The latest APW was about Tree Cropping, where we found out all about what tree crops will do well in Auckland.
I've learned that Auckland is rainforest and since it's an isthmus it gets windy, rainy and humid all at the same time. Also although we don't have freezing winters, it's temperate, and we also can grow subtropicals in the right microclimates. Therefore we can grow bananas and avos, as well as apples and pears? Confused? Well don't be because this all works if you have rich volcanic soil but if you are on clay like 99% of this years intake of Permies are, you don't have a chance.
Or you will have to work ten times as hard.
Well this is just great. Not wanting to work ten times as hard as the people who live around Mt Eden (except they spend a lot of the time hauling out volcanic rocks) I considered...upping sticks and moving to where there's good soil, (not an option because I am not a millionaire) or...asking God to improve my lifespan ten times, so that I can stay where I am, and still have a garden.
But there might be another way..with my small and slow solutions principle, getting 9 other people to help me. I just need some kind of miracle Jesus power to have at least 9 other people follow me. After all Jesus had twelve disciples right, I could hold permie workshops and tell people to leave their jobs and come follow me. If I can get 11 people to go on a Tip Top Ice Cream factory tour, I could probably get 9 people to come and do my garden.
Counting up all different the gardens I've worked in for other people, I've done about 9, so I figure, all those people I've gardened for could come return the favour. They can all take the day off work, just like I've taken the day off job hunting to work for them.
I will bake them gingernut biscuits and my other specialty, crinkle cut chips or bbq garlic and herb mushrooms, while I direct them to planting bananas, avocadoes and cherimoyas..tea hedges and of course, some bamboos, chinese toon and cultivating a rice paddy. It has to have good Feng Shui. That's just at the back. Round the front another team will do the English style garden and set about putting in a fountain and Shakespeare quotes, set amongst an ambitious border of herbaceous perennials along with a summerhouse, topiaries and Luytens seat.
Come on folks, it's just clay. I'm sure it's possible to have a garden on clay and if ten of us all work it will just be like a days work done for me. I really don't get it, why are so many houses in Auckland made of wood, which they chopped the forest down for and these houses don't last, yet we've got all this clay that turns to mud and lasts forever, because it's so sticky but no houses are made out of them?!
