Pottsy's Organic Vegies

G'day!

Cataract Gorge - Launceston's primary attraction

When I was in Sydney and New South Wales in general, I usually had reasonable to good satellite or dial up internet connections in homes and hostels.  When I was in Tasmania, the internet connection was dial up and very slow.  Apparently the Tassie government connected everyone up 4 - 5 years ago and gave everyone a free year.  Since then, households are billed $40/month for 1 GB of upload/download.  If the household uses up the 1 GB, they can only get internet service between 11 pm and 8 am daily until the first of the next month.   My last host has only had that happen twice; the second time being this month.  Hey, it wasn't me!  Now, I'm about 70 km outside Melbourne and the internet plan here is pay as you go.  You pay for X GBs and when they're used up, you lose access.  You're still connected; you just can't do anything until the account is reloaded with more GBs.  Wwoofers spend time on the computer looking for jobs - paid or wwoofing, communicating with family and friends, figuring out transportation, and for recreation or pleasure.  And with 4 or 5 wwoofers, even just doing basic stuff, you run through MBs very quickly.  I took so many things for granted in America.

View from Eagles View at Gorge

Anyway, I spent a week and a half at Pottsy's Organic Vegies farm.  In addition to my host and his daughter, 4 French wwoofers (aged 20 -27) were there.  Coline and I worked together a lot which made working much more pleasant.   Although I know all about vegies and growing vegies (that's how veggies is spelled here and it makes more sense since there's only 1 g in vegetables) from reading and working at Sloat, I've only grown a few types and very few plants at a time.  So, I got some valuable practical experience.



Coline hunting for zucchini



On this farm, I had to plant new leek seedlings from purchased punnets (cell or pony packs), thin lettuce, rocket (a spicy lettuce/green), kale, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprout, and cabbage seedlings, weeding as I go; transplant the thinned seedlings into new beds; weed the parsley and silverbeet (swiss chard) beds, as well as the beetroot, carrots, and parsnip beds;  harvest tomatoes, zucchini/summer squash and Lebanese cukes.   Sweet corn, Jerusaelum artichokes, eggplant, capsicum (bell peppers), the new batch of spring (green) onions and several type of apples and pears were not ready yet.  Green beans and basil were just finishing up.  Globe artichokes, potatoes, red onions, shallots, garlic, and raspberries were done before  I arrived.   Nashi pears, an Asian apple/pear were ripe and we ate lots of them.  Parsnip seedlings are hard to distinguish from weedy grass seedlings and we may have pulled some of them by accident.  Cabbage and brussel sprouts are very difficult to tell apart when they are seedlings.  Good thing we do each vegie separately.

Philippe,David, Jeremy, Romain building pizza oven patio 

I mulched lettuce beds with an aged mixture of seaweed, chook manure (AKA chick poo), grass clippings and ??.    It might have been aged, but it wasn't mixed.  I had to break up chunks and mix as we shoveled it into the wheelbarrow, not pleasant.   David, my host, harvests the seaweed from a nearby beach which I had to pitchfork from the back of the ute (pickup truck).  I got to drive the ute (twice) in from the paddocks where we loaded the back with firewood that had been cut a while ago from fallen or dead trees.  Then we had to unload and stack the firewood.  The ute was manual transmission and I managed not to stall it, nor drive into the fences nor the dam.  The brush in the paddocks, mostly grasses, bracken (fern), thistles and tree seedlings, is about 2 - 3 feet high, so it's not as easy as it sounds.

I helped set up and sell at the Sunday morning market that is David's primary distribution method but also helped deliver to several restaurants around Launceston.  Other chores included lots and lots of weeding, and dead heading spent flowers and dock, a noxious weed.  Luckily , I didn't have to do anything with the chooks.  I don't really like the chooks and there was a really nasty hen that attacked humans. David will be building a pizza oven and the guys cleared and prepped the area for it, amongst some heavier garden duties.

The farm is in Lefroy, a tiny town (no services at all) about 70 km from Launceston (Lawn cess tin), the second largest city in Tasmania.  I was dropped off and hiked around Cataract Gorge, Launceston's primary attraction.  I had a great time especially with the French wwoofers who let me tag along while they were hunting for apple picking jobs (too late for blueberries, early March for apples and pears), and a trip into Low Head (5 minutes past Georgetown) for the lovely beach and Georgetown (15 minutes from Lefroy) for groceries and the library to use the internet.

Romain, David, Nina, Philippe, Jeremy, Coline

I learned a few French phrases and how to count to ten.  I'll probably forget unless I meet more Frenchies.  I probably won't forget the cuss words though.  I learned some history and geography from Coline and Philippe from Caen, Romain from Cherbourg, and  Jeremy from Orlean.  We played card games and Times Up, a notable people guessing/mime game and listened to a lot of music. We also had wonderful dinners including homemade pizza, a sausage stew, chicken tagine, crepes, and a potato gratin, always with lots of fresh vegies.

I must be memorable.  I don't know very many people in Aussie, but several times, I've bumped into acquaintances who recognized me.  In January, I was sitting on a bench in Circular Quay train station in Sydney using my 20 minutes of free wifi when Leonie, a German wwoofer I met at Road Ends jumped in front of me and said, "Hi!"  I knew she was in Sydney and had tried unsuccessfully to contact her by email and phone. (She hadn't gotten to McDonald's for wifi to check her email and didn't recognize the phone # on her mobile phone.)  We went to the Friday market and free concert at The Rocks with her brother Jacob and did more Sydney exploring a few days later. When I got to Bruny Island, the Japanese girl, Kana, said that she recognized me from the airplane and airport shuttle we had ridden on coming into Hobart 2 weeks earlier.  And while I was sitting in front of the cafe, a customer came and asked if I had been wwoofing at the blueberry farm last week.  We had met very briefly because she was wwoofing at the farm next door.  That was more than 1 1/2 hours away by car and ferry!

Art installation on Gorge walk

After touring around Hobart, I caught the bus to Launceston (3 hours, $33).  As I was waiting to get on the bus, Pete, the Englishman from the blueberrry farm, popped up and said, "Remember me?!"  After 4 weeks there, he was on his way to the airport.  And finally, on Wednesday (Feb 23), I flew from Launceston to Melbourne, Victoria (1 hour, $75 on Jetstar).  After getting off a  Skybus (20 minutes, $16) from the airport to Southern Cross train station, a young Malaysian man asked me if I remembered him.  I did.  I shared a Tassie's, The Brunswick Hotel ($28/4 bed mixed) hostel room with him and his brother.  He was getting his younger brother settled into Uni(versity) in Hobart.  He had just arrived from Hobart to start his own Uni in Melbourne.  I must admit that I would not have noticed any of these people had they not approached me.  But I did recognized each and every one of them and was glad that they said hi.

Lefroy, Tasmania summer sky

I took a train (1 hour, $5.80) and a bus (30 minutes, included in Metro fare) to Healesville where Jolanda, the wwoof co-ordinator for Moora Moora, an intentional community met me.  More on Moora Moora next time.

Cheers!

Cyn