Living in the Australian countryside, one of the greatest risks to land and life here is bushfire. Although our region of Victoria receives plenty of rainfall, we are not immune to fire and the summer heat has made everything very dry.
So, we decided to do some pruning. There was a collection of sad looking trees close to the house which were also threatening overhead powerlines: these have now been sacrificed for garden mulch and fuel for our log fire. Thank you for the warmth, trees! Hopefully the only fire we see remains contained in our stove.
We think trees are pretty awesome though, so we promptly purchased a selection of native plants to replace the trees we cleared and planted them in a safer spot. We chose 10 Australian native varieties, which we’re hoping will become favourites for local koalas and cockatoos. Miraculously, the new trees survived the recent (and much needed) downpour and 100km wind gusts, so we’re confident they’ll be hardy additions to the farm.
In the place where the old trees used to be, we are planting out a portion of our beds for the market garden. Here the vegetables will be sheltered from the worst of the wind and easily accessed from the house and sheds.
The picture below is of one of the lovely mature gums that got to stay near the house. We hope the new trees do as well as this one, because there’s plenty more where they came from! We want to increase carbon on the farm; we want our animals to have shade and shelter in the fields; and we want wildlife to share this place with us. So there will be many more tree plantings in our future.
