Blog of Place
As part of the Ceres Harvest Project Ilan has been farming each week at the Harding St. field, a two acre field of organic vegetables next to the Merri Creek in Coburg. Here are some observations and thoughts from those days.
21 November 07
When I turned up in the afternoon it was just me at the field. I moved some composte…onto one of the rows that didn’t have any yet. There was only mushroom composte on this row. When chris (head farmer) turned up we shovelled some more composte from the main pile to the rows, finishing off two rows. We spread some lime and dynamic lifter before adding some of the composte. Three old Italian men came and gave Chris advice about how to wire up structures for the tomatoes to climb into without attaching and damaging the tomato plants. I stood and chatted with Joe in his garden towards the end of the day. He was looking tired but relaxed. He told me about the early ripening apricot tree and the late ripening peach tree. Between the birds and brown rot he said there wasn’t too much of a yield from the trees (this made him grin). He also told me that there used to be a power pole in the middle of the tomato rows down at the end of the creek.
Three old helpers and chris
Chris on bike
November 13th 2007
Pino came down and gave me a bottle of home made wine. It tastes like a mix of port and red wine (in a johny walker bottle). We harvested some broad beans together at the end of the day. I met Salase today, and Silka brought her dog Rascal down for the first time in a while. I weeded cooch grass from the rows at the end of the field where tomatoes will soon be planted. I really enjoyed the heat today. Kim (the permaculture teacher and chinese medicine student) was at the field today. She was wearing a great giraffe tshirt. Giraffes are her favourite animal. Jo (the fellow who has been farming in this spot for atleast fourty years) wasn’t feeling so well today.
Zuchinis growing fast
Tuesday 25th September 07
Chris (head farmer) and the new apprentice had harvested a whole box of mushrooms that had grown up from the mushroom composte that had been spread on the rows. I made delicious mushroom pasta sauce with them two nights later when Hal our web designer was over for dinner. There was a volunteer called Mike who had been doing development work in Africa for the last 15 years. We shovelled composte together. I also pinned down some rows of plastic water tubes with bent fencing wire.
