Letters to the Editor

I read the Local Times with great interest last week. Several residents had taken the time to write letters to the Editor. For a community of apparently 650 houses, we have lots of issues.

It’s the speeding, it’s the road to the next town that doesn’t exist, it’s the use of the Community Hall that apparently isn’t allowed, and it’s the murdering of innocent kangaroos. It’s the ‘adult’ jokes in the local newsletter and the “I’ll take the moral high road’ response from the other publication.

For almost 3 years, it has seemed a little ‘Days of Our Lives’ to me. If only Shakespeare lived here. We could have had some fabulous local theatre instead of that terrible stuff I’ve seen in town. There are plots and sub-plots of scheming and deception, themes of power and glory and pen lashings of poisonous arrows and publicly read humiliations. Is this how small urban / ruralish communities work?

Actually most of the time I just laugh uncomfortably and wonder how the other side will adjust their business plan, but it’s the sort of giggle that hides a glimmer of fear and doubt about whether or not I really do want to openly partake of my local community. To date I choose the gardening fork as my wielding weapon of choice.

Call me sensitive, but in the interests of basic self-preservation, I hesitate to openly support any community group where it seems I am likely to be fired upon from a diametrically opposed axis of power. A bit sad really, but there you go. I am the observing fence sitter until further notice.

To quote Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF

“If you can keep you head, when all about you
Are losing theirs …”

…Then you obviously have no idea what’s really going on.

  http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

She’s Gone

It’s official. La Nina has left the building.

When she came home for the holidays, La Nina was no longer the dewy eyed freshman, promising hot humid days and sultry wet nights. Na ha. This woman was the raging vengeful ex. Like a menopausal Banshee, she smashed down the front door and tried to drown the dog.

Blowing off immigration with an indolent glance and breezing through customs, she began her world wind Queensland tour. Like most international tourists she came in via the North, explored some of the country outback and travelled across to move South via the fabulous Queensland Coastline. Half of Queensland was declared severe drought status while the other half waited for the SES to respond to extreme flood damage. Even New Year was called off for a lot of people. And now she's gone.

According to the same news broadcast, Australia is more likely to be subject to natural disaster than terrorism. Apparently our spending does not support this. Why am I not surprised?

The Veggie Patch Experience

My previous experience with 'Veggie Patch' has been mostly traditional. The old 6' x 4' rectangle, dug into the lawn somewhere reasonably close to the back door. It's usually down flood stream from my trusty compost heap.

Nothing so big as to be called sustainable, but then I've got a job. At this point, 'sustainable' is just a muddy, tough pipe-dream, within the grasp of only the truly dedicated, the retired or the long-term unemployed.

At present, my experience of 'Veggie Patch' is veggies in patches. How big the patch becomes often depends on how well it disguises itself from 'family' as a garden plant. For other reasons unknown, it is a plant whose taste also lies beyond the culinary delights of the wallaby pallate.

The only piece of good practical gardening advice you are going to get from me is this. If you want to grow vegetables that survive no matter what, then plant these. Ornamental Chili, Kent Pumpkin, Cherry Tomatoes, Parsley, Basil and Chives. Just don't plant the Basil in the same pot as the Parsley. They hate each other. Neither will die but neither will either of them thrive. Give them separate homes.

At my house, there is a chili bush beside the drive way that lives because it has lovely green and purple leaves and is called 'ornamental' at the nurseries.

There remains an independent pumpkin vine on the other side of the driveway because it happened to take hold when 'family' was desperate for anything to grow in a place without topsoil.

Until recently, there have been armfuls of cherry tomatoes gate crashing the compost heap out the back. Now it appears tomato seedlings seem to be forming in the fruit tree patch down flood stream from the compost. I suspect they may not survive our winter. But I'll wait and see.

I bought some fruiting trees and 'family' in the spirit of hoping I would help him do more gardening planted them. An avocado, a kumquat, a macadamia tree and a lime tree. The kumquat is beginning to fruit and I am waiting to make my first batch of kumquat jam.

I bought two strawberry plants at the Beaudesert market on the weekend and they were planted between the macadamia and the lime tree with placating statements of "Don't worry, trees are deep rooted and strawberries have shallow roots". I hope my theory works true. I threw in another couple of independent pumpkin seeds for good measure.

I also commandeered a tiny patch of ground in front of the carport. I planted peas and radish and broccoli. I am not the most amazing gardener in the world so I'll see what happens.

At the laundry door I have basil and parsley in separate pots. At the dining room window I have chives.  I am quite excited about my patches of veggies.

   Photo by Simon Howden    http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404

Global Food Shortage

In initial response to the latest media reports of a potential global food shortage, I considered stocking up on rice and flour. I expected family to roll their eyes in their heads and laugh when I gave voice to the idea. Remarkably, the TV documentary playing at the time instead, served to lend apparent credibility to a statement that would ordinarily have been met with ridicule and laughter. Just another one of my ideas.

Ah, the power of television.

After more considered thought, I have now decided to give vegetable gardening another go instead of stockpiling resources. This leaves more room in the laundry and I get exercise. Plus the sun still shines and I have a very large tank of rainwater at my disposal.

The rainwater tank was bought during the water shortage crisis prior to the recent, biggest flood in 60 years. At a time when I hedged my bets that South East Queensland might devolve into a precivilized unwashed society, desperately pillaging drinkable water. If we were unlucky enough.

What can I say. I am a child of the Cold War and at times, I wonder what Nostradamus is thinking. I am confronted by the personal experience of changed long term weather patterns within my lifetime. The digital exclaimations of global warming only serves to reinforce my own quiet observations.