This week some small things came together in a way that made us feel like we are moving towards something that might really be a farm rather than an oversized veggie patch in the middle of a paddock.
The most serious of all was setting up the frame for the caterpillar tunnel. It involved two ladders, a lot of grunt work (mostly by Alex and doubled every time a rebar pole it a rock), some lego-like instructions and some high school maths (e.g. remembering properties of right-angled triangles to check everything was going to be straight). But with only a bit of swearing and a couple of “uh-oh have we really screwed it up” moments, we got there: with 11 rounded arches running in a straight line. Then I transplanted on top of a hastily-partly-made garden bed tomatoes in a less-than-straight line. It nicely highlights how straight our frame is …
Another hint of professionalism was installing a tap at the garden. (My main contribution was admittedly listening to the plan and turning the mains supply at the other end of the property on and off.) Gone are the days of carting watering cans up and back from the tap 60m away. Or sprinting between the tap and the garden to try to avoid wasting water.
Some very cool online shopping also turned up: a $30 German-designed spray bottle. It’s difficult to explain why it is a zillion times better than the one from Woollies but essentially you pump air in and then water comes out in a light continuous mist when you lightly press the button. Amazing. We also got another Dramm rain wand – an American design that somehow breaks up the water so big drops don’t smash our seedlings. Also amazing. And because we started having weeds we could use our “Mutineers” – ingenious tools made by one of the gurus of no-till farming, Conor Crickmore. All you do is walk around the garden holding what looks like a broom handle with a triangle-shaped wire on the end. It knocks baby weeds out from between plants and they die. Wow.
I think we can also cautiously claim to have hit a mini-milestone in the amateur part of this venture: self-sufficiency in salad leaves! Oh, how wonderful it would be to confidently say that I will never buy another bag of salad again. For now I’m whispering it.