Courtyard garden for dinner

The Desjardins Family cook up lunch at Cecilia's

Last week I got an impromteau 'Vengance Visit' from the Desjardin's family, who I WWOOFed with in November, and found myself asking the courtyard garden to help with lunch ingredients. Being in the city means you get unexpected guests, and having an edible garden means you can fancy up whatever is in the fridge with something fresh and maybe exotic.

Juju picked some chives, mint and 'cats paw' for the Vietnamese carrot salad, a mix of grated carrots with butter-fried nuts, with a sauce of brown sugar, fish sauce, lime and garlic. For a motherless waif, he is a great stylish cook. The pansies in the rocket salad looked extremely gourmet.

Stephan found my sushi-chef housemates knife, and chopped everything in the Samurai spirit that's part of his package - accurate, careful and with rhythm (he is french as well).

Fabian was generally faboulous, as usual, with the angel-rays peeping though the tiredness.

Which got all of us in the end.

We played with the cats, got out the massage bed (best use of time ever), and Cecilia went wild with the hairdryer and 'curls rock' on Stephan. If he grew that mane long and sold it on his 18th brithday, it would pay his way backpacking Europe, I've calculated.

It was wonderful to meet Angelica, the WWOOFer from heaven (via Italy) who was there to soothe and cook for the family in the days after Yukari passed away, in the warm sunny way that have Italians seem put on this planet to do.
Now she is back in Italy, the Desjardins are back in their Sunshine Coast Paradise, waiting for the next lovely wwoofers to come and for a dose of being amazed, amazing, and cooking up love and family. If you go and stay, expect a tropical supermarket of a garden, lots of puppy-like moments of subduing, tussling and being inspired by these beautiful, resiliant boys, and their marvelous Dad.

Balcony garden curtains, ikebana and cord fasteners by Sayaka the Day-WWOOFer

Sayaka the fabric designer:

Holy interlude with roses and needlework

Because I sometimes run out of spare guest bedrooms, but never run out of lovely things to create, I host day-wwoofers - dreamy creatives like myself when I was young, often traveling the world to learn new skills, eat interesting lunches, and add to their ideas bank of domestic possibilities and impossibilities. Then go home till next time.


The day lovely Sayaka came to visit, I happened to have a bunch of fragrant roses my mother dropped off from the countryside. The first thing Sayaka did was an ikebana arrangement, which showed off a beauty Ive never seen in roses - look how the full-blooms arch around the young ones, protecting them, proudly showing them off. And the unruly baby ones just spring out joyfully. "Yes! Its a REAL designer come to visit" - Gazing at what she did to those roses sure made me happy.


Next, she did an analysis on what was wrong with my cord wrapping systems, then designed and created a batch of these. The flower fastener has three functions - since this is after all a Permaculture creation day. For how and why cord fasteners improve your quality of life, see the story at at my Intimate Permaculture blog - Balcony gardens are an excellent place for neat laptops and lamplights but on an edible gardening blog the connection is tenuous.

Lunch under the balcony, the front courtyard, brought to you by Trays.

If you wonder why you don't eat on your balcony or veranda as much as you could, I bet you just don't have trays. Because Aussie shops don't sell trays. The answer to getting the most out of life is often a simple cheap bit of missing hardware. When you visit Tokyo, stock up, distribute them to your balcony gardening friends.

The day was hot, the ceilings high, the curtains long.
The furniture moved, the floor clean and inviting, the work low, focused and mind-chatter quelling.
That's the story of this picture with Cecilia and Sayaka.

I've finally replaced my adequate, factory-made roman blinds my with creamy-lush, tailor made spilling-to-the-floor damask. Invisible hand stiching takes a couple of extra hours, but if you do it with a mate, it becomes two hours of absorbing entertainment. I get though the stitching like a racing car driver. I go near-dizzy with my pace, hypnotized by my steady rhythm. Its a little embarrassing that after all the effort I put into living life, my most dazzling skill is such a maidenly, Victorian-style accomplishment as needlework.


The neighbours kitty is usually quite partial to a nap on my balcony, but hot days require a different stratagy. Here he is enjoying a nap with maximum surface area evaporative cooling posture. Right where my new, heavily-insulated curtains are about to be hung.

Balcony Garden curtains cannot have a seamy side.

Which gets me thinking - that's what Permaculture is all about. About creating a life where there is no embarrassing side to hide. You've just composted it, designed around it, made the arduous fun and friendly, and made it all small enough to manage with yourself and people you like.

Thank-you Sayaka, what a team.

Porch Garden Renovation: New Year, old trout, at five-star Mt. Baw Baw B & B

photo: Toorongo River Sanctuary

In my typical extreme flexi-resourceful way, two days before New Year's Eve I started to plan the best way to spend it. I lucked upon River Sanctuary's luxury B & B, arranged some balcony garden creation WWOOFing in exchange, then turned up with the gang.

The first thing I saw on awakening to the New Decade was a clear-bottomed, trout-filled stream outside my window, calling me for a dip. After drying off, and a celebratory breakfast, the three of us logged in to start work. Our first task from Boss Bevan: Put on our hiking boots, and design a treasure hunt on the heavenly hiking trail for tomorrow's guests and their children.

'Find a river rock shaped like a cat'
or
'Most imaginative name for a constellation of daisies

(a constellation named....?)

"Man, this WWOOFing gig is tough" teased my friend Kallika, who had just joined our Willing Workers On Organic Farms club, not anticipating party games.


We happened upon some well-equipped fishermen who catch trout.
Just catch them, then send them home again.
Sometimes catch the same guy twice. In the words of the immortal Mitch Headburg 'They don't want to eat it, they just want to make it late for something".
Trout 1 "Where were you, brother?"
Trout 2 "I got caught"
Trout 1 "No you didn't. Show me your lip".

But for such a weird hobby, they were lovely guys, very, very intimate with their trout, even giving me a cuddle.
How? Wet your hands first. Hold lightly and it won't resist.

I try to get the more white-collar wwoofing tasks, one was putting together this map for treasure hunting.
Walk down from the peak. You will see:

The Hut on the Hill.
This place makes you feel you could get an oil lamp, solar panel for the laptop, and live happily ever after.
Looking down on this all day, watching the cows go by

Vagabond village from above. How did I get myself up this high?


No residents right now.


A brief dance on the stage of the old wagon.
Then over the rickey bridge, and home to start work making a Veranda Garden.


You probably wonder why a property as vast as this one needs an edible balcony garden.
The answer is, everyone who likes joy and eating needs a balcony (or edge) garden. A garden that is just a hand's reach away from where you spend time. Where you just happen to keep watch daily, defend from pests, delight in blossomings and perfumes, and get intimate with a microworld of your own creation.

Veranda Garden Creation, with Kyra and french WWOOFers.

We did this:

• Cleared weeds, composted the non-seedy ones (no hot compost yet, just moved in)

• Got rid of most of the pots - with earth this close to where you are sitting, potplants are just bothersome dependents. They don't add to the 'landscape', and and busy B&B owners have better things to do.

• Dug terraces, so the rainwater soaks in, rather than rolls down.

• Went to the river for shoring-up rocks. Too small. So had a swim instead.

• Went harvesting the flaky soft mudstone from hills in the buggy. Scary, going though the river.

• Postitioned the rocks along in Curves drawn with vines

• Attempted an asymetrical Japanese, rather than pearls-and-twinset even look.. Plants spilling over the medium-sized rocks will help.
  

• Popped a few waiting seedings in, after giving them a days revivifying soak.

Once the WWOOFer boys feel up to it, we will get some cow contributions to fertilize, and collect some mulch to keep things snug. After we've gone, Nichole and Bevan can put in their new pet plants. I reccommended blue and yellow flowering edibles: hanging rosemary, chives, chamomile, blue-flowering borage for both bees and pretty salads, and hey, more flowers: alysim, violas, whatever buoys your spirit. Of course, lettuce and rocket, useful old faithfuls. Snail traps will complete the picture.

"My New Years Resolutions?" drawled the Young French WWOOFer, as we carried rocks to terrace the front garden. "More Girls. More Money". The simple life.

Thank-you Bevan, Nichole and Kyra. You gave us a perfectly Happy New Year.

Finally got Laid

Robert Samuel from East Germany, Photo by Cecilia Macaulay

For so long I have desired this, and its finally happened.
A man of excellence, strength and impeccable taste turned up at my house, and with his bare hands and brawn re-laid my bricks. My regimented, bored bricks.

The first day he tossed away the bluestone steps, and layed a delicately fan-shaped array of finely chiseled bricks.
Then he went to they gym.

Bricklayers shirt.

The next day my mate Frank the Creative turned up with a lend of all the right tools, and my landlord did something landlords are not usually known for, but that's just because there's a trick to it. After seeing the quality of Robert's stairs volunteered money for the materials.

When Permie Paul Bonjoirno visited and saw the action in the garden, he commented "It does my head in seeing a German lay bricks. Aren't they're meant to be busy making Mercedes?"

He's a high-tech brickie though, and found a way to video-skype me while adjusting the brick patterns, while I went to teach balcony gardening in Queensland.
Each day photos like this would turn up, asking
"Are my curves okay?"

Robert, your curves are great.


30s Argentian wrought iron chair, christmas lillies, one white brick, all on currents of brick swirl.

Fanning and swerving, placed as if a former dental technician had laid them.
As was the case.

A prize for the best caption for this photo of Robert, Rugsy the Norwegian Forest Cat, and the beer I told him was appropriate for brick layers.


About Robert
Robert is a vegetarian. For him carrots are something like water, I've never seen such capacity for eating carrots before. He likes to do things perfectly, and happily. When they are less than perfect in his eyes, he just pulls them out, says 'I'll try again', and does it over.
By day 7 he decided 'Cecilia, no more changes', and worked like a he was striking the fear of God into those bricks. Then he finished, and the beautiful smile, the joyful chuckling returned. He likes pink, likes flowers, and likes talking about his next girlfriend. Not his ex girlfriend, his Next Girlfriend - he met her on the internet, arranged for falling in love to happen while he was wwoofing down here in Australia, and will meet her in real in a few weeks.
I hope she adores him as much as we all do.

About bricks
This old dude, typical eccentric New Zealand style, spend a few decades of his life collecting discarded broken bricks, and layed them in these organic, flowing shapes, block after block till the whole street was awash with wild swirling bricks. It was the highlight of my visit to Christchurch a few years ago. By then the fashionable people had moved in, trying to borrow the eros, the vision that this old fellow had, energizing him every every day, never fading.

I caught it.
Here's the 'Before' photo of my back courtyard. The dinner table had just been brought sensibly back inside, leaving a chess game of extra-guest stools, on the seriously unimaginative, yet very nice bricks.
Why are bricks great? Well, unlike concrete, they let rain soak into the ground for the plants.
But the best reason is that you can haul them home, for free.
When I made the Elwood water catching Garden, I was left with a pile of lovely bricks nobody would buy, or even take for free. I drove around the neighbourhood looking for piles of bricks, and asking the rennovation gangs that put them there to if they would take my bricks off my hands. Instead, they tried persuading me to take their own expensive-to-dispose-of bricks off Their hands.

Just go for a cruise, get a big man with a van, and a swirly brick dream can be part of your life too.

Thank-you New Zealand for the inspiration, thank you Robert for the strong mind and spirit, and thank you Lon who's cooking kept Robert going. Thank you Graham the landlord, and Frank for the brick cutter.
Like raising a child, it takes a whole village to get your bricks swirly. But if the desire is strong enough, it happens.

Vasili's Zorba with Cecilia and Lon the wwoofer

Today is day 25 of having Lon the WWOOFer blessing my house with his help and his gorgeous spirit. We found a perfect way to document and celebrate his last day - a videoed lunch, interview and of course Zorba dance with Vasili, for his Vasili's Garden community T.V. program.




Inviting Vasili over was a bit like letting a puppy loose in the garden. Irrepressable, goes to all the corners you don't want him to, and eats anything. For lunch, we gave him a Japanese cross-cultural experiance, and a taste of all the really interesting winter veggies you COULD grow on your balcony or garden, that I'm working myself up to trying to grow.
Lotus Root, Japanese giant raddish (daikon), and Persimmon balcony cuisine are the next stories I'm posting - gorgeous and delicious.

Thank-you Lon Kazunori,

WonderWWOOFer.
What will I do without you?

transforming a recycling crate into an edible container garden

A bright and ambitious WWOOFer couple, 'Sawadsion', blessed my garden with their presence last weekend.
The result was a hessian-covered, compost-filled boysenberry garden for my balcony.

Sawa and Adisson trimming, repotting and pest-spotting on Cecilia's balcony garden

Sawa and Addison turned up for DayWWOOFing (gardening work experiance) with fantasic smiles, and a Jar of Urban Honey from their last urban WWOOF hosts, Adam and Kat. After lunch we set to work.

Adison worked harvesting, turning and activating my three compost heaps, getting enough for my Autumn balcony garden re-potting.

Divide and conquer: when a task is too hard, dividing it into two tasks often works. Wiring the hessian neatly onto the black plastic required either ten hands, or some straightening up using elastic and bulldog clips.

We assembled the finished result on my balcony: if a pot holds enough rich soil to grow boysenberries, its will be too big to lift. Now that the days of high summer sun are over, my covered North facing balcony has enough low-winter sunshine to 'feed' my plants, so if all goes according to plan, there will be berries in November.

Sawa in Cecilia's garden

Thank-you Sawa and Addison, I look forward to visiting your Permaculture farm in Japan one day, where I expect I will run into half the Aussie permies I know - you have lots of fans in this country, all expecting great things :)

Day WWOOFing - work experiance on a Melbourne balcony garden

A lovey Rose Came over on Thursday to help tend and beautify my garden.

Rose plays violin.This led me to expect excellence, sensitivity to beauty,
and attention to detail.Yes, that's what I got.

It was so enjoyable and helpful for me, and a chance to learn lots for her, so I've now planned 'Day-WWOOFing' days, once a week, for people who want to come and have Permaculture fun with me. New gardeners can learn from my gardening mistakes, rather than their own.

Here is what Rose did.

She tended the balcony garden. She chased away spiders, examined the plants for health. The Roses, Loganberries and Peach had some fungal troubles, so we mixed up a batch of Eco-Rose and Eco-oil, and gave them a squirt. If you don't know what to do when things look crook(we don't), if you don't anticipate, have a remedy at hand, you will use magical thinking. 'It will get better" you will say. But it won't.
Grown from seed, a Silvery and frilly-leaved broccoli, center, Sept 2008.

We talked about how I usually have pairs of plants, one in the big back garden, and one on the balcony so I can compare their progress. For example, in the limited balocny sunlight, the broccoli only produced a 1cm edible flower, yet I would plant it again, for its silvery-frilled beauty.

She Revitalized a shabby wheelbarrow garden with left over paint from my Front door
And like all good compositions, the day included lots of rests.
("Cecilia!", she is saying. "I'm working hard down here")

We tried to make cupcakes:

Tricked you. That's the compost Heap.

She turned the compost, with the idea of getting the 'made' compost to make another wheelbarrow garden for sowing rocket, my number-one favorite urban edible.
We discovered the heap was rather barren - someone had filled it with exhausted potting mix, a filler which just doesn't contribute to the fermenting process. Now we know, just put the old potting mix in the garden..
She removed the sunburnt Ferns from my back courtyard, ready to replace with something more useful on the next Day-WWOOFing day, Monday March 16 2009 (coming?)

Lucky for me, Rose was still here for a dinner in the huge, shared back garden - Soba salad with wasabi dressing AND Yuzu dressing (I'm indecisive).

Thank-you for coming, you were a blessing!