Organic Vegetable Farming

5 May 2011

It's curious. We have enough land here to grow alot more for the restaurant than we currently do. Something I've been very conscious of, ever since that first burst of enthusiasm when we moved into the house next door back in 2004, kind of tapered out in the hard light of reality.

We spent hundreds of dollars buying citrus and feijoa trees, and clearing away other fruit trees in the orchard that Mum and Dad had established previously and which weren't thriving. We were going to streamline everything, and put in large vege gardens, and be quite fabulous I figured.

But pukekos and rabbits, dampened down that enthusiasm rather considerably, as they plundered and destroyed the majority of our new seedlings. In the face of their constant menace, my determination kind of withered.

I've sallied forth with other good ideas on occasion, but it would be fair to say there hasn't been alot of follow through. The worm farm is probably the abiding bright point, and the efficency with which those critters turn our waste into nice dirt constantly staggers me.

Its taken awhile but I think we're finally on top of the rabbit population, and the dogs have disencouraged the pukekos rather effectively, although Benson did catch one munching on feijoas the other day,  so it may be time to start reconsidering our strategy.

Financial constraints place limits on just how grandiose those schemes can be, but there is alot that can be achieved with some good honest sweat, and not necessarily alot of money, so we are beginning to tentatively start making noises, about extending the gardens and orchard down below. And chooks are very much part of the grand plan, even though our dogs represent a bit of a hurdle where birds are concerned.

All of which I mention by way of link to this video of people who are growing organic vegetables commercially. It is too easy to entertain romantic notions about getting back to the land, and doing things 'properly', when the reality in the hard cold light of the day, is considerable physical work  and very little financial gain.

People who work the land work incredibly hard - their bodies are bowed and bent from all that physical effort. Hands and skin deeply lined and furrowed - it ain't for the soft. And that is why I sometimes listen to some of the more recent eulogising about how important it is to buy local and keep things small and artisinal with a tinge of cynicism, becos its easy for writers to romanticise about the notion of organic growing, but its quite another thing to be the person who gets up morning after morning in the frigid cold to go out into the fields, especially when all that effort is done for very little return.

I'm gradually working my way thru a beautiful book, 'The Seasons on Henry's Farm - A year of food and life on a sustainable farm', which describes a farm not at all dissimilar to the one in the video, and echos the same values of careful stewardship of the land.

Would I personally have the constitution to work like that? - hell no, of that I am under no illusions.

People tell Rick and I that they think we work hard, but our kind of work is very different to the graft required to grow things, and I'm never tempted to kid myself otherwise. The restaurant is a constant presence that requires time and effort from us, but our role within it has changed over the years, and as a great team has built up around us, we are positioned to work less hours in the business than we used too, even though it is bigger now than it used to be.

All of which allows us some extra time to work on the land, maybe....

 

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