Autumn-Week-13-Case-Study.Pdf

Grow Great Fruit [Member]

[CASE STUDY] Hi everybody, As we make the transition from one season to the next, we like to take the opportunity to bring you a case study of one of our Grow Great Fruit members. Introducing ... Clare and Win. They are passionate gardeners and keen permaculturalists, and have risen to meet some pretty tough challenges in their lives with grace, dignity, and lots of bloody hard work! We hope you enjoy their story, and find their experience inspirational.

Katie & Hugh

After the Fire

Clare and Win have been members of the GGF program almost from the beginning, joining in April 2013 and earning Life Member status (for being long-term members) in late 2015.

We’re excited to present them as a case study because they are a terrific real-life demonstration of how the principles and topics we teach in the Grow Great Fruit program work in practice in a home garden.

A bit of background about Clare and Win… Clare and Win have a property in central Victoria, where they moved almost 30 years ago. They are active leaders in their local Landcare group, and experts in the collection of indigenous seed. They are keen Parelli Natural Horsemanship people and carriage drivers, and Win is a retired farrier. Clare used to work in Rural Community Development.

Planting their vegie garden was the first thing they did when they moved to the property, even before they unpacked any boxes. They also put in their first orchard immediately.

eople have many different motivations for growing fruit, and understanding them can help you plan your garden to meet your needs, whether it’s self- sufficiency, having fun in the garden, creating a beautiful space for your family to enjoy, planning against climate change and potential food shortages, or just Pcreating a shady place for your kids to play.

Clare and Win are deeply committed to growing their own food, which Clare attributes largely to her childhood spent in Africa.

We always bought our food at the local market, Europeans might think it doesn’t look hygienic, but those markets are a riot of colour; the vegies are strongly coloured, very fresh, not anaemic looking. When I think now of what’s good for you, I want food that’s strongly coloured and very fresh.

Time spent in Papua New Guinea, many years’ experience growing her own vegies, and then the advent of permaculture has given Clare an almost spiritual approach to food growing and a desire for a diet that hasn’t been “interfered with”, which includes a huge variety of different foods, and is as fresh as possible.

I’ve been growing veg for 30 years, fruit is a natural complement. I LOVE to eat, and I’ve always been particular about what I eat, it’s part of valuing my body; it’s important to only put stuff in my mouth that’s good for me. Food speaks to spirituality for me, even to the extent that this season when we had very little water, we chose to put the little we had on the fruit trees and put the vegie garden to bed under straw for the year. But very quickly Win said ”you’re going to be impossible without a vegie garden” so he built me two wicking beds, and we fed ourselves all summer out of them. Gardening gives me enormous pleasure, it soothes my soul to go down the garden and fill my basket with food. When my spirit is troubled, I go and pick a basket full of food for tea and come back with my spirit calmed. I’m devoted to food.

hen Clare and Win first sprinkler on the pile as well. There’s no point moved to their property, trying to make compost unless you make it wet enough. their sedimentary soil was very acidic with a pH of Clare and Win also have a large worm farm, and use Wjust 3.9, however as a result of the the worm castings in the vegie garden, and add the castings to fruit trees as well. The worms are fed organic soil improvement they’ve been with horse manure by clearing out the horse float practicing, it’s now neutral, around 7.0. whenever it’s been used to transport the horses. They keep the worm farm moist with grey water Clare puts their soil improvement down to a few diverted from the house. things, especially their home-made compost. The worm farm is a big one, it’s fabulous, it allows us to be really generous with worm castings. It’s We’re great compost makers; it’s at the side really good not to have to scrimp with them. It of the orchard so it’s not too far to carry it. We means we can be a bit slacker with the compost. make it out of anything that was once organic, plus we wee into buckets of sawdust, and when If they have enough worm castings they also scatter we build the pile we use that as an accelerator; some around their paddocks. They practice cell it adds extra nitrogen. grazing (constantly moving their livestock onto fresh pasture) and as a result have dramatically reduced They make a hot compost, and first stockpile the the pH in the paddocks as well as the garden. ingredients, which may include, In addition to the constant soil improvement • garden and kitchen recyclables, program through the addition of compost and worm • recycled paper and old phone books from the castings, Clare and Win also use foliar sprays of house (stored in a bathtub near the compost seaweed and fish emulsion on the trees each spring, pile, and 24–48 hours before they make the right up until they become too busy with horse compost they fill the bath with water, then activities in summer and run out of energy and time. put the wet pulp through the mulcher, which They recommence the foliar sprays in autumn before blasts it into pieces), the trees go to sleep for winter. At the moment • old hay from their hay supplier who gives they don’t have a way of fertigating (i.e., putting them old rotten bales, supplements directly into the irrigation system), so • sawdust from a friend who’s a sawmiller, Clare describes their (less than ideal) process: • green grass mown on the day they’re making the compost so it’s fresh and green We can’t put these additives in our irrigation • horse manure—the horses are locked into the system, so we assemble 12 buckets, we use water yard overnight to supply nice fresh manure, we get from the community bore in a big shuttle • straw bedding and manure from the chook tank on the trailer. We slosh some seaweed and pen, and fish emulsion into the bottom of each bucket, then • fruit tree prunings use the fire pump to fill each bucket, and run • how could I forget, blood & bone too backwards and forwards tipping a bit at the base of each tree. We try to do it when it’s raining, or Clare describes how they build their compost piles: just after, so it soaks into the soil.

We build a pile with nice thin layers. Everything In spring they also sprinkle a handful of blood and goes through the mulcher. We have a big bone and scatter some extruded seaweed pellets mulcher, the biggest nonindustrial size you can around the base of each tree as well. get. We put everything through the mulcher, In our opinion Clare and Win have a top-notch we have the hose on while we’re mulching, just fertility program; Clare reckons the results speak for gently trickling through at the same time, then themselves: when we go and have morning tea we put the Our trees grow like topsy!

lare is the first to admit that before the Grow Great Fruit program, pruning was not her strong point. It’s been one of the hot topics during our regular Ccatch-ups. QUESTION FROM CLARE: My Greengage has very bare branches in its centre because I haven't kept the pruning tight enough. My question is, now that the fruit is finished, would you think it a good idea to prune it now to open up the centre and shorten both the leaders and the side branches right up? Or would it be better doing such a comparatively hard prune in winter? I was wondering, if I do it now will the tree have the opportunity to make fruit buds on the remaining wood, so we will get some crop? It isn't a huge issue for us, cos now (with over 80 trees!) we have fruit coming out of our ears. But I am just curious. Also, when you summer prune (i.e., when there are leaves on the trees), if you cut back to a bare section of branch will it stimulate the tree to produce leaves there, or are you essentially cutting off the trees' lungs, if you see what I mean? I really need someone to discuss this all with—I am going round and round in my head, and when I ask Win, he always just agrees with me (about fruit tree pruning. Sadly not about other things!!)

ANSWER: The way an individual tree will respond depends on how vigorous it is, how healthy it is, the season and the time of year, so while I can reiterate principles, we can never be sure how individual trees will react, but I think your instinct is right to do the prune in winter—you're unlikely to get much new growth and bud growth from pruning now; it's more likely to just stop the tree completely. Despite the bare branches, overall the tree looks pretty good, with a reasonable shape (just a bit leggy) so actually be guided by its productivity—if it's already pretty productive, and healthy, you might decide it doesn't need too much reworking. Re the summer pruning question (i.e., when there are leaves on the trees), the answer is no, you're more likely to stop the tree growing than stimulate the tree to produce leaves there if you cut in summer. Making this sort of cut in winter is more likely to result in a growth response in the right place.

Win and the boys scrambling for feijoas

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 5 QUESTION FROM CLARE: I pruned the Josephine pear tree yesterday. Today I read your instructions, and I think I just cut off all the tip bearing buds. No wonder we never had more than half a dozen fruit—and I thought it was lack of a pollinator!!

ANSWER: Yes, bloody Josephines! I had the foresight to get our pruners not to do them at all this year because I think we've suffered the same problem in years gone by. At least you’ll know now for future years!

QUESTION FROM CLARE: Are these Cox Orange Pippin branches too close? Should I be cutting some off where they spring from the main branch?

ANSWER: No, those Cox Orange Pippin branches are not too close, that's a beautiful looking tree. By branches I'm assuming you mean the laterals, or side shoots, that are coming from the main branches (or permanent limbs). So just to remind you of one of the principles—the side branches are very precious because they carry the fruit-bearing wood, so we only ever remove them completely as a last resort. Looking at your photos, I think the laterals are just perfectly spaced along the main branches, and if you removed any you'd be in danger of leaving a bare patch on the limb. Once you have a bare patch, it's quite hard to get it to grow a new lateral. So, leave them all in place. The way you control the crop is by (i) thinning some of the laterals, i.e., making them slightly less hairy, and (ii) thinning some fruit. I wouldn't do any more pruning on the tree this year, just regulate the crop by fruit thinning.

ne of the main themes of the GGF program is that growing fruit is risky, because you always have to contend with the Oelements, but that with good planning you can minimise the risks and set yourself up to recover as quickly as possible if disaster strikes.

Orchard site in July 2009, bare and ready for planting

Clare and Win had a dramatic and extreme experience with nature when their property was in the pathway of the Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009. The fire almost wiped them out completely; they The finest chook shed in the southern lost all the sheds, all the fences, the entire garden, hemisphere complete with incinerated their tractor, harness, horse carriages … everything chooks and, over the former fence, cooked except the house. fruit trees. Feb 2009 Clare tells how they started the recovery process:

If we’d known you then we would have asked you to come over and have a talk about whether we could have saved any of the trees—we probably could have, but I’m glad in retrospect that we didn’t. We pulled everything out, and it was a good opportunity to start fresh. With hindsight I’m glad we didn’t investigate too hard how to nurse the trees back to life. We had some out of control trees, some big plum trees that I just couldn’t keep up with the suckers, they were a nightmare.

Win recognised that Clare “wouldn’t be together until she had some trees in the ground again”, so they decided to replace their orchard in the winter after the fire. At the same time, Win was not only trying to hold down his busy job as a farrier, but was also

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 7 Post-fire, the orchard is 1 year old (according to Clare, “before I met you and you cured me of straw mulches”), mid-July Clearing the site for new planting, July 2009 2010 fully occupied with a team of volunteers building an This meant that Clare did all the replanting by herself. enormous rammed earth shed to replace sheds lost The men had double ripped the area but had left it in the fire. Clare remembers that it was not an easy terribly rough, so she was planting the trees and time for the couple: trying to hand rake the block (about half an acre), at the same time. That shed nearly broke us! We had up to 16 people helping at different times, and never less than 5 I have NO pictures of the planting of the orchard. adults sleeping in the house; their clothes were It happened at the same time as the building filthy, the house was full of mud, and I had to feed of the rammed earth shed (massive effort) and them. I was providing a hot lunch, big morning we have no record at all of my lonely snatched and afternoon teas, then they needed a big meal moments of hastily bunging the trees in the at night, so “she who hates cooking” was the only ground. And running out of energy at the end to one available to provide all the food. flatten the huge furrows the double ripping had left, but luckily a day and a half of effort in January (when the shed was finished) by Win, me and a wwoofer managed to reduce the mountains and fill the valleys and today you would never know it wasn’t always flat!

Clare managed to get the trees in, but then had a setback the following year.

It was OK getting the trees in, but the following winter when I should have been doing the establishment pruning, I just couldn’t get the orchard to the top of my ‘to do’ list. I just fell in a hole about the orchard. I just felt like I’d lost the chance, it was all ‘too big’ and ‘too difficult’, and I just didn’t know what I was doing. And this is when I should have got energetic about pruning (instead of spending time mulching). sigh! Oh well, most orchard mistakes are retrievable!! A year later, winter 2011

We had carrots in the ground when the fire went through and their tops burnt off, but incredibly they regrew and those carrots—no joke—ended up 3.5” across the top, and almost 2 ft long, but they tasted wonderful! They were not woody at all. Now when my carrots aren’t performing I threaten to burn their tops off!

After 18 months or so they noticed the growth slow down in the vegie garden, but didn’t notice a difference with the trees because they were keeping them mulched, composted and generally too well fed to go through a decline. In their new orchard Clare and Win have more than 70 trees, including: • almonds • pears and nashi • apricots (4) • plums (countless) • pomegranates • feijoas (4) • citrus trees (8) • loquat • nectarines (3) • peaches (lots) • cherries (several) • apples (lots) • bay tree The original straw mulch • figs in the new orchard • macadamia replaced with compost. • olives Spring, 2014 • pecans • mulberries

Watering the fruit trees One of the ways we recommend building diversity into your gardening plan is to have more than one source of water. The past season has been one of the driest Clare and Win have experienced on their farm, but despite having to make severe cutbacks to the amount of vegies they grew, they still managed to keep all their fruit trees alive. The fruit trees are watered from a dam at the bottom of the orchard, but when that’s really low they have to drive 5 km to a community bore to fill up the tank on the fire trailer; that’s pretty hard watering. They can’t put the water into the normal irrigation system (there’s some problem with the pressure), so have to water by hand. They also have the grey water from the kitchen diverted out into a poly pipe, which is mobile so they can move it around onto the tree that has the biggest burden of fruit on it to give it an extra drink for the period before the fruit ripens—a system that seems to work pretty well. Grey water from their bathroom is also diverted onto their worm farm to keep up a regular supply of worm castings for the fruit trees, so not a drop of water is wasted!

Sam and Opa (Win) water the orchard

he GGF program is totally based on organic growing principles; when you’re growing food we reckon it’s better for human health to make Tsure no chemicals are used at all, but it’s also much better for the environment. Clare and Win have used our program resources extensively to help them tackle many problems.

Pest and disease control Aside from their regular member one-on-one sessions, Clare and Win also pay attention to the regular tips we post in the Weekly Fruit Tips newsletter.

I feel as if I can manage most fruit stuff now, thanks to you two, and it is great to be able to contact you so easily for anything I don’t know. And funny that I was just wondering what the gnawing was on my little nectarines—and then you posted something about earwigs…!

QUESTION FROM CLARE: Is this photo clear enough to diagnose Blossom blight? This is our Rival [apricot], formerly much troubled by Blossom blight. And was sprayed twice with copper spray.

ANSWER: Thanks for the lovely clear photo [right]. I don’t think you have Blossom blight, those flowers look healthy, I think! You’ll know for sure in another week whether any fruit will stick on, but you could check now by (very carefully) pulling the shuck off a couple of flowers. If there’s no substance to the flower and it falls right off, you have Blossom blight, but if there’s some resistance and the shuck comes off cleanly leaving a tiny apricot behind, you’re in the clear!

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 10 QUESTION FROM CLARE: My poor d’Agen [prune plum] has several of these diebacks on twigs [right]—all neatly stoppered with a glob of glue. Do you know what disease it is? The leaves on the rest of the tree are not looking their glowing selves. This is a tree that has had aphid trouble in the past. I have cut off the diseased twig and sent the bits, double wrapped to the tip, and Napisanned my hands and secateurs. Is there anything else I can do, other than keep feeding the tree?

ANSWER: Not sure if you mean you’ve put glue on, or whether it’s the tree’s natural response to isolate the disease with sap (presumably the latter!). Short answer is, no, I don’t know what the disease is. There are a few potential culprits but the bottom line is it will either be fungal, in which case the spring copper spray that you’re putting on is the best all-purpose preventive, or it’s bacterial, in which case there’s not really any treatment (though copper is also recommended for Bacterial spot, funnily enough, considering it’s a fungicide). Either way, it looks relatively minor, and that the tree is already taking steps to isolate it. You’ve done the right thing by getting rid of the diseased wood, though it may not be enough to prevent losing a bit more if the tree hasn’t managed to completely isolate it yet. I’m sure you’re already doing the right thing by supporting the tree as much as possible by improving the soil—compost and compost tea (or in your case, worm castings because you have lots) would be a good idea, and enough but not too much water in case it’s a fungal root rot. The only way to get a really definitive answer on issues like this is to get the plant material tested, but that would be very expensive. You might be able to narrow it down a bit more with an exhaustive search through “What’s That Spot” (one of our eBooks) for anything with similar symptoms (though you can be pretty sure it’s not Fireblight!).

Thinning Fruit thinning (i.e., removing some of the fruit in early spring) is a key activity in the orchard. At the time of interviewing Win and Clare, thinning was one of the very few areas of their fruit growing they felt was not under control.

Next year our big challenge is to get thinning under control—I’m sick of growing piddling little fruit!

D’Agen plum with dieback on twigs

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 11 Frost control QUESTION FROM CLARE: If one were very close (frugal, I prefer to call it) would an old sheet do for a frost cover? What are the intrinsic qualities we are looking for in a frost excluder? Win even put on a coat to go out at 11 pm last night to drape our apricots in sheets!

ANSWER: Yes, a sheet makes a beautiful frost cloth, the intrinsic quality is that it (i) traps the warm air around the plant, and (ii) forms a physical barrier. The only drawback with a sheet is it’s heavier than the light frost cloth you can buy, and there’s slightly more risk of damage to the plant underneath (fairly minimal risk). It will also exclude light and therefore needs taking off during the day, where the frost cloth lets more light through so you can leave it on during the day during the frost danger period, should you feel so inclined.

Ripening QUESTION FROM CLARE: Thank you so much for your thoughtful, clear, well expressed answers. Here’s the latest question: somewhere, sometime, did you say that Goldmine is a bugger for dropping fruit before it is ripe? There is a lot of fruit on the ground, but a lot of the fruit isn’t terribly sweet to taste. And as I remember it from last year, it was incredibly tasty. Afraid I panicked and picked most of the tree (and there was MASSES of fruit, though only a tiny proportion with rubs or injuries thanks to your lessons in spraying and thinning—YEAH!) before I really paid attention to the fact that not all of them tasted wonderful. Don’t like to squeeze (even ever so gently) all the fruit and it is hard to taste every one!! I clearly haven’t got my eye in yet. But am trying. By the way, I couldn’t find a pattern in the ripening of the fruit on the tree—some of the underneath ones were ripe while others in the sun weren’t, some at the bottom of the tree were ripe while others weren’t, etc. Do most trees have a pattern if I just look hard enough? Just a fraction of the Goldmine crop

ANSWER: So, why don’t they taste as good as last year? Goldmine is a bugger for pretty much everything, Does that apply to the fruit on the ground as well? including dropping, but usually only when they’re Unless it’s there from wind (unusual) or being ripe, not beforehand. They also like to shrivel on the knocked off by something, the windfalls should tree and get marked by rain, or by looking at them almost certainly be ripe, so if even that fruit doesn’t sideways. However, yours seem to be completely have much sweetness, I guess we just have to put it gorgeous!!! It is hard to tell when they’re ripe as down to seasonal variation. you’re picking; we look for the background colour If the fruit were grown on trees in lesser soil than (rather than the top red colour), which can be very yours the lack of flavor could be put down to lack of hard to see on Goldmine because they too have a nutrients, but considering your fantastic soil program tendency to have widespread red colour, making it that seems unlikely. If these had been picked after a hard to see the background colour. Having said all deluge (which doesn’t appear to be the case judging that, you seem to have done a magnificent job with by their pristine appearance) I’d suggest that a lot of your timing judging from the photo. Overall they water may have diluted their flavour somewhat (that certainly don’t look green; in fact they look like two can happen after a big rain event). trays of perfect Goldmine. Gold star AND elephant We’ll be interested to hear how the picked ones stamp. ripen up and whether they get sweet.

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 12 Weed control Animals Clare and Win have grass and a wide diversity of Before the fire they had chooks in the orchard, and plants growing under their fruit trees. used them as one of the early soil improvement tools. Win was a farrier and was able to collect trailer We occasionally scatter legume seeds from our loads of stable “waste” (Clare and Win regard it as a green manure mix. Also there’s herbs among the precious resource rather than waste) that had been trees; we try not to cut their heads off too much used for the horses’ bedding. They would bring it when we mow among the trees. We have comfrey, home and dump it on the paddock, where the chooks coriander, chrysanthemums. I mow in there, Win would absolutely leap on it and go mad, over time whippersnips under the trees as well, and he transforming the paddock (which was fenced to keep absolutely respects all the plants growing there. the chooks in) into beautiful soil 2.5 ft deep. There’s no way we could use a ride-on mower in When we watered in there the chooks would just there because of all the bits and pieces growing go ballistic, but they ended up digging deep bunkers there. We’re very aware of the importance of among the fruit tree roots. Theoretically we’d love protecting the biodiversity. to have chooks in the orchard again, but they’re just too destructive. In the 12 months before the fire All around the orchard they have many different we’d also had three daytime fox attacks, and we just indigenous plants growing as well, to provide more can’t watch them all the time during the day—it’s a biodiversity and attract bees and other pollinisers. logistical nightmare, so we don’t have chooks in the orchard at the moment, and I can’t imagine that we will ever put them back in there.

Clare & Win’s worm farm—an integral part of any organic garden

New chipper! Perfect for composting. Garden abundance!

Growing your own trees and grafting Since doing our grafting workshops, Clare and Win have developed what they consider an “out of control habit of grafting”. They now have almost no trees that are just one variety (including two fruit trees near their house which have 15 varieties between them!). In all, they have at least 130 varieties in the orchard.

The only thing we haven’t grafted is the citrus trees because we don’t know how to (yet)! It’s going to be an absolute nightmare when they’re all in production. Now that I’ve finally got confident with pruning I’ve given myself the nightmare job of having to keep all these grafted trees in balance!

Win coilecting budding wood from a wild mulberry tree

The trees in their orchard have come from a variety of sources: • some have been purchased (Yalca and MAFG); • quince suckers (from a tree burned in the bushfire) that have been grafted to pear varieties; • volunteer trees coming up in the orchard, probably from rootstock that escaped the double ripping after the fire (but took up to 3 Win getting serious with budding (not asleep years to make it above ground—figs, cherry on the job at all!). The half beer tinnie plum, pear); hanging on the branch is “an INDELIBLE, • volunteer peaches in the potato patch, some of which have been grafted (or not); unmovable (we hope!) label so we hope • brother-in-law’s pip growing habit that they NEVER in the tree’s long future, to be then graft onto; puzzling over just which variety of plum we • gifts, which trees carry the givers’ name budded there”. forever!

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 14 QUESTION FROM CLARE: This morning we did a good sort out of this apricot/plum that originally came from MAFG. Sadly all four apricot grafts from last September failed, but as you can see the plum roots produce a pretty vigorous tree! So, partly to give the apricot grafts of the previous year that did take a go, I did shorten the (plum) wood which we hope to bud this month. Should I have left them? I hope the tree won’t see it as summer pruning and shut down growth. It does tend to grow like topsy! (The draped net is over some fruit growing on the plum branches we do want to keep [at least if the plums turn out to taste good]). And we had two or three apricots off the previous grafts this year and they were delicious. Can’t wait for the tree to grow bigger and have masses of apricots!

ANSWER: Now is a good time to select any of this year’s shoots that you will be budding, and remove the rest—if you’re planning to put a bud in every shoot that grew, that’s fine, leave them, but if you’re not, prune them away completely. This will help to reduce the competition for the apricots. You won’t have done any harm by cutting back. When it comes time to budding, remove the leaves on the shoots that you’re budding on the bottom half of each shoot (just rub them off with your hand).

failed apricot tree, a good candidate for budding

Preserving All summer Clare and Win have more fruit than they • juicing apples, nashis and grapes, and can use. In winter they buy bananas, passionfruit pasteurising it; and and avocados, that’s all. • wrapping apples and quinces in newspaper and storing them in the back room (to be used by I’ve got no idea how much fruit we grow (in kg), about August). but it’s a lot! They also try to give away a heap, just out of love, They limit themselves to one big freezer full of but also trade some for artwork and pottery and preserved fruit each year. Win each year suggests eggs when their aged chook fleet doesn’t lay well in buying a new one, but Clare resists because… winter. They have on occasion taken some fruit into a local shop to sell, but that, for a whole variety of …at this rate, we would have 29 freezers all full of reasons, has been unsatisfactory. uneaten fruit!! Clare says it has been a learning curve since their orchard hit its straps last season’s harvest to find out Each year they preserve large amounts of produce who they can give what fruit to who will use it and with a variety of different methods: value it. If it’s going to rot on their kitchen bench, • bottling fruit in preserving jars; she’d rather give it to their chooks or horses. • making tiny quantities of jam (they hardly use any, but love to have it to give away); Someone who bought one of our horses years ago • turning a small amount into chutney; commented, “Oh, all Clare’s horses eat anything!!” • making lots of pickle (with veg not fruit); • curing (olives); Clare says it is an art to not preserve fruit for the • drying some of the soft fruit, but nearly all the sake of preserving it, and plans for the freezer to be Prune d’Agen (Clare says they are “heavenly empty by November. dried”); • making kamaradin (dried fruit pulp) out of all I don’t want 6-year-old fruit languishing at the the soft fruit; bottom of the freezer. And this year taught me a

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 15 lot about “what about a drought year?” Well, this Grandson Sam devouring a peach, year we had as little water as at the beginning with love! of the season that we ended up with after Black Saturday yet through Win’s diligence in getting water from the bore along the road, much carbon in the soil, canny use of reusable water from the house and sparing use of dam water, etc. we got through with bumper harvests, so am not sure we need to save’ lots of fruit, “just in case”, from one year to the next.

When we interviewed Clare and Win in mid-May, they still had cooked apples, plums, feijoas and peaches in the fridge; apples, quinces and pears in the back room; feijoas, quinces and Lady Williams still on the trees, and…

Lo and behold, early mandarins are falling out of the tree with ripeness and we are off again on the whole citrus harvest!! And the loquat, I have just noticed, is covered in blossom…..will we ever eat our way out from under this mountain of fruit….????

Full preserves shelf, March 2015

Fresh fruit right through until May!

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 16 What Difference Has the Grow Great Fruit Program Made? Clare and Win’s original orchard (before the fire) was quite productive, but because of a lack of consistency, knowledge and prioritorisation, their results were patchy. For example their watering wasn’t consistent for 20 years. Ironically, they’d finally put the irrigation system on to the orchard the week before the fire.

Once I really attached to you and the Grow Great Fruit program and I had you constantly at my elbow and I could get the info I needed, I was happy. I don’t mind hard work when I know what to do!

In 2011 Clare and Win did all our workshops. Their new trees were still young at that point so they’d had no yield, and they were trying to manage the rampant growth of the young trees that resulted from the extra carbon in the soil, and the large amount of rain they received in 2011. By 2012 they were starting to get fruit, which they found reassuring, and the orchard has continued to thrive since then. It’s really been this last summer that the orchard has hit its straps. Following your good advice to think ahead and plan what you’ll do when you’re going to get a big crop, we’ve lined up our friends and we’ve let them know, if you want fruit when we have too much, you need to be ready to be here in 36 hours to collect it. Because we have so much coming out of my orchard, and the quality is so superb, we have lots of friends feeling like they need to exchange something for the fruit. I have a few artist friends who are planning to swap some of their art and sculpture in exchange for the fruit we give them. Lots of people have asked me, “why don’t you sell your fruit?”, and I say I can’t because if I put a dollar value on it that’s equal to the effort I put into it, you couldn’t afford to buy it! However, I’m really happy to swap it—people have works of art over which they’ve laboured, and they’re happy to give or exchange it for fruit, but the dollar amount just wouldn’t reflect the value of what we put into it. The essence of what the program has given us is the knowledge—I don’t mind putting the work in, once I know what to do. Now we feel like we have disease prevention, nutrition, watering all under control. Certainly I finally have my pruning under control. And grafting. I like to do things right, and the thing that gets in the way of that is not knowing!

Clare says that the vegie garden used to be her default thing to do; now the orchard is the main priority.

If we’ve been away and we’re coming home I say to Win, “when we get home we need to do all the jobs in the orchard”. Then after that it’s the vegie garden, and if I’ve got time left it’s the horses (they’re looked after well, but I don’t make time to play with them), but by the time I get done in the vegie garden, the orchard needs me again! The horses are neglected in favour of the orchard! I can’t do the vegie garden until the orchard is done.

Clare and Win’s orchard is a testament to their hard work, enthusiasm and dedication, but their great results are not always matched by confidence that they are doing the right thing. On more than one occasion we’ve had to reassure them that they’re getting great results.

Thank you for the kind words about our fruit trees—and I will try and work on the confidence. BUT please realise it is due to you and Hugh patiently reiterating, “there are no wrong pruning cuts, but there are consequences” and “you need to have a protective cover over your trees if any rain is forecast” over and over! I LOVE having an overall program of information and answers to questions and explanations, and all I have to do is work and learn!

We’ll finish this case study with a wonderful testimonial Clare sent us recently, about why she uses the Grow Great Fruit program as her main source of advice.

One of the great values of Grow Great Fruit is that you are a one-stop shop for info—one can search the web for, say, pruning fruit trees and end up totally confused cos everyone says something different. It’s much easier to seek and then follow your advice!

© Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens 2016 Grow Great Fruit Program 17 DISCLAIMER: We make every effort to ensure the information given in this program is accurate. However, as conditions and About Us methods vary, we cannot guarantee the results, and take no We—Katie and Hugh Finlay—run Grow Great Fruit as a training extension of our farm, responsibility for any damage or Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens. It seemed like a natural progression from selling fruit at injury that may occur, no matter markets for years, and talking to hundreds of people about their problems with fruit how caused. But relax—you’ll trees. probably grow twice as much fruit as we predict...without incident! We use organic and biological farming methods, relying on compost and compost tea to feed the soil. The trees get all their nutrients from the life in healthy soil (“good” fungi and bacteria) rather than from artificial fertilisers. Keeping in touch Part of what we love about the Grow We’ve been orchardists since 1998, both coming to it from nonfarming careers, though Great Fruit Program is that we’re Katie grew up on the orchard and Hugh worked on farms in Western Australia and the building a community of like-minded Middle East before roaming the globe for many years as a travel writer for Lonely Planet. fruit growers - something we wish we’d had when we were learning how Training in organic farming, permaculture, soil biology, compost and compost tea and to grow fruit. holistic farming (as well as lots of experience) has all been important in developing our There’s lots of ways to join in, ask growing practices, the sustainable development of the farm, and the ethics of what we questions, share info, swap stories, bring to you in Grow Great Fruit. stay in touch with our daily news from the farm, and get to know one Diverse plantings rather than monoculture, spreading risk with biodiversity, and another: learning how to grow your own food successfully all contribute to food security—and we’re on a mission to help build a secure food future for everyone! See daily photos and updates from the farm, post comments and share your own news...

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