5. Good Organic Gardening - September-October 2016 AvxHome.in

David & Vivienne Warland | GARDENING FOLK
especially after it has rained. The dead snails
are left behind for ants to eat.” David erected
a fence around the grapevine “but the
currawongs came instead”.
They put all food scraps, lawn cuttings,
sheep manure and straw in the compost bin.
“It’s reasonably big, at least a metre and a
half square. We water it and we don’t let it
get too dry.
“There are plenty of worms in the
compost bin and in the vegetable garden
there are heaps.”
Other sustainable measures include using
fallen trees for the wood fire. “We also have
a fairly large dam for watering the fruit trees
and vegetables. Tank water is used for the
house to drink, wash dishes, shower and flush
the toilet. We’re not on town water.”
There are plenty of wild visitors here on
the edge of the Enfield State Forest, including
foxes, kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and
possums. There used to be koalas but
bushfires killed most of them two decades
ago. “We haven’t seen any since. We do have
native bees — there must be beehives close
by as they come around in summer.”
Lush grapevines
Flowering Russian garlic
The harvest
The soil is mainly clay with 15cm of topsoil.
“Where we are, many years before our time,
people use to have horse stables and barns,”
says David. “A lot of people would swap their
horses to travel long trips to Ballarat.”
Accordingly, the couple grow their vegies
in raised beds with sugar-cane mulch. Fruit
trees are planted straight into the ground
and David uses a post hole digger to reach
the fruit tree roots: “It gets so dry in summer, I
need to get water into the roots.
“We mostly grow vegetables from heritage
seeds; they usually grow better. We don’t
want any GM seeds and we prefer not to have
hybrids. We like to sow our own seeds.”
“Vivienne goes around
at night and stomps on
all the snails, especially
after it has rained.”
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