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Mud, mud, mud, mud, MUD!
Sick of it. I know I live in a place where rainfall is more reliable than much of the country. I know I live on the valley floor where fertility comes with reeds and some swampy land. But this unrelenting rain, stuff that can’t drain away through the saturated soil, is driving me mental.
The chicken coop is spongy underfoot. Any place we walk regularly in the garden is starting to chop up. And where the cows stand at the gate twice a day (and more if they see me out in the barnyard) is slush. Lucky I’m not recovering from a sprained ankle.
Still, can’t complain. If you’re not looking down, the hilltops look gorgeous with smoky coloured clouds nudging up against them. The rain has been mostly light, so it’s actually really nice to be out in it if you’ve chores to do. And I can run the bath as much as I feel like and still hear the water tank overflowing the next morning. What’s more, the east of the state is having its fourth floods of the year. I have minor inconvenience, others have disaster.
All this rain may cause the garlic to rot. I hope not. We may not know for sure until the harvest, in November or December. The garden lies relatively fallow. Even this year’s brussels sprouts haven’t thrived like we had hoped, but most nights there’s something green from the vegie patch. My favourite, this week at least, is broccoli. Not big, fat wedges like you get in shops, but the shoots that come out laterally once the big flower head has been eaten. These mini broccoli make tremendous eating, simply tossed with garlic and olive oil or quickly blanched.
We’ve started propagating pea seeds in the sunroom. The next round of planting out happens in mid-September; though, for us, winter isn’t over until late in the month, despite what the official season says. Now is a time for preparing the beds, for spreading poo, for working out which seeds and seedlings to plant where. As ever, the garden is too small for our needs. It’s no bigger than a domestic vegetable garden, with no chance of growth thanks to those pesky possums. Unless I net another area, we have to work with what we’ve got. I even saw a rabbit in the house block for the first time the other morning, so there’s another pest that we need to keep an eye out for.
There’s been some really good news for the Huon. The abattoir has been saved, by an enthusiastic new owner who sees his role not as a killing factory, but as being part of the community. It wasn’t until the abattoir nearly closed that many in the valley suddenly realised its value beyond that of the most obvious. Smallholders who want to sell their meat rely on it. As do many of the larger farms that have livestock, along with the butchers in the region, and a couple of us who sell at markets outside the valley. We’re blessed to have an abattoir close to home, with an attitude that smallholders do count in the big scheme of things.
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30 Aug 2011 19:54 AEST
From:
I hear your pain!
I am thankful for the rain but at the same time, the mud is driving me crazy. I have to wipe or wash the dog's paws everytime he comes inside... I'm thinking of investing in doggie gumboots!
24 Aug 2011 17:57 AEST
From:
Down the bay
Great to see all the dislikes & here i am again to bring the truth. We are down to Lymington.Some more facts for you all to dismiss.There was once a small penal colony, racecourse & all that cleared land, you guessed it, apples.As i know the biggest family of the area, i know for a fact it was all apples.Some research into cancer rates & you will find many have passed from, throat,bone,lung & others.I do like to reminisce & like to see the changes of timeless Tassie. just hope they dont go bush?
21 Aug 2011 22:06 AEST
From:
Tree change
Hi Matthew, Looking forward to the new series. We're trying to become semi self-sufficient ourselves, and after 4 yrs are just seeing the fruits of our labours. We've had to adapt to a very different climate from central NSW, where we lived before. As you say, there is no shortage of water here, too much at times, and we're also in a quagmire at the moment. We grow garlic in raised beds which is very successful. Rabbits love ringbarking young trees, so we found wire surrounds are a good idea.
19 Aug 2011 11:33 AEST
From:
like that here
Hi Matthew, looks just like the front of our driveway during the floods! Most of our driveway ended up on the road & the (gravel) road ended up on the main road! Our ground here (even though it hasn't rained for 2 months) is still wet underfoot & tricky for the tractor. Still, I wouldn't live anywhere else :) watching the fog come up from the dam in the early hours of the morning is truly magical. Looking forward to the new series starting next week. Cheers, Deb
18 Aug 2011 20:10 AEST
From:
mud gone
I know exactly what you are going through.. we had mud everywhere here in QLD's (not so) Sunny Coast, and all our tomatoes and cucumbers died. Never happened before. And all my plans of planting sweet potatoes after the pigs tractored the ground went down the gurgler, way too wet to bother.
14 Aug 2011 16:32 AEST
From:
Grass is not always green on the other side!!!!
Lived there from 1988 - 1999 & left because the property we were on was an ex apple orchard (like most of the cleared land there) & could not grow veggies to eat for my children because of the contaminated soil. Back in the day that whole area was soaked in DDT 1080 & it never breaks down but merely goes through the food chain. Apparently there were once Magpies in the area but the 1080 made the egg shells so brittle the eggs broke before hatching. Don't believe what you see as the title says.
14 Aug 2011 13:48 AEST
From:
Tassie - The Last Frontier
Hi Guys, I discovered Tassie in 2003 - went back there a couple of months later and bought a half acre at Carlton (S.E. of Hobart). I now have a cousin and her family living near Pt. Arthur (Nubeena) and I have visited this pristine island twice a year since 2003. I love the place - would love to move there but family commitments make that difficult at the moment. Will achieve that dream soon - Matthew love the show- can't wait for the next series. Tassie really is the jewel in the crown.
13 Aug 2011 18:09 AEST
From: Canberra
GF2-How many more sleeps?
Great news about the abattoir, Matthew, and waiting with baited breath for GF2.Will be great to see your new family on the farm. Soooo need to 'man up' and do the same...Enjoying recipes from The Real Food Companion.
11 Aug 2011 13:33 AEST
From: ipswich
live the dream
hi matthew, great to meet you at the hobart airport in july. We use your show as inspiration for our anticipated move to the apple isle in a couple years time. We are looking forward to series two and hope there will be many more series to come. Will be coming down for the taste of tassie and the folk festival in january. keeping the dream alive. kind regards john and evie
11 Aug 2011 12:11 AEST
From: Dairy Plains
Floppy Top Fence
Matthew, look into floppy top fencing, it's a good alternative to netting the vegie garden and offers easier expansion possibilities. Possums don't like the non-tensioned wire (floppy top) at the top of a fence and can't get over the top. Easy to do and has been very effective for us. We've got heaps of possums, many of them considered 'pets' by the females in my family!!
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About this Blog
Ever wondered what it’d be like to leave a cushy city job and set up a small farm without any experience of rural life? Join Matthew Evans as he adjusts from being a restaurant critic to learning exactly where his food is coming from, on a farmlet in Tasmania’s beautiful Huon Valley.
Matthew Evans was once trained as a chef, before crossing to the dark side of the industry and becoming a restaurant reviewer. After five years and 2,000 restaurant meals as the chief reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew realised that chefs don’t have the best produce in the land, normal people who live close to the land do. So he moved to Tasmania, to a small patch of earth where he’s raising pigs and sheep, milking a cow and waiting for his chickens to start laying.
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