Tony & Sharon

Tony & Sharon Gavranich have lived in Derby for a very long time.  They bought their 5 acres in Hamlet Grove when the subdivision was first created and built a most beautiful house of mud brick from the pindan on their block. Their garden that has evolved over the years is a striking example of beauty, productivity, sustainability and regenerative design.

Their food garden blends easily with the native trees and there is room for all. Birds, lizards and kangaroos are welcome to cruise through or stay for a while.  Several sets of birds have more or less permanent nesting sites and come and go with the seasons.

Of course to accommodate both their own food needs and a welcome to wildlife sometimes high security is needed.  Thus you will find some parts of the garden carefully shrouded in netting to protect precious tomatoes and other delicacies that both birds and wallabies favor.

Inside this dense security is an abundance of fresh juicy tomatoes.  Bower birds and crows are fond of tomatoes, it is heartbreaking to watch ripening fruit and find it gone or destroyed by sharp beaks.  The primary fertilizer for the tomato crop is food waste composted through the Bokashi system.

Tony and Sharon are able to improve and fertilize their soil through the judicious use of green cover crops such as peanuts.  Peanuts will grow throughout the whole year in our climate but they love the wet season and flourish in the heat, humidity and rain. They provide a fantastic cover crop in the wet protecting the soil as well as adding nitrogen.  Once the peanuts are harvested the green leaves are used again as dry mulch around the next crop.

Their chickens provide not only fresh eggs and scrap disposal services but their droppings provide fertilizer for the garden and nourishment for the plants around the chicken yard.

Because many edible plants are scattered through the block and regenerate themselves without effort as illustrated below by the snake beans.

These beans have climbed the acacia tree and dried on the vine. Some will fall and germinate for the next season without any work on the part of Sharon or Tony.