Night of the Living Mulch: cover crops for the zombie apocalypse
When the very existence of humanity is threatened, perhaps by catastrophic global warming, perhaps by an attack of brain-eating monsters, what is the first thing you think of? Yes, we’re on the same page: ensuring an adequate layer of mulch under your fruit trees. Ideally something that not only retains moisture and maintains soil structure but offers a little something for the humans struggling with a post-industrial lifestyle nearby. So, to address the needs of fellow survivalists in these difficult times, I offer a run down on chlorophyll-laden companions for such moments of adversity.
Strawberries.
Chance of surviving: Good, given consistent moisture and morning sunlight. After a couple of years in the ground, susceptible to a virus that makes the fruits look like hairy-faced Cousin It out of the Adams Family – greenish protrusions all over the fruit. Still tastes okay, though: it doesn’t pay to be fussy after the zombie apocalypse.
Productivity: Theoretically, excellent. A delicate reminder of the luxuries of gentler times. In reality, in my garden, nada: easy pickings for critters. Maybe netting would help.
Capacity to out-compete weeds: Could do better. Needs extensive straw mulch or weed matting. This is your pampered city no-nothing who is the first to bite it when weapons are drawn.
Pepino.
Chance of surviving: Excellent. Said to be short-lived but can reproduce by layering, so new plants take root wherever branches lay on the ground. Tolerates partial shade well and copes well with periods of drought.
Productivity: Again, theoretically, impressive. Produces peach-sized juicy, mildly sweet fruits tasting like a slightly insipid melon – good in a mixed fruit salad. Flavour will be surely enhanced by the scarcities after the breakdown of civilisation. Fruits early, within the first year or so. Unfortunately, fruit tends to droop towards the ground where fruitarian zombies and/or rodents can easily nab them.
Aesthetic appeal: (the art galleries may be filled with mindless corpses, but the beautiful things in life are still important) High. Gorgeous little white and purple striped flower with a contrasting yellow stigma. The light apricot-coloured fruit is dappled with purple and the long leaves are an attractive greyish green.
Capacity to out-compete weeds. Not bad. Plenty of leaves right down to the ground, even in shade. Can’t entirely crowd out ehrharta or trad, though, and it’s a pain to weed around and through it. Not for neat freaks. But neat freaks probably won’t cope with the survivalist lifestyle too well, so not to worry.
Comfrey.
Chance of surviving. Comfrey will be the last plant standing. Deep tap roots enable it to access any water available. Needs some sunlight but copes with very little in my garden.
Productivity. This is the permaculture mother lode: high nitrogen, high potassium, a dynamic accumulator of minerals. No doubt there are herbal types who will profess it cures cancer. You can’t eat it and your chooks probably shouldn’t eat too much of it either unless you want them to have liver failure, but it’s a fantastic compost activator and decomposes into a comfrey tea that’s an all purpose liquid fertiliser.
Aesthetic appeal: Enormous textured grey-green leaves and lovely delicate purple flowers. Smells pleasantly of cucumbers when cut.
Capacity to out-compete weeds. Comfrey is a weed. Well, the non-sterile versions are: you are best getting your hands on the Bocking 14 sort which don’t produce seeds. Spend some time in the underground bunker planning ahead before you plant this, since, a bit like Jerusalem artichokes, once it’s in it stays there. Any tiny piece of root (or stem) in the ground will produce another plant. You can tear off its leaves three or four times in a year and it will come right back. In fact, comfrey may well be the plant version of the undead. The large leaves and capacity to grow when all around are wilting means it keeps most competitors down though trad seems to be able to find a way. Dies down briefly in winter which gives the other nasties a go. Since Sydney will no longer have a winter in the near future this may become less of a problem.
Sweet potato.
Chance of surviving: Very good. In theory dies back in winter (but see above). Regrows from tubers left in the ground in previous seasons. Copes well with drier periods, though it does need quite a bit of sun.
Productivity. In my garden hasn’t produced an astonishing number of tubers, but I haven’t taken it very seriously as a root crop. That will obviously change when civilisation breaks down and there’s no longer a chip shop around the corner. The new leaves and shoots are an excellent alternative to spinach or swiss chard, juicy and quite mild flavoured. They are much nicer to eat raw than rainbow chard, for instance, and apparently are a favourite food in the Phillipines. The leafy tips grow back quickly after being harvested.
Aesthetic appeal. Gorgeous. Some varieties have heart shaped leaves, others palmate. The leaves are a deep glossy green with purplish new growth. Related to the (weedy) morning glory vine, so you may get some very pretty flowers towards the end of summer. Apparently there are ornamental varieties with near-black or lime green leaves, but the culinary varieties are nothing to sneeze at. Note: there will be zero tolerance of ornamental plants after the zombie apocalypse.
Capacity to out-compete weeds. Not bad at all. The leaves are large and there are lots of them. The vine is quite vigorous and, like pepino, sends out roots where it touches the ground. With a little light supplementary weeding, my sweet potato seems to have kept things under control around the artichokes and the citrus pretty well.
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No advice here on weaponry or tips on an antidote for those snacked on by the undead, but we have covered the important issues. Next week: hydroponics after the collapse of the West Antarctic Icesheet.
Gaia drops the ball
It’s that time of year again – the rainbow lorikeets are delightedly munching at the flower buds of the neighbour’s “instant tree”, the Common Coral Tree, Erythrina x sykesii. How wonderful it would be if this were an example of biological control in action, with the gloriously feathered native bird (native to the east coast anyway, pest in the west) destroying the reproductive system of the equally vividly arrayed noxious weed tree. But no, sadly unlike its hateful and equally tasty cousin the Cockspur Coral Tree, Erythrina crista-galli, which does reproduce by spreading its seed, the Common Coral Tree reproduces vegetatively. A new tree can grow from a branch washed down a creek or even from a fragment that’s been through the chipper. So, visually delightful as the Rainbow Lorikeets are as they dangle like psychedelic blooms on the bare branches, they have no impact at all on the success of this damned tree. Weeds one, self-managing ecosystems nil…
Critters with kidneystones
It was all going so well. The warrigal greens were flourishing, even without being regularly urinated on. Deep-rooted sorrel was a stalwart when pretty much nothing else was happening in the garden at all. Both were in high rotation in the kitchen. I’ve always been a bit cautious about using them raw, since, along with other garden staples like rainbow chard and rhubarb, both of them have a fair bit of oxalic acid, which if you overindulge and/or are unlucky can cause kidney stones (although the idea that the latest “miracle foods” might have the potential to be dangerous causes outrage in some) . Given that rainbow chard, which is also quite high in oxalates, always has escaped animal attention, it seemed too much of a coincidence that the beasties seemed to leave these plants alone: those smarty pants critters were sensibly avoiding intestinal distress .
But look at my poor greens now:
Something is clearly tucking in.
There are a number of possible suspects. Judging from the robotic squeaks and buzzes in the undergrowth, there are satin bowerbirds still around. Rumour has it they are fond of fresh shoots – I blame them for the tatty foliage of my now past-it Purple King beans. It could be the chickens of course, but though the four new girls spend a lot of time in the area where the warrigal greens are (or were… *sniff*) only tricksy skinny Shyla regularly scoots through the gap in the bamboo gate into the veggie patch where I’ve planted the sorrel and, more recently, rhubarb (the leaves of which *are* toxic to humans, and have also been chewed in the last few days). So, in the absence of an extensive literature review on comparative rodent, marsupial and human tolerances of oxalic acid (I have tried!), I’m blaming rats or possums. I guess definitive evidence would consist of creatures with particular glossy pelts. Or creatures rolling around with excruciating abdominal pain. Or both.
Twilight of the Chickens
Jeez, chickens go to bed early. I’m outside getting the washing, and ok, it’s heading towards dusk, but not only can I see the location of my smalls, visibility’s so good I can even spot and dodge the brush turkey doings as I go. But the chooks are already tucked up in their palatial quarters, or in the case of Snowball (pictured above), having a nap in an elevated position while waiting to be eaten.
So, twilight is more complicated than you might think, and I’m not talking about the teen vampire series. Apparently it comes in three types. As the sun first sinks, there’s civil twilight. Technically, that’s when the centre of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon – in good weather you can still see the things around you (say, your knickers on the line, or an inconvenient pile of guano). Then, after about 20 minutes, more (as you get closer to the poles) or less (closer to the equator), you have nautical twilight. The sun is 12 degrees below the horizon now, and if you’re a sailor, you can take a bearing on the stars with the horizon still visible. If you forgot to pick sweet potato greens before sundown, you’re rummaging around in the cupboard for a torch.
After nautical twilight comes astronomical twilight, with the sun 18 degrees below the horizon. To an untutored eye it might appear as if night has finally arrived, but impatient astronomers wanting to check out nebulae will be still pacing up and down waiting for full dark. Of course, you won’t get the full sequence come the summer in Trondheim (civil twilight from sunset to sunrise), Glasgow (nautical twilight for most of the darker hours) or even London (astronomical twilight all night long, even without throwing in the orange glow of light pollution).
I find this orderly taxonomy of darkening moments curiously soothing, an effect only slightly diminished on reading that nerdy acronyms like EENT (end evening nautical twilight) aren’t just used by meteorologists and astronomers to document the passing days and track the movements of the stars, but also in military campaigns to synchronise watches.
But all this is from a human point of view. For chickens, it’s different.
If possums have got pretty dud typical mammalian dichromate vision, chickens are rocking their cones. Not just three sets of cones like us, but five, including one that enables them to see ultraviolet light and a double cone for detecting motion. And “cellular sunglasses”: an oil-drop to filter particular wavelengths of light.
But wait! There’s more! Chickens also have, in essence, a third eye. Okay, not as visible as parietal eyes of Tuataras and other less famous reptiles (and related organs in the eyes of other tetrapods – like the receptor that looks like a little blue pimple between this critter’s eyes).
But still, a pineal gland perched up just under skull that receives enough light to regulate sleep and trigger annual reproductive cycles. Extremely cool. Perhaps too cool for some. While researching this post, I noticed, right underneath a webpage spelling out the multidimensional excellence of chicken vision, an advertisement for eye surgery.”Replace tired and baggy eyes with a younger look!”. Presumably the reader, ruminating dolefully on the superiority of the avian retina and the failings of human sight, is primed for this kind of thing.
But perhaps we humans shouldn’t be so grim about our drab colour vision, our tediously symmetrical pair of eyes. At the very least the time our mammalian ancestors spent cowering in a burrow while the dinosaurs strode the earth gave us respectable night vision. We can revel in our fine array of twilights while the shutters come down with a clang at the end of the day for our long time companions.
Okay, The Twilight of the Chickens may not have the apocalyptic ending of the Ragnarøkkr, the Twilight of the Gods. The rivalry between Treasure and Shyla over who gets the highest perch in the upcycled coop doesn’t have the same Wagnerian grandeur as Odin’s battle to the death with the wolf Fenrir. But pleasingly, even the Norse myths have a place for chooks: the end of days is heralded by the crowing of a crimson rooster, a golden rooster, and a rust red rooster. I must tell Andy Ninja.
Vernacular architecture in the suburbs pt.1
When you finally realise that golf is a good walk spoiled, this in an ideal way of reusing your clubs.
Possum trouble no more. Just wire up your rotary clothes line.
A truly safety conscious use of a motorcycle helmet.
Moments of vernacular garden design from around Berowra. With the council cleanup coming up, I expect to see more suburban creativity soon.
Autumn on Hawkesbury sandstone
Pepino flowers
“Frenchette”from my lavender hedge, in front of the garden gate
Hazelnut catkins
Globe artichokes, sweet potato and Freemont mandarins (not quite ripe)
Bleeding heart leaf on a treefern Cyathea Cooperii
Mixed leaves: mizuna, giant mustard, rocket, bok choi and weeds
Artichoke leaves
Persimmons
Bougainvillea on the fence
Greek basil and muscadine grapes (“Achilles” I think!)
Persimmon
Naughty Marietta marigolds and kale
Custard apples… hopefully this one will be ready to eat soon
A hoarder’s confessions
Impulse buy online this week: Rock Samphire. I set out to get a couple of extra galangal plants to join the one that’s doing well in a shady spot at the foot of a banana tree transplanted from my sister’s garden. Galangal look great – too great to dig up for a Thai curry, it turns out. WIth three plants on the go I figured I might get up the courage to be more brutal next time I’m considering a tom yum. This is one of the problems of the whole food forest concept. Your turmeric plant, for instance, makes a terrific understorey plant which, if undisturbed, generates a gorgeous, long-lasting white flower.
A powerful incentive to leave the roots in the ground, and that’s leaving aside the tedious multistage process of actually making tumeric powder from the rhizomes. Even a brief description of this sounds implausible at a number of levels: “sweating”, curing, drying, “polishing”?? removal of the “mother”?? With the passing of time, I am beginning to draw the conclusion that my painstakingly assembled collection of food plants functions more in the realm of the hypothetical or fantastical (“I could source all my herbs and spices in my garden if I really wanted to and/or when civilisation breaks down“) than in the practical domain of producing stuff for tonight’s dinner. In fact, it’s a sort of epicurean hoarding.
So, with that revelation, back to the online plant acquisition. It’s a slippery slope: once you’ve decided to order a couple of plants you think, well, since I’m paying for freight anyway, I may as well get a better bang for my buck. Native mint Mentha Australis: looks and smells just like your bulk standard mint, it turns out. Wormwood, for the chicken run, to deter mites. The upside there is, if I lose another chook (possibly as a consequence of an infestation that artemesia absinthium alone fails to resolve), I can always chuck the wormwood some in some low grade spirits to make up my own absinthe and go out in style like a debauched French Impressionist while weeping over my decorative poultry corpse.
And on a whim, Rock Samphire, which along with the unrelated Marsh Samphire (both names a corruption of “St Peter” – it’s a rock reference) seems to be a thing in British wild foodie circles. I’m always faintly nervous about bringing a new non-native into the garden, and this one is an umbrelliferae which often seem to be a bit weedy though useful for attracting hoverflies and the like. But I reckon I should be okay with this one, since it grows naturally on exposed maritime cliffsides, presumably with plenty of sun. Any escapes at our place, on the shady side of the ridgeline, are unlikely to enjoy their freedom.
When this one arrived, I realised that I had seen it before, at Worm’s Head on the beautiful Gower Peninsula in South Wales.
Seen it and, entranced by its delicate winter skeleton, taken loads of photos of it. Today’s garden treasure, avariciously gathered, and yesterday’s digitised booty, reunited in the hoard.
Diggers
Naughty as it is to dig – vandalising the earthworms’ underground cities and all that – I decided to take to the spade today. The youngsters did a pretty good job in their weeks under the chook dome of clearing that patch of its weeds but excavating the couch grass was beyond them. And I wanted to work in the chicken manure they left behind: black-and-white gold it might hypothetically be called by some chicken-obsessive. And, let’s face it, I just felt like digging.
And now I have more garden buddies to help out. The young chickens returned with some enthusiasm to their old stomping ground. Tragically perhaps, there are few moments when I’m more content than gardening with an inquisitive chook scratching away beside me, perilously close to being whacked by a spade in its eagerness to dart in for grubs. Today I almost decided that the psychodrama of raising day-old chicks was worth it. Shyla, raised in the brooder, hung out with me, approaching periodically to inquire, with a dinkum Aussie rising inflection, when I was going to find her something delicious to eat. Absolutely charming.
Allegedly Einstein said “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. This aphorism seems appropriate to ANZAC Day somehow. It also quite accurately describes my approach to planting broad beans. I’ve had two goes at getting my broadies going with minimal success, but now the human and chicken digging is done, I’m trying again. The humane traps are in the post, and in the mean time I’m hoping a well secured vege net will keep critters at bay. With luck aromatherapy will be my ace in the hole. The beans planted right by the lavender hedge seemed to germinate unmolested – benefiting, I suspect, from distracting smell of the companion plants. This particular net was draped right over my “Frenchette” lavandula dentata for the last three months. It’s as delightfully scented as your granny’s hankie: hopefully rats don’t favour potpourri.
If that doesn’t work, perhaps I should leave out some of the unexpected harvest that appeared underfoot today. One scraggy looking stem of jerusalem artichoke, sprouted from peelings I chucked to the chooks, produced two double handfuls of dangerously more-ish tubers. Blow on winds of winter, the artichokes have arrived! This bounty was greeted with groans in the kitchen. I love the taste and try to sneak them into to soups and bakes and stirfries, just one or two, cut up small so no-one will notice. But the post-prandial flatulence that inevitably ensues is a dead give-away. If they have a similar effect on rats, this could be our secret weapon in organic pest control. Maybe if we leave them scattered around the garden-robbers will gorge themselves on that toothsome but indigestible inulin and simply explode. If the decorous aroma of lavender doesn’t work, perhaps the more prosaic accumulation of gas in the alimentary canal is the way to go.
Cliff hanger on Chicken TV
“Who are these people? And why are they eating my breakfast?”
Last night we moved the young’uns out of the veggie garden and into the chicken run. At dusk, I found them wandering disconsolately around the spot where the coop had been the day before, scratching out symbols in the mulch in an attempt to reverse the invisibility spell that had obviously been performed on their living quarters. Having sorted out that problem, I made a late breaking decision to grab Snowball from her highly exposed roost and throw her in with the others.
Public holiday sleep-in abandoned, I was up at dawn to watch the next gripping episode of “Chicken TV”. Who would be new Top Chook: Andy Ninja or the feisty contender, Treasure the Light Sussex? How would Snowball react after her night sleeping with strangers? Could there be peace between the two clans, or would blood be spilled?
Major turn-up in the pecking-order stakes: Treasure not only monstered little Snowball, but had Andy on the backfoot as well. The two veterans, driven together in a “spirit of the blitz”, paced up and down while the two most brazen of the new girls muscled in on brekkie. We took 2 weeks to train the older chooks to use the foot-pedal feeder: it took Shyla the Australorp about 10 minutes.
So much for getting the new birds for Andy’s mental health – she spent much of the afternoon in her usual haunts in the front garden, on her own or in the company of one of the brush turkeys. Snowball hung with the young team for a while, but it looks like it was a one-night stand in the coop – she’s back on her “fox appetiser” roost this evening. So I guess Chicken TV is the poultry Home and Away: mostly about the triumphs of good looking teenagers.