My Big Idea for New Year!

Have you ever made some hare brained New Year’s resolution on New Year’s Eve and lived to regret it?

Well I may. On New Year’s Eve I gave myself a challenge to try and live off produce I have grown in my urban garden or bartered for with produce I have grown for four months. We all need challenges in our lives and this seems like a good one. Of course I want to haul my husband and three young boys along for the ride, much to their protest. Could it really be that difficult? Won’t it really just be like how our great grandparents had to live? Sure we may need to go without a few food luxuries but I am happy to live without Californian grapes or bananas for a few months.

It can’t be that hard. We have a large garden situated in urban Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, NZ, which I have been cultivating into an edible permaculture garden for the last four years. I have created my ‘crop circle’ gardens where I grow all manner of vegetables and edible flowers all mis- mashed together in an unruly but intensively planting scheme.

Some of the gardeners

When my vegetables are harvested my feathered gardeners, also known as chickens, move onto the area in their chicken tractor and deal to all the insects, left over broccoli stalks, forgotten lettuce and  rampant weeds. During the time they spend on this particular ‘crop circle’, normally 4 four weeks, they devour all the seeds, weeds and insects, turn over and mulch the soil and poop in it. I throw in our lawn mower clippings, kitchen scraps, a hand full of straw, leaves and they give me fresh daily eggs and beautiful organic rich soil to grow my vegetables in.  It’s a win-win situation. The chooks are allowed to be chooks. They get new ground to dig and scratch, take dust baths, bask in the sun, perch, fight over a food morsel and have lots of fresh air whilst being protected from the rain and chilling winds and predators. I get eggs with yolks the colour of ripe orange, organic compost and waste disposals neatly packaged as a chicken.

I have around nine ‘crop circle’ gardens which the chicken tractor neatly fits over so it is a process of rotating and harvesting and re-sowing with the chooks doing my hard grunt work. So sounds like I have the vegetables sorted!

Over the last five years I have also been planting fruit trees like a woman processed! The lady who owned our property before us loved roses and pretty perennials but of course you can’t eat those. I have been ripping out these with gay abandon and planting all manner of fruit trees. Having an urban garden I have generally gone for dwarfing trees which will not grow too high and cast shade on the neighbours or plough through overhead power lines or require tall ladders when picking the fruit. Our region is blessed with a wonderful climate for growing pip and stone fruit which I have taken full advantage of. My favourite fruit is an apple. My husband jokes that that is so unexciting and boring. His of course is a Mango. Juicy, sweet, exotic, imported and not able to be grown in our garden. I think at the last count I have over 15 apple trees growing in our garden, and on the street verge. Many have been espaliered, trained along wires, flat against walls or as living fences.

apples, apples and more apples.

  

Surely with such a bustling garden full of fruit and veg it won’t be that hard to life off the land for a few months.

These will be the rules I will live by for the next four months ( February to end of May)

• only eat produce grown from my garden

• barter for as many items as I can which I can’t grow with produce from my garden.

• foraging is allowed

• allow our family one night out each fortnight to eat out, or eat at friends.

I will follow these rules to the letter. My husband, Chris travels regularly so I can’t expect him to leave with a broccoli tucked under his arm as his away rations so I suppose he will have an out every few days most weeks.

My two oldest boys, Liam, nine, and Edwin six, have a cooked lunch at school so I know they won’t be dying of scurfy. They are very keen to try the experiment but I think to preserve our family dynamics if they don’t want to eat what is served they can have toast, or an egg as another option. Quinn who is only four and lives off peanut butter and nutella sandwiches on white bread may present more of a challenge. Not wanting to put him off fresh local food for life I will just go with the flow with him. He is actually happiest when he is free ranging in the garden munching on broad beans and peas so I suppose he is with the project?

My boys, they are not usually this clean! Edwin, Liam and Quinn.

I am quite excited to see how much food we can grow in an urban garden and if indeed it is possible to live off the land in regards to food production whilst living in an urban environment. Before I go any further must make it clear that I my only challenge is with food. I will not be using large leaves as toilet paper, brushing teeth with salt or disconnecting us from the national grid. I may be green but I am not an eco fundamentalist and do enjoy, and need, some modern day creature comforts.  

I hope you enjoy reading about our challenge. When I am not preserving fruit, baking bread, planting broccoli or making jam I will be blogging about my success and failures.