Meet the gardeners and their garden

Over three short years Jon and Robyn have transformed their 21-acre farmlet.  They started with extremely boggy paddocks and an almost non-existent home garden where the soil was essentially lifeless due to the previous use of heavy black plastic underlay and painted black mulch.  Soil preparation and feeding has been critical to creating healthy growing conditions, allowing them to create a sizeable vegetable garden, a separate orchard and a big native garden.

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Come to see, learn and be inspired!

• Choosing the right crop for the available growing conditions is vital – brassicas, beans and other greens are thriving while sweet potatoes and carrots struggle in the boggy conditions.  Blueberries which need acidic conditions often do better in pots where the soil can be improved over time through adding leaf mould and compost.

• Food production areas are being netted to reduce the share of food taken by blackbirds, rosellas, swamp rats and others.

• Ask Jon about his low-tech watering system for his vegetables and his snail-catching traps.

• Check out the henhouse with Yokohama chickens, noted for their long tail feathers and unusual black and red plumage.  Jon is a ‘chicken whisperer’ and advises gentle, cool water baths to stop hens from being broody.

• Fruits (including several self-grafted trees) and berries in this garden include: apples, kiwifruit, avocados, blueberries, lemons, limes, mandarins, peaches, nectarines, apricots and Jon is even trying to get a mango going!

 

Parking and accessibility

Turn into the laneway 70m east of the main gate (to the right of the property), with parking in the closer part of the paddock along the laneway.  This is a farm and potential hazards include dams, trip hazards and occasionally snakes in warmer weather.

 

Address

​500 West Creek Road, West Creek