Before and After

BACKBLOG

BSSF Before (1997)

BSSF After (2008)

 

In 1997, I sold my business in Perth, Western Australia and moved back to the country. My mission: to show people there was a different way to live. I bought an 8 acre parcel of land in the south-west on the outskirts of the village of Balingup. From there my struggle with agriculture began – although I didn't know it at the time.

I'm Gavin Edwards, also known as The Self-Sufficient Farmer™ and this is the start of the end – the end of agriculture as we knew it – and the start of the new farming. The future of farming. Lisa and I have found it,  invented it and lived it. To do this we used a way of living I call Self-Sufficient Farming™.

This is the land I bought – a subdivided part of a larger farm. It was good farmland, just a little run-down. There were fruit trees bearing with no irrigation (the pipe you can see was once for drawing water for what was the larger farm from the permanent creek at the bottom).

 

Here is the view in the other direction. What was to be the house site. I paid cash for the farm from the sale of the business I had in Perth – no bank loan. It was the same price as the cheapest house in the city at the time.

 

My folks bought the small farm over the road. It was a peach orchard and I was to run this for five years while I built my own house.

 

These first pictures were taken in February 1997. I transformed the two farms.
This is how our farm looked in 2008.

Looking into the Kitchen garden

Out the back door (Clives garden)

The Seed Garden

Showing Dad the Seed garden

Looking off the front porch

 

This was all done organically, despite poverty, ill health and  constant harassment from government, permaculturists, neighbours, and community groups. I had planted many thousands of plants, hundreds of trees, learnt how to do an amazing amount of things - from managing an orchard, keeping animals, building, all sorts of farm skills - it was truly an amazing journey. We did it on an income which was less than what most people waste and with less water use than an average suburban house. At the same time I had amassed the largest seedbank of heritage and heirloom vegetable seeds in Western Australia, grown a great deal of our food, all our firewood and started a bookshop and an op-shop. No TV :)  We were tested in every way - our relationship, personally, physically and we came through. We survived everything 'the thing' could throw at us. They didn't beat us and we became stronger and better people because of the hardship. We learned about ourselves and what we could and couldn't do, what we wanted to do and didn't want to do. I wouldn't wish what we went through to happen to anyone else. We have no regrets - we gave it our best shot - and we're still doing that. We have lived a real life.

There was even more planted by April 2012 when we sold the farm.
Why did we sell Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™ ?
I'm writing a book about it. I hope people buy it and support our work saving food plant biodiversity and changing the future of farming.

 

Here's the ultra-short version and some real good advice for anyone moving to the country:

Welcome to the country - Our story.

City people are like battery hens living in cages with food provided and wastes taken away. Remember - love is the only thing that will get you through. We moved into our half built house with no toilet, power or running water. We both got the flu. We took turns chopping the wood. We worked off the farm to bring in money – whatever was going. The flu lowered my immunity and I got a 'fatal' fungal infection from handling hay. Lisa got chronic fatigue. We struggled. We had to travel about 300km to see a doctor. It cost us $200/month in medicines alone. My neighbour called in the ag dept because my blackberries had got away. I cleared two acres by hand while sick. We put 8 goats on it on tether (we won't spray) moving them twice a day. We still had no water. It got too hard and we had to leave the farm and live in the city for a year-and-a-half. I found an alternative treatment and recovered. Lisa got pregnant and I worked as a security guard. We lost the baby. I got a head wound and we packed up the truck (with concussion) and moved back to the farm. When we got back everything broke down – car, tractor, chainsaw. The other neighbour took us to court for a new fence. We struggled. We started businesses in town but the townspeople were jealous of our ideas, youth, and love for each other. We started Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™. NEVER let them tell you it can't be done. Grow your domestic animals but leave some land for the wild animals of nature. After a while on the land your wild spirit will grow. Eventually, it will be wild and free like the wild animals. Then you are truly a country person. Our new farm is called Good Heart Farm™ – we're on the edge of the Tarkine wilderness in Tasmania. Good luck with your dreams – remember if things get tough – Love conquers all.

© Gavin Edwards 2015


I'm going to start back-blogging on the farm, time permitting,  fitting the posts in order chronologically but I will mark them clearly with BACKBLOG so that people can know what was written at the time and what wasn't. We really were so ill, so constantly under attack and so busy, that we couldn't do this at the time. Hopefully this will explain what it was really like making Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.

We are now on our new farm, Good Heart Farm™ in Tasmania – you can catch up with what we're doing there and our continuing adventure.

Click here to go to Good Heart Farm™ 

New community starting up

Had a visit from Alex and David who are starting a community based on "The Ringing Cedars" series of books.
We showed them around the farm and answered some of their questions. They have good hearts and if you are looking to move from the city then I would seriously consider looking into the Santosha community if you are interested in community living.
Good luck with it, guys!

http://santosha-community.blogspot.com.au/

A pregnant quenda

We caught a pregnant quenda on camera although they're shy and come out at night we see them at dusk. This one was trying to get into the seed garden - no doubt it had a craving for peas. It's right in the middle of the photo next to the top daisy.

Lisa's herbs and roses

 Lisa's been busy planting roses

 .....and her herb garden is looking amazing!

Potato fruit

These are potato fruits - you can grow potatoes from seed. Normally they're grown from "seed" potatoes, that is small potatoes grown above 250m altitude. You can breed you're own potato varieties this way (otherwise they are the same as the parent plant).

Wild seed garden

 The seed garden is looking a little like wilderness - I'll have to do some more work in there.

About to harvest some onions - good, they will make some more space for something else. They take up such a long time in the garden bed.

The radish forest

 Abandon all hope ye who enter - the Black Spanish Radish Forest.

I'm collecting these for seed - they're over my head and tricky to get past.

A fair bit of food

 We're now getting a fair amount of food from the AP orchard garden.

Baby carrots and turnips

 The same plus purple radishes

We're getting a large amount of baby carrots.

Globe artichokes can feed you

 Contrary to what other gardening authors say, I think globe artichokes are well worth growing. We have whole meals of artichokes in early summer.

They are very easy to grow - a kind of low-maintenance food source, just waiting around to be picked. A bit fussy to process but once you get the hang of it - well worth doing (they're delicious!).

Globe artichokes cooked in butter with warrigal greens.

First earlies

Here's some of our first early potatoes (and a "Black Spanish" radish). Earlies are always much appreciated but there's never enough.

Spring - WOW!

Here's the view from our kitchen window, paulownia trees flowering and into the young citrus forest.

The gates to the seed garden.

The arch to the plum tree that gave us 12 crates of plums in the driest year ever with no watering.

Clive's garden - named for a departed friend - looking blooming wonderful.











The kitchen garden from outside the window below.

   

Lisa's herb garden going mad.

I love spring!

Truth, liberty and radishes!

Here's Lisa's looking like Joan-of-Arc with a Spanish radish.

 Lunch was a radish salad from the garden (with borage flowers)

 

The gardens are alive!

 It's spring and our gardens are brimming with life and new growth. Row crops in the AP orchard are coming up.           Carrots ->

 <--  "Purple Plum" Radishes

 "Black Spanish" radishes    ---->
(more than I'd care to eat)

and spring onions (mostly for next year)

 A happy looking frog in the lounge garden. Must have eaten a lot things in the garden that would have eaten our food. A good friend to have and a sign of garden health.

 Lettuce seedlings coming up in a seed bed in the seed garden. These ones are "Butterhead".

 The nursery is starting to fill.

 Lisa's pot of pansies.

 Snow peas ("Roi de Carouby" - my favorite) coming up in the kitchen garden. The quendas didn't find these ones.

 Some things are flowering already in the seed garden. Broccoli, Chinese mustard and Alexanders.

These Dutch Purple-podded peas are looking OK. Definitely better than last year in the drought. I think it's going to be a good season.

The mystery of the disappearing peas

For the last 2-3 weeks my pea seeds have been disappearing. Mice, I thought, after the first few holes. Next night - more missing. Filled the holes in. Next night even more - way more than I'd ever lost at once in any previous year in my life. I had to replant two whole trellises of peas and a quite a few off a third trellis. OK - I covered all the pea trenches with 1cm mesh - I do this some years when the mice are bad.
Next night - more peas gone. They had dug under the mesh. Most unusual.
Next night more peas missing. This kept going on for a while. I'd fill holes in (the mesh couldn't quite cover all the peas) and the smaller pieces of mesh weren't that heavy. Then one night I noticed larger pieces of mesh moved quite a way back from the trellis.
I put pieces of wood on top of the mesh to hold them down - that should do the trick.
Rats - I put it down to - big buggers and lots of them.
This kept on going for a while. Then it dawned on me - it can't be rats - even rats couldn't move the wire that far - it must be Quenda's (short-tailed bandicoots). I've seen a lot of quendas around recently. So I quickly found some old cupboard doors to act as low solid gates to the seed garden.
This morning - no peas eaten.
Problem solved - gourmet PEA EATING QUENDAS.  Quenda's have a taste for garden peas so watch out!

PS. My war with the quendas is over and finally we have peas.....

NZ spinach for bread

We swap NZ spinach (also called warrigal greens) with the local cafe for loaves of bread. It's much easier for us to grow greens this way than produce bread - although we still do that too!

Spring In the Seed Garden

The seed garden is looking good this time of year.

 I cut back some of the black wattles from behind the garden to reduce root competition.

 Too much ruby chard!

Still getting broccolini - leaving the rest for seed.
Letting the berries grow up the trellis this year - the plan is to cut them back after fruiting so we don't get too many spiky leaves in our seed bed.

 Chinese Kale is doing well (about to flower)

 Here's natures pest control at work - a ladybug eating aphids on a broccoli. If you squash some of the aphids the ladybugs are attracted to the scent. Ladybug nymphs look totally different (kind of like a striped earwig) but eat a lot of aphids all the same.

 There's a spider waiting in the beet.

 A bee pollinating the broccoli.

 The beets are almost too beautiful to eat!

Seed pods (siliques) forming on the broccoli.