Guerrilla Gardening Perth

October/November '11 - March/April '12 - Perth WA

Although we had a very small patio-ed yard behind our little "two up, two down" townhouse in Perth, there wasn't much earth that we could use for planting.

M built some raised beds in patches of the yard where there weren't any bricks - using other bricks that we'd found on walks around the neighbourhood (skip-diving) - and we managed to grow some (tiny) vegetables and a huge watermelon plant...no melons ever appeared through, I think the roots may have been too confined in the small space, the plant really flourished though and it had small yellow flowers for about a month of Summer.

We noticed the area behind the townhouse - just behind our parking bay - seemed to be all scrub and weedy wasteland, it was pretty much out of sight from the path and we were the only people (apart from friends) who came up that way..... and we realised we could reclaim a patch of it and extend our small garden, it was close enough to water and pretty much hidden from view 

Guerrilla Garden - somewhere in Mount Lawley

cherry tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, butternut squash, courgette

We started by clearing the weeds and assessing the soil - mostly sandy - and as the area was in a suntrap with little shade, it got really hot up there, hmmmmm...

We weren't deterred and within a week or two - after weeding and digging some bags of manure compost through the sand - we'd planted some cherry tomatoes, potatoes (from sprouting potatoes we had in the kitchen), beetroot, onions as well as baby sweetcorn, butternut squash and a courgette. This small space was the biggest space I'd ever had for a garden and our local garden centre had a nice selection of seedlings and seeds - carrots and peas we grew from seed and the rest of our experimental seedlings were mostly vegetables that we liked the sound of and really wanted to try

The tomatoes really took off in the Summer sun and in a matter of weeks they were 3ft tall and still growing, the butternut squash spread itself liberally across the small patch we'd cleared and started wandering down the slope towards the car bay. 

                  

After a slow start, our potatoes did well for a few weeks - we had about six plants in total, from a variety of potatoes - but they got ravaged by a infestation of black furry caterpillars that devoured chunks of the plants overnight. I caught and disposed of as many of the caterpillars as I could, but unfortunately a lot of the plants died and after harvesting, we ended up with a small selection of baby potatoes, just enough for a meal for two

Harvest

We ended up with a nice selection of (small) vegetables; beetroot, carrots, lots of cherry tomatoes, potatoes and a few baby sweetcorn. The courgette flowered but didn't produce any fruit and the butternut squash had lots of beautiful yellow flowers, but no fruit either... I think the full sun combined with the poor nutrient sandy soil was just too much for the plants.

Baby carrots and beetroot

Fantastic guerrilla gardening website here

I heart you pre loved

I've always loved going to charity shops. I think at this stage, roughly 70% - 80% of the clothes I own (apart from my underwear) are pre loved, and at least 90% of our furniture is either pre-loved, or re-loved, so rescued from the side of the street...or out of a skip and fixed up.

I love charity shops for so many reasons; the main ones are easy to tick off; it’s great helping the charity out, prices are so much more reasonable, I love that I’m helping recycle clothes, I won’t get into the sheer volume of power consumed in order to make a single white shirt (this is apart from the mostly, gross exploitation of the people making the clothes) and this “wear it once and throw away” attitude some people have drives me nuts! To me, there’s nothing better than finding a “hidden gem” in a charity shop or in a skip, for example....

                                                             My ceramic baking hen

I first spotted ceramic baking hens in Habitat in Dublin about ten years ago. If you’re not familiar with Habitat, it was one of my favourite stores, until I realised that while the products are lovely, it’s very much a life style brand and although it has such beautiful “retro” cups and plates etc, they are mass produced and they’re all sold at modern, expensive prices. So I would browse in Habitat, never actually buy anything, just sigh over the lovely faux vintage tea sets. I spotted a terracotta baking/roasting hen there one day that I fell in love with, although I couldn't afford at the time (being a poor art student and everything) and so I just filed it away in the “things I’d like to have some day” section of my mind....

Then in 2011, myself and M were still living in Perth and while walking around Fremantle one day, (don’t ask me why) but I was trying to describe this terracotta baking hen to M, without much success... “you see, it’s a hen shaped baking dish that you take apart and put a chicken inside and roast it and....it’s amazing”.... anyway, we headed into Vintage Vinnie’s (Australian version of St Vincent de Paul’s) and there on a shelf, just inside the door, was a white ceramic baking hen....Which I took as fate, although how my fate is entwined with a ceramic baking hen, I really couldn't say at this stage....so, I pounced on it and managed to get it for the fantastic price of $20, and both of us (ok, mostly me) were just thrilled by the oddly timed coincidence of my trying (and failing) to describe a baking hen I'd seen, some ten years earlier in Dublin and then finding an even more beautiful, vintage version literally minutes after I'd been talking about it. 

This gorgeous ceramic hen has surpassed all my expectations, it’s (obviously) perfect for roasting chickens; the bird doesn't need basting or even checking during cooking, as the glazed ceramic inside keeps the chicken beautiful and moist while it’s in the oven; “fall off the bone” tender is the best description of the meat after an hour and a half in the ceramic hen; it even helps the chicken skin turn a nice golden brown during cooking, with the lid still firmly sealed in place (which must be some kind of voodoo) and it is just fantastic for any kind of slow cooking; casseroles, roast lamb, I've even roasted pumpkin and squash in it, which was delicious and stayed really juicy!

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is, I get so much more out of finding something in a charity shop, or even on the street and fixing/remaking it than I ever do just buying it in a regular shop or online. Even if it means waiting a while, it's usually well worth the wait...