SERIES 35 | Episode 20
Hannah visits a steep, south-facing property – so shady that parts of it get no sun in midwinter; you wouldn’t expect to find much growing here then, but super-smart planting means they have something to harvest all year round.
Featured Garden Owners:Anthony Wright and Lisa CawthenLocation:South Hobart, TasClimate Zone:Cool temperateGarden Established:2014Style:Productive garden over 1200sqare metres.
Key Features
“It’s extreme – it’s actually a gully so parts of our garden don’t get ANY sun for two months a year,” says Lisa. “But I’m an enviro scientist, with a background of understanding ecosystems, and I’ve done permaculture design, so that helped.
They work with the slope, have found lots of food plants that like cool shade, and find ways to protect plants that don’t.
“We were really lucky – we bought the property from keen gardeners. They had established fruit trees: pear, apple, plum, chestnut, and there were raspberries, but they fruited all at once so we dug half out and added different varieties - now the harvest runs from December to April.” They now grow about 20 varieties.
The last berry to fruit is a Keriberry (Rubus rugosus cv.), which tastes like a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry, and likes cool, wet weather. The berries and orchard are now covered in netting to keep off the birds [“we didn’t know we had a greengage plum til we put the nets up!”] plus it helps reduce the impact of frost. It also stops birds spreading keriberry seed, which can be a bit weedy.
Soil
At the top of the block are the henhouse and quail enclosure, providing lots of eggs plus good manure to keep the beds fed. “I’m constantly moving old bedding down the hill for mulch the beds. Maintaining the soil is a big thing – the orchard used to be shallow soil but now it’s really deep.”
Microclimates
They have worked hard to create microclimates for tender plants, such as the tamarillo, which is sheltered from wind and frost by the henhouse and the quail coop. Surprisingly, Tahtian lime and white sapote also do well here.
Plant choices
Perennial crops naturally become dormant over winter; this includes globe artichokes, asparagus, perennial leek, and Yakon, a South-American tuberous vegetable that can be harvested after the plant dies back. They have discovered that a lot of South American plants do well on their block: roots crops include Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) and Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum), while a key discovery has been Bolivian cucumbers aka achocha. “These have been a revelation,” says Lisa. “You can eat them small, when they taste like regular cucumbers, or you can let them get bigger, when they dry out inside and develop seeds – you scoop these out and use the outer big like a mild capsicum chili. You can roast them or stuff them – delicious.”
From Japan, they grow Japanese artichokes (Stachys affinis), Japanese ginger, and Wasabi, which they harvest the leaves from all year round.
They have even found a late-ripening tomato, which they grow between the fruit trees: “It’s called Lady Elizabeth – it will ripen on the vine for us through April.”
Climbers
Lisa finds these do well here because the extra height helps them access light when the sun is lower. Having raised beds also gives plants extra height, as well as retaining nutrients and moisture in the soil and making access easier.
Lisa and Anthony use the glass house to protect frost-tender plants such as chillies over winter and to get seedings started, but they also choose to plant crops that actually taste better after some frost. This is because the frost triggers the plant to convert some of its root starch to sugar, such as parsnips, and Yakon.
Featured Plants
TOMATO ‘LADY ELIZABETH’
Solanum lycopersicum cv.
PASSIONFRUIT
Passiflora edulis *
KERIBERRY
Rubus rugosus *
TAMARILLO ‘RED’
Solanum betaceum
WHITE SAPOTE
Casimiroa edulis
MANDARIN ‘SATSUMA’
Citrus reticulata cv.
TAHITIAN LIME
Citrus x latifolia
YACON
Smallanthus sonchifolius
* Check before planting: this may be an environmental weed in your area
Filmed in South Hobart, Tas
