Garden Visit to Tim’s new Food Forest in Fernmount

There was more than met the eye in this new Fernmount garden:

Tim and his growing family have been living in what was a vacant block for just over two years now, some of you may be familiar with it as the former 'Secret Garden' nursery. Lots of planning, passion and effort has netted him a food forest, jumping out of the ground, out and proud, in the front yard. An unorthodox style, but then a little chaos always brings opportunity.

Kale

  Around the back there is more experimentation and innovation with livestock and microclimates; endless fun and education for his kids.

Tim tells us about his banana trees.

We learned Tim has recently gained an organic certification for his property. So he is careful what he feeds his livestock and where he uses his produced animal manure.

Feijoa

"After we had satisfied our appetites Tim informed us how he had gone about getting organic certification for his mini-farm. The process had been quicker and easier than he expected. The verification needs to be maintained by annual inspections and documentation / accounting of activities carried out on the site, including all inputs.

Next we went on a tour of Tim's front garden. Tim explained his design philosophies and discussed how things have performed in the last year. He showed us three hundred perennials crammed into a fairly small area, and explained that he is aiming to increase the number to roughly five hundred. Tim finished off with a discussion of some of his longer term plans for the back part of the property.

Thanks to Tim and his family for sharing their garden for the afternoon, and to Tim for sharing his experiences and plans for the future."

Yacon ready to be dug.

Tim has heavily mulched gardens.

Lunch is always a 'bring a plate' affair.

Elaine's lemon myrtle punch was a hit.

Tim keeps animals for his children

Tim is living his permaculture dream. The Madagascar Bean in the background is Tim's favourite bean.