I am fascinated by the fact that there are so many of us, all over the world who are trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle. It seems quite weird to me that while governments do so little, people are taking things into their own hands and getting on with it. And of course the beauty of this groundswell of action is that we are each doing things our own way.
I started talking to Phyl Martin, (short for Phyllis) in Australia a few weeks ago when they were experiencing a heat-wave. She tweeted that they had to hose the chooks down in order to keep them cool. Over the next few late evenings and early mornings we tweeted together, she concerned about our gales and floods and me concerned about their heatwave.
Curiosity got the better of me, so and I emailed Phyl asking her if she might answer a few questions for this blog. Here’s how the conversation went...
Wendy:
Tell me about your plot.
Phyl:
Franger Farm is in Frankston, Victoria. The city of Frankston is on Port Phillip Bay about an hour by car from Melbourne. It's the gateway to the Mornington Peninsula, a popular tourist destination. This is a warm temperate zone, meaning that they have four seasons with mild winters and hot, dry summers.
Our suburban micro farm is on an acre plot. Once these plots were quite common in the suburbs but now, with the growth in popularity of subdivisions and McMansions on tiny plots, this size is rare. Our plot is very sloping. There is no vehicle access to the back. That’s the main reason it has survived without being carved up.
We are only a twenty minute walk from the beach, so our soil is very sandy. This has meant we’ve had to do quite a lot of hard graft to get things going. We've had to build terraced raised beds and bring in some soil to deal with the sloping site and the sand. And of course, it's all had to be lugged and shovelled from the front of the house by hand.
We've placed small raised beds on the paved areas all around the house where we grow herbs and salad stuff so we can grab them quickly at meal times. The other fruits and vegetables are grown in the much larger beds at the back of the house where others might have put a traditional lawn. We are constantly adding to our beds and are slowly working our way down the slope.
The chickens are also out the back, alongside one of our large beds. They are in a large fenced off area that is planted out with a dozen trees, including apples, a plum, a fig tree and a couple of olive trees.
The back third of our block is covered in what Aussies refer to as bush. It's very overgrown and littered with fallen branches from the old gum trees. We are planning to do some clearing in this part of the block because it is a fire hazard left as it is. We will probably enlist the help of a goat with this task, it's a work in progress.
Wendy:
Why did you decide to go self-sufficient?
Phyl:
The self-sufficiency seed was sown when I read a book called Living the Good Life by Linda Cockburn. It describes how her family decided to live sustainably on their suburban block and tried to go for six months without spending any money. While we will never go that far, it did make me think about what we could do with this huge block we were sitting on.
Once we got going, I was hooked. This coincided with my reading about peak oil and its implications for the future. I also discovered perma-culture, which suits our sandy soil and the sloping site. We will never be totally self-sufficient in the true sense of the word, but we are aiming to grow nearly all of our own fruit and veg and eventually raise chickens for meat as well as eggs.
Wendy:
What about your family?
Phyl:
We are a family of five. My older two children are in high school and only occasionally feature on the Franger Farm Page. Our youngest child has just started primary school and has grown up with wacky veg growers for parents. He is truly our micro farmer. He loves being outside with us and helping in the garden. He loves watching the veg grow and probably has a much greater knowledge of where our food comes from than most kids his age. Our two older kids have friends who are fans of our Facebook page. We both work full time and spend our evenings and weekends gardening. Our suburban farm is not a show garden, it's not neat and tidy. Parts of it are a mess, but it is very productive.
Wendy:
Some of your pictures of the micro-farm look very beautiful to me. How would you compare this to having the same sized garden?
Phyl:
I think that it would be very hard work to have a garden of this size, although some people do, it's not at all us. We love to grow fruit and veg and I think that veg gardens, full of produce, are beautiful. The best thing about having a micro farm is that it doesn't have to be perfect and manicured. The beauty is in its productivity.
Wendy:
Tell me something about the highs and lows?
Phyl:
Our saddest moment was losing all but one of our chickens and a rooster to a fox. We were devastated to lose them, as we hadn't had this particular group together for long and they were just getting settled. Social networking was fantastic then. We received a lot of support from our followers and advice on how to make our chook run more secure.
Our greatest triumph has been getting the micro farm to be productive in a relatively short time. Gardening is never instant, but I'm proud that in about four years we are growing such a large amount of veg. We have fruit trees producing already. We also have our first lot of eggs in an incubator as we speak, fingers crossed that they hatch.
Our micro farm has evolved over time. That's because we've done it part time, while we’ve been working and raising a family. This is the way we like to do things and it works well for us. We've had plenty of success with our growing.
Wendy:
Where did you get your knowledge from?
Phyl:
Most of our information has come from reading. I have pored over many self-sufficiency books. I love reading anything by Jackie French, who is a popular Australian gardening author. I also read the Australian Grass Roots Magazine which is full of great information. I enjoy watching gardening shows, Gardening Australia is my favourite.
Wendy:
You have a large following on Facebook. Why do you think that is?
Phyl:
I'm not sure why people are so interested in what we do. I never expected to get so many followers on twitter and likes on Facebook. My theory is that we all have a little bit of a desire to get back to the simple life and that is what appeals.
Wendy:
I think it is excellent that we are each finding our own way of to getting back to the Good Life. I like that feeling of being party of a global community that includes Phyl’s family and hundreds of others. Thanks so much for sharing with us Phyl.
Phyl would be pleased to receive a visit to her Facebook page. Do like it while you are there. The link to the page is www.Facebook.com/FrangerFarm She can be contacted via Twitter @Phyl_Martin
