, hence the efficacy of chopped horsetail in scouring
pans, cleaning milk pails etc. Simmer the horsetail for about twenty minutes in
the saucepan, leave to cool, then swill around with your hands and a scourer.
Hopefully the horsetail will have oozed its way under some of the burnt bits
and will help them to flake off.
Drain Cleaner
Unclog drains with a quarter
of a cup of bicarbonate of soda followed by half a cup of vinegar; wait till
the fizzing stops then pour a kettle of BOILING water down the drain. If this
fails try pouring down half a cup of washing soda - this is best for sinks
clogged by grease. If that fails either buy a wrench and undo the join under
the sink, and investigate - or call a plumber.
Try a plumber's mate. They can
be bought very cheaply and have no known side effects. Ask the friendly person
at the hardware store how to use it - or at least hope there is a knowledgeable
customer behind who'll help. (It's amazing how much instruction you can get
from other shoppers if you ask.)
Electrical cords
Make sure power is turned off.
Clean off stains with a dab of eucalyptus oil on a dap cloth. Wipe off residue.
Fridges
Bring 4 cups white or cider
vinegar to the boil with 4 cups of lavender flowers, lemon grass or the content
s of 10 chamomile tea bags. Cool and strain.
Wipe the fridge out with this
herbal vinegar, then rub with a Wettex dipped in vanilla. Wipe the rubber seals
every few months with a cloth dampened in methylated spirits; this both cleans
them and keeps them supple longer.
Leave a few dishes of
bicarbonate of soda or charcoal to help absorb odours. Replace when they get
whiffy.
When you defrost the freezer,
wipe it over with a little glycerine on a damp cloth. This makes the ice come
off more easily next time.
Glasses
Add a few drops of vinegar to rinsing water to make glass sparkle.
Scratches on glasses can be
rubbed back with jeweller's rouge or very fine sandpaper. For bad scratches use
the fine sandpaper first, then the rouge. (This can be bought at jeweller's
supply houses - or from a friendly silversmith.) Be warned, though - this
process is fiddly and a lot of work to get a good result.
Stained jars or vases can be
cleaned by filling with half sand and half hot soapy water, shake well. A litle
vinegar can also be added.
Glass jars- very grubby ones
Fill with a mixture of wood
ash and water. If they are very dirty add a little sand. Shake or swirl round
well.
Ovens
Use the all purpose cleaner
above. A slightly warm oven is easier to clean. NB very grubby ovens may need
thre or four lots of cleaning.
Soak greasy oven racks in half
a cup washing soda to a sink full of VERY hot water. Wash again in soapy water
and dry with old newspaper.
Smelly ovens can be freshened by putting in a few lemon or orange peels and
baking in a moderate oven with the door shut for 10 minutes.
Stove tops
DON"T use scouring pastes
or steel wool - they'll scratch. Use the all purpose cleaner above and cloth -
and repeat several times if needed. in bad cases, squirt a little detergent
onto the slightly warmed surface, and leave to penetrate for a few hours.
Tea Towels (very grotty ones)
Add one tablespoon borax to
one bucket of hot water to wash teatowels to remove grease and smells or soak
overnight in soapy water,
Wash in very hot soap and water, rinse and then simmer in water in which
bicarbonate of soda has been dissolved for half an hour. Rinse well.
Tiles
Cooking Oil Residues on
Kitchen Tiles
Use the all purpose cleaner
above. In very stubborn cases, leave an electric jug nearby so the steam can
play on it for a few seconds. Use the all purpose cleaner.
In the Blood
a few questions asked by a
reader!
1) Does the baby at the castle, "Uncle Bertie", symbolise any
specific
> figure throughout history?
No. But see below.
> 2) What was the inspiration behind the ideas for the themes and issues
> explored through the text?
Have a heart! There;''s never one single inspiration for a book- not if it has
any complexity anyway. You could proably spend a lifetime tracing the themes
and issues in a book, and working out all the events that made you think about
them.
I wrote the first third of the
book though while my husband was in the operating theatre- proably the house
was the most impirtant symbol for me at the time- solidity, comfort, day to day
happiness in small things, something enduring and the promise of happiness- all
the things i desperatly missed in the hospital. (ps three years later bryan is
fine! The operation was a complete success)
> 3) Why is your symbol of sin, Theo, represented by an image of integrity?
He's nota synbol of evil or integrity; i don't believe any one person is
entirely good or evil; hence Theo- a basically good man, but...
> 4) Why do you stick to the boundaries of society? Why not fetch your
> opinions and thoughts even further?
See what happens in the next books!
> 5) Does the title, "In the Blood" represent a deeper meaning on
any level
> other than the relationship between vampires,genetics and the obvious,
> blood?
Yes...are we inevitably the products of our genes? Does Theo have to give in to
his vampire heritage? Is Danielle to break free of the confines of identifying
herself only with her genetic heritage, The Forest? Bertie, of course, hasn't
bothered to free himself at all of the genes inflicted on him. the Modplod
though manages to... this is echoed with all the characters, Neil, the Wombat
etc.
This theme is continued in the
other books too, Blood moon, and next year's Blood Will Tell
Hitler's daughter
I write historical books
partly because I am fascinated with history- will research all i can about an
era, then years later realise, hey, I can set a book there.
But also I believe that
setting a book in the past allows me to explore issues that might be too
confrontational for kids- or too warped by modern political biases.
This is an extract of a speech opening a library based scheme to get kids
reading
I'd like to tell you a story. It's an almost true story. You'll see why it's
not quite true in a minute.
` The story takes place about thirty
five years ago. I was trying to do my homework. It was German translation and I'd
left it till the last minute and I was panicking, storming round the table
shrieking 'My life is ruined!' and 'I'll never be able to go to school again!
Never!' and other similar cries.
Well my Mum speaks French, not
German and there wasn't much she could do to help, and anyway by now it was
about10.30 at night. So in desperation- seeing I apparantly planned to keep
shrieking round the kitchen table all,night- she called a German friend and
asked him if he could pop round and help me with the translation.
So he did, and Mum went to
bed.
Well, we worked on the
translation, or he did anyway. By the time the incomprehensible words were
translated they turned into a moving story about a youth you planned a murder,
and then didn't...
As I said, it was late at
night. the house was quiet and my mother's friend had had too much to drink.
He started talking. He told me
about joining the Nazi party; about his work in a concentration camp, about
coming to Australia with false papers. Half way through he began crying, and
was still crying when he left.
He was 14 when he did the
things he described. He was 17 when the war ended. How can you know what is
right and wrong, he asked, when all the world around you is insane?
You see why I have changed
this story a little bit. Perhaps he was never a friend of mother; perhaps he
was my music teacher, or a man I met on a tram. (Actually he was none of
those). But I do know he was a good man, and spent the rest of his life trying
to atone for what he'd done.
I'd forgotten all this, as
teenagers do, till quite recently. I'd taken my mother and my son to see
Cabaret as a present for Mum's 70th birthday. My son had never seen the movie
cabaret; the play was new to him.
There is one scene where the
young waiter is alone in the cafe, sweeping the floor at night and singing 'The
babe in it's cradle is sleeping tonight, the Rhine gives it's gold to the sea,
but gather together and greet the dawn, tomorrow belongs to me.
I think the words go like
that.... It's a gentle and beautiful song, a young man dreaming of the world he
and his friends will create.
Then the light grows stronger
and he begins the final verse 'Oh fatherland fatherland show us the sign, your
children are waiting to see, the morning will come when the earth is mine,
tomorrow belongs to me...' and the lights go up further and you see he is
wearing a nazi armband, and the orchestra are wearing armbands too, and the
young man strides to the front of the stage with the nazi salute 'Heil Hitler'
I have never seen my son quite
as shocked as he was that night. He had been sitting there, he said, watching
the young man sing, thinking yes, that's us, that's me and my friends. Tomorrow
belongs to us. Then suddenly he realised he was identifying with a nazi
song..and he also realised that in Germany in 1936 he and his friends would
probably have been nazis too.,
How do you know what's right
and wrong when the world around you is insane?
Well, one way is from books.
Hitler burnt books. He had
good reason. Books take you into the universe of the person who wrote them.
Every book is a slice from someone else's life.
When you turn on the tv you
get what?Four channels? Four points of view....except they're not very
different points of view. Even the ABC has progarmmes much like everyone else,
and the simularity is growing.
In a library though you will
find 80,000 books, 80,000 points of view.
In this library you'll find a
book that will show you how to make a millon dollars (no, I don't know which
one!)
You'll find the insights of
ancient generals, philosphers artists poets- insights even in books where you
don't expect to find them...no book is ever written without reflecting the mind
and values of the author.
But libaries aren't just
books. Libaries are about finding books, the sort of books you need, whether
you're a three year old at story time or a hundred and ten looking for a
talking book because your eyesight's going, Libaries are guarded by librarians,
those book addicted creatures who spend their lives dedicated to books and what
is in them.
( I don't think Hitler liked
librarians much either, or libraries.)
A library is free because it
belongs to you. A library has incapsulated within it 5,000 years of human
thinking, human values, human feelings, human stories. It's your heritage. It's
yours.
How do you tell what's right
an wrong when the world around you is mad? You hope that your parents took you
to a library when you were small, so that books and libraries became part of
your life; because if you've read a thousand books, or tens of thousands, you've
read a ten thousand points of view as well, and somewhere among all those
points of view you'll learn to judge good and evil. (You'll discover a million
other things of course. It's no coincidence that very few people in prison are
avid readers. )
Which brings me to my last
point- why do people whisper in libaries? You don't whisper in a video bar,
when you go to take out a video. Why whisper in libraries?
Well one answer is that a
library is made up of so many different worlds so closely packed together that
one loud word might jar the space time continuum and crack the barriers that
holds those worlds apart. One shout and you might find yourself locked in a
maths text book forever...
But another answer is that
every person in a library shares a separate universe with the person who wrote
the book they're reading. A loud voice can shatter someone else's universe.
There are 80,000 universes in
a library, and every one of them is yours.