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.

Nambucca Valley Aquaponics

Open every Sunday for you to come and select your freshly harvested spray free veg straight from the farm. 9am - 12 noon.
802 Williams Rd Nambucca.
-Support your local growers-
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Our tour of Nambucca Valley Aquaponics was well attended and with a number of new faces (hello!!).

The farm is run by the always-look-on-the-bright-side father and son duo of Keith and Luke Tutt. Never fear being a beginner. YouTube is your best friend. They have learned everything by trial and error and looking things up online. It was refreshing to see a real farm put together with an eye on real function, not pretty matching fences.

A couple of the main findings along their way: aquaponics (with fish) had far more robust results compared to hydroponics (just water and fertilizers); and to solve their trouble with biting midges eating the seedlings in the greenhouses, predatory mites from www.bioworksonline.com.au have been the answer.

The farm produce is spray free, and would be certified organic except for an admin quirk - a gap in the certification rules. There is no category for aquaponics. So although everything is grown to organic standards, there is no certification to be had.

Wow does this farm produce! Look at all that food!!!


Thanks to Jeff for all our photos.