Let it rain!

I have been watching the Melbourne Rain Radar today, tracking a band of light showers that has been slowly making its way to our city.

Whether it's global warming or just the cycle of drought, it no longer rains in Melbourne. A decade ago, Melbourne water storage was hovering around 70% capacity and has been dropping over the years, down to a very depressing 33.8% this week. October used to be the wettest month with an average rainfall of 67mm but last month we received 14mm. When talking to other garden lovers, we talk about the last time we used umbrellas and how as children, it used to rain non stop for a week. When it does rain now or even if it showers for longer than 10 minutes, it's a real joy.

There are watering restrictions in our state which bans free-for-all use of mains water including watering gardens, hosing down driveways, washing cars, filling pools. Watering gardens in Melbourne has been restricted to two hours twice a week which I believe is quite sufficient for ornamental gardens but is not viable for those who decide to plant edibles which need to be kept moist constantly.

The Victorian Government has announced two major works to address our water issue: a North-South pipe line which diverts water from the Goulburn River to Melbourne and a desalination plant. Personally I would rather see more of our storm water and waste water recycled.

As a garden owner, but due to lack of space I have only about 700 litres worth of water storage, which is very little. As a consequence I have turned into a water miser whittling the average mains water usage down to about 80 litres/day/person.

I use clean kitchen water (from washing vegetables, steaming food) to water my pot plants and ornamentals. My water storages are mainly used for my edibles.I mulch a lot and grow a lot of drought tolerant plants. I lug grey water from the washing machine around in buckets. It's all hard work but I do think that gardeners need to do whatever they can to save water in the garden. I am still a bit frivolous, I can't resist growing flowering annuals such as violas but I restrict them to pots and only water them with reclaimed water. For the rest of my garden, I mulch a lot, I ensure the soil is not water repellent and apply wetting agents if it is. Over the past two years I have used mains water to water my garden about 4 times and I admit that it's rather intoxicating and relaxing to stand in the garden in the early morning, hose in hand, giving the garden a nice long drink. Those days I suppose may be a thing of the past.

Postscript to this entry: in the early hours of the morning after posting this, it poured down and we got about 15mm in total. Hooray!

The broccoli from the title

A few words on broccoli. I first discovered the delight of growing these vegetables a few years ago. They were low maintenance except for the short period during late Autumn when Cabbage White butterflies fluttered about laying little potential chompers on the underside of the leaves and I needed to go out daily and squish the eggs.

Broccoli, I discovered grows more steadily and reliably during the colder months, finally left unmolested by those fair weather butterflies and needing less water.
I also found broccoli suffers no other problems besides early larval damage and having grown peas and silverbeet in the same location and seeing all the plants dusted with powdery mildew I steer towards broccoli each Autumn as the main winter crop.

To prepare the soil after pulling out the faded summer plants, I scattered some blood and bone and aged sheep manure about. I planted the little seedlings and mulched with sugar cane mulch and watered deeply. These days I liquid feed with some fish emulsion when I remember but mainly I just watch them as they do their thing.

Now a confession. I don't particularly crave broccoli. I do enjoy eating most vegetables but I enjoy eating lettuce, beans, peas and many other vegetables over broccoli. And yet, for the past few winters I have devoted my entire patch to growing a crop with some afterthought plantings of coriander and rocket on the side.

They stand in two rows by my front veranda, cupping their leaves to sun and rain. I like looking at the rain drops forming huge beads along their generous leaves and seeing the flower heads forming in amongst it all is a cheerful sight against the salvias and Miscanthus and all the other ornamentals that take their place in the front yard. Perhaps I just like the look of them, all orderly and behaving in contrast to the rambling nature of the rest of the garden. The latter is just as beautiful and provides a great deal of pleasure and drought tolerance but sadly remains inedible. Perhaps if we did not have such strict water restrictions, in part to deal with dropping Melbourne water storage levels, as well as my home's lack of mega water storage capabilities, my entire garden would be blended for ornamental effect but completely edible.

Some words on broccoli goodness that mum never told you about. Raw or lightly cooked broccoli is said to be a cancer fighter containing phytochemicals and antioxidants and like other brassicas or cruciferous vegetables helps deactivate estrogen that can promote tumor growth in breast cells.

No doubt once my crop is ready I will eat some and give some away and the plants will reward me with side shoots until late Winter when I am thinking of summer crops of tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums and basil and the edible garden will ramble once more.