Every day homegrown food challenge

I’ve set myself a gardening and culinary goal: include at least one thing out of the garden in every lunch and dinner. I’m not including breakfast because I like muesli and yoghurt. Yes, I could make my own yoghurt, but I’m addicted to Mungalli Creek Dairy’s biodynamic yoghurts and I really don’t think mine would be better than theirs. But I can do lunch and dinner.

Sometimes I have loads of things that are ripe for picking, and other times, nothing seems quite ready for harvest. My challenge is to always have things ready to come in. I say this publicly now, at the height of Summer, when I’ve got lots of good things to eat – lettuce, all kinds of herbs, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, beans, cucumber … let’s see how I go mid-winter. Unfortunately, I don’t eat snails.

Caring for garden wildlife

In Nature … all things are in mutual interaction; the one is always working on the other …

We must also observe with intelligence … the many-coloured world of insects, hovering around the plant-world during a certain season of the year. Moreover, we must learn to look with understanding at the birds.

- Rudolf Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture Seven, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 2008

Organic gardens are havens for frogs, lizards, birds and insects that are struggling to survive as their natural habitat is whittled away by urban and suburban development and the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides. So while you plan and think about sustainable gardening for your household, remember to incorporate some elements that provide food, shelter and safety for local wildlife. In return, these creatures keep pests such as snails, slugs and aphids under control and maintain a natural ecological order to your garden and local area. And they are fascinating to watch as they go about their business too.

Here are some suggestions to help your garden wildlife:

• Install a pond (any size you can manage) with some water plants. This will attract frogs, lizards and dragonflies and provide a drink for birds
• Leave hollow logs or terracotta pipes in sheltered spots
• Provide a bird bath with clean water in a location where birds can fly down and back to the safety of branches (make sure there are no good pouncing positions for cats)
• If you have a cat, keep her inside especially at night and put two bells on her collar (some cats can learn to hold a bell under their chin to keep it quiet)
• Mulch provides shelter and safety for skinks
• Plant natives such as grevillea and bottle brush for bird food
• If you see a few caterpillars chomping on some leaves, find out what they are before you go squishing them – they may turn out to be beautiful butterflies in a few weeks
• Never ever feed human food to wildlife. Things like bread, sugar and biscuits are very bad for wildlife – it’s much better to provide food in the form of native plants
• And I probably don’t need to say this – don’t use chemical herbicides and pesticides in the garden. Obviously.

As our natural environment staggers under the weight of human greed, inaction and ignorance, we can strive to turn the tide by our actions, big and small. The abundance of wildlife shows that your garden is a healthy and balanced environment for all who dwell there. And that’s a good start.

Starting a global conversation

Backyard Biodynamics has recently been featured on another biodynamic website, the Biodynamic and Organic Gardening Resource Site.  This site provides links, stories, books and advice. So check it out to read what’s being said about us, and also see what other people are doing in the biodynamic online arena.

Unlike general organics, which has become a huge subject area on the web, biodynamics is a dot in the ocean of  ”green” online information. It is really important to share and connect with other likeminded gardeners around the world as we encourage more and more people to take up biodynamics. And as backyard gardening can sometimes be a rather solitary pursuit, it’s great to feel connected to a biodynamic community. When night falls or the rain keeps you out of the garden, you can always get online and connect to a global community of biodynamic gardeners. If you read something that interests you or you think you’ve got something to add, please leave a comment - it tells those of us who maintain these sites that we’re not just talking to ourselves.

Yes we have no bananas

In March 2006, north Queensland met Cyclone Larry. The storm wiped out great swathes of food crops such as bananas and avocados. Suddenly, there were no bananas in the shops, conventional or organic, for many months. When they did appear, they were of poor quality and wildly expensive. It made the general population realise that natural occurrences such as storms, fires and floods can have a severe effect on food supply. And they weren’t happy about it. No bananas? It was an outrage. In Australia, we enjoy an enormous range of fresh foods all year due to modern storage technology and transportation. We seem to think that we should be able to get anything anytime, despite droughts, floods and the odd cyclone. Many people are not aware that there are particular growing seasons and regions for fresh foods.

Natural disasters aside, most fruits and vegetables only grow well at certain times of the year. We should enjoy and appreciate the unique tastes, textures and colours of each season.  Of course, most of us buy things like frozen peas and berries when they are not available fresh. The reason why strawberries that are sold in supermarkets all year round are often downright horrible eludes many people. Be aware of when fruits, vegetables and herbs are in season - that’s when they are at their best in freshness, taste and nutritional value. And by eating seasonally we can reduce our ecological footprint by not using up fossil fuels unnecessarily through transporting food from other countries and states and through long term refrigerated storage.

And perhaps the more people who are grateful for what Mother Nature offers us throughout the year, the less food waste we would see. You can’t always get what you want … but you can look forward to the next season’s food that you love, and appreciate it all the more when it appears.

Happy Easter