This photo was taken at the spectacular Echo Point in Katoomba, famous for the ‘Three Sisters’ rock formation of Aboriginal dreamtime and associated 700m cliff faces, which tourists from all over the world come to see. In posting it I realise that I risk starting a ‘soft toy in the worlds famous places’ type fad, only with salad planter boxes - but I will continue undaunted. Epic is the place, and epic is the task to save the world with home grown organic food! (Vive le Iron Chef!)
The scene is set with the recycled recycling crate. With the recent shift to wheelie-bins for domestic kerbside recycling, there are about 20,000 unemployed black-box recycling crates floating around the mountains, and what better way to re-purpose them than to use them to grow your own fresh vegetables? For the first time (or first time for a long time) gardener, planter boxes make it possible to shrink all the problems of the garden down to a small and maneagable unit. No need to tame the entire yard to get started saving the planet - one lettuce leaf at a time.
Four varieties of heirloom lettuce provide the core of this epic statement of self-sufficiency. Brown Romaine, Freckles, Green Oakleaf, Australian Yellow Leaf (and a stowaway Perpetual Spinach) are the few varieties which have been selected from the many to demonstrate what our heritage is capable of providing us. These varieties can be harvested one leaf at a time, leaving the plant growing more for next time. And as the leaves mature, they become more dimpled - providing more spaces for that piquant home made salad dressing to linger. The varying colours, textures and shapes delight and amaze our senses.
And when the time comes, as all good things must, for these plants to complete their lifecycle and go to seed, the simplicity of this beginners box garden becomes even more apparent. Lettuces are self-fertile - that is the flowers fertilise themselves and don’t rely on other plants of the same variety to produce true-to-type seed. Just wait until the plant dies, cut off the seed head and walk around your garden shaking it into likely growing places. In the fullness of time, these seeds will resprout and provide you with the opportunity to start your planter box once again.
Our gardening traditions go back to the beginning of recorded history and beyond. Today, we are custodians of an immensly rich and varied culinary and agricultural heritage from around the globe. The recipes, the gardening knowledge and the seeds and plant varieties themselves are the bequest of generations of gardeners and farmers, who have passed on the results of their creative hard work. As their descendants, this heritage of ‘agri-culture’ belongs to us all, to honour, share, and
pass on again.
Whether you are concerned with peak-oil, climate change, healthy diets, community resilience, food prices, genetic modification or just getting to know your neighbour, kitchen gardening is an irresistable symbol of practical fun and radical change. By staying at home to grow lettuce with home made compost, we not only avoid spending more carbon through travel, but actually take carbon out of the atmosphere in the organic material we put back into the soil. And as a result we eat fresher and more healthy food, and have more time to spend sharing our produce with our neighbours. And lettuce is only the start!
Cittaslow Katoomba Blue Mountains (www.cittaslow.org.au) has initiated this project “A Kitchen Garden in Every Blue Mountains Home”, which is supported by local business and government, local NGOs and the community. The project has the ambitious objective of making the Blue Mountains self sufficient in leafy greens by 2011!
