Shunyam's garden in Bundagen

Twenty two of us made the journey to Bundagen. It was a clear day and the sun had some bight as we toured Shunyam's beautiful garden. Shunyam grows a huge variety and quantity of food. The food comes from three main sources: a large vegetable garden largely under shade cloth, an aquaponics area and many fruiting shrubs and trees.

Shunyam uses exclusion methods to keep pests from beating her to the harvest. Examples included a hoop house for veggies, a bird netting enclosure for her blueberries, insect netting for soft fruits and an upcycled bath tub plus wire netting for growing sweet potatoes rat free! Despite her ingenuity, Shunyam is still finding a determined brush turkey to be a real challenge.

The aquaculture system was very interesting, with two different systems used for plant growing. There were two beds with clay balls that were flood irrigated then allowed to drain. Between these was a bed that had plants on a floating platform with their roots permanently in water.

I think Shunyam's favourite fruits must be mangoes, of which she has several varieties. One which is all eaten by Christmas and another that may not be ripe until almost winter. She also had many avocados with the aim of having ripe avos year round, so perhaps these are her favourites. To overcome poor drainage, more recent avocado plantings are on top of a pile of crusher dust. Shunyam also had many stone fruit varieties and a few olive trees, plus grapes, mulberries, jaboticabas, passionfruit, pawpaws, persimmons, figs, pomegranates, pineapples, two coconuts and many other things.

After the fabulous tour we enjoyed a scrumptious lunch, there were so many good things to eat. Thanks to Shunyam for sharing her garden with us.