A Fig at the Gate: A Memoir of Gardening, Chooks and Friendship by Kate Llewellyn

Author:Kate Llewellyn [Llewellyn, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2014-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, 17 August

Spring is close. Many of the scented bulbs are flowering. There are four blue hyacinths growing in pots on a blue-checked dish on the kitchen bench. Also, there’s a glass of white hyacinths, cream freesias (which smell, not like old freesias, but of patchouli), ‘Erlicheer’ and one perfumed, orange-centred, frilled daffodil by my bed. It is new to have a scented daffodil.

There was news yesterday that Kangaroo Island is running out of food. The two ferries which bring people and supplies to the island are out of use for a few days. There is no bread, milk, eggs, meat or vegetables left in the shops. How can this be? This is a fertile island with good rainfall. They’ve still got plenty of honey, because there are apiarists. But you can’t live on honey. For some reason, I find this situation shocking. And the reason that it’s shocking lies in the question, ‘How can we have become so complacent that we do not plant food in our gardens?’ There is a tourist industry on the island, it is true, and lots of holiday shacks and houses. These visiting people all need to be fed. But there are thousands of acres of farmland which could feed everybody. I don’t have an answer but I find it shocking. Are migrants the only people who have an experience of war and suffering who still grow some of their food in their gardens?

I am no farmer, but I am a farmer’s daughter and I reckon I could last a month on what is here on this block. Maybe I am boasting. I include what is in the cupboards. There are the ‘Queensland Blue’ pumpkins in the laundry. Eleven eggs were laid today. I could barter eggs. There are lots of mandarins and limes and onions from last year still growing in the garden. There’s a meal or two in that, surely. It is the shame of growing nothing when you are well and have land that gets me. And the waste.

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