By CASEY NEILL
PRECEDE: Husband and wife team Dean ‘Jex’ Kriesl and Jessie McLennan have transformed a vacant block in Buln Buln into a green home surrounded by fresh produce. Jessie spoke to CASEY NEILL about their journey.
QUOTE: “When we’ve got beans and cucumbers they just continually have food in their mouths.”
JEX and Jessie’s Garden started to take shape when they bought their Platts Road property in 2003.
But it was only a year ago that food became the focus for Dean ‘Jex’ Kriesl and Jessie McLennan.
“The first thing we did was plant out the natives in a sun track on the west, south and east sides,” Jessie said.
“With the sun and the wind, basically it creates a micro climate that reduces the extremes.”
Having a food garden wasn’t always her plan.
“I’ve always had food growing but it’s been token, really,” she said.
Some friendly rivalry with Jex created momentum.
Jessie had established a basic vegie path and Jex “thought he could do better”.
“He made 1000 corn in the first year. He pretty much sowed it straight into the grass,” she said.
“He’s since improved his method.”
He’s spread charcoal and quail manure over his market garden.
“It’s almost ready to plough through,” Jessie said.
Jex will plant mainly corn with some cucumber, tomatoes and carrots.
In Jessie’s kitchen garden is cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, leek, strawberries, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, herbs, tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini and more.
“It’s really close to the back door, and I can just go out and pick it,” she said.
“It determines what you’re going to cook. It’s nice.
“There’s so much choice in life that it stifles you.”
In Jessie’s new greenhouse – which Jex built for her birthday from discarded parts from a neighbour – are zucchini, eggplant, capsicum and more.
There are trees bearing nectarines, lemons, mandarins, cherries, figs, plums, quince and feijoa.
“The feijoa produces fruit when there’s no other fruit around,” Jessie said.
An avocado tree loaded with fruit is a towering presence in the front yard.
Jessie explained that avocados could stay on the tree for up to 18 months.
“And you can pick them at any stage,” she said.
“They ripen after a week.”
Jex and Jessie’s first full growing season produced “a lot more variety on a massive scale” and more than the family – which includes Jolan, 3, Tara, 2, and two teens on occasion – could eat.
“We had so much food we were selling to a local food box and through our shop out the front,” Jessie said.
“We do still buy things when they’re out of season. And I haven’t planted enough potatoes so we buy them, garlic and onions.”
She also gets creative to solve the shortfall.
“We planted heaps of parsnips. We’ve discovered eating parsnips like potatoes – roasting them and chipping them and mashing them,” she said.
A crowing rooster rules the chook pen.
“All of the muck from the chook pen goes into the end one,” Jessie said, pointing to a wooden crate.
“This one gets layered into what they call compost lasagne, so it’s layers of carbon, nitrogen and greens.
“It rots down in there.
“The worms do their business. And then this one here is ready to go out.
“There are so many worms in here the chooks just go crazy.”
And Jolan and Tara are equally excited about spending time with the chickens – which tolerate some roughhousing from the exuberant pair without so much as a squawk.
A cluster of blissfully unaware chicks chirp as Jessie explains how to ‘neck’ a chook.
“We eat our chooks,” she said.
Tara picks her own peas and tucks in, a grin from ear to ear.
“When we’ve got beans and cucumbers they just continually have food in their mouths,” Jessie said.
There are two beehives on the property to spread pollen and consequently boost fruit hauls.
“We noticed that the loquat tree, when it was flowering it didn’t have a lot of bees around it,” she said.
“There weren’t a lot of loquat that actually grew.”
Plus each hive produces about 16 litres of honey a year and “you can get more out of it”.
Jex and Jessie have designed the one-acre property according to permaculture principles.
Permanent agriculture involves designing sustainable landscapes that mimic patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding food, fibre and energy.
Jessie said their home’s orientation and design minimises energy use.
“It’s meant that our living costs are very, very low,” she said.
The garden has been “a slow evolution”.
“I didn’t know what I wanted my garden to look like,” Jessie said.
She decided to excavate this bit and raise that bit and put a path through there.
“Because of the path my husband said we should put a chook pen at the end of the path,” she said.
The garden really comes to life during the warmer months and Jex and Jessie will stock a produce store at the entry to their property from December to February.
Jessie is for the first time opening Jex and Jessie’s Garden for the Gardivalia Festival of Gardens on Sunday 25 October.
Call 5626 7045 or visit gardivalia.com.au for more information.
