Vasili's Garden Episodes
I don’t know about you but I’m tired of hearing how the people from the other states think we have the worst climate of all, ‘too cold’ they say ‘too cold.’ Personally I think it’s perfect, except for the shortage of rainfall that we’ve had, just a minor glitch in the Eco system but it’s all rectified now, well I think it is.
Let’s face it, there’s always going to be rivalry between Vic and NSW, and I’ve yet to hear from anyone to admit liking both cities just as much.
Talk to me about tomatoes and cucumbers I’ll say yes please.
Or maybe you want to talk fruit trees. Of course, I love them too!
But if you start talking native bush foods, well this is where it poses itself as a problem to me.
If you ever feel that you have no where to go and no one to talk to about your gardening problems, but you’re always looking for somewhere or someone who can give you some good positive and practical solutions to gardening problems that may otherwise seem to be a lost case.
Look no further, I’m here!
But unfortunately I can’t be everywhere at the same time to help you all, don’t worry ‘cause there are great places popping up in every town that you can go and visit to get the help you need, that is if I can’t help you first.
What can you think of that could be more important than our health, can anyone tell me?
Is having the latest sports car or the best home theatre system be more important, or could money be more important?
If you ever find yourself a bit unsure when to sow certain seeds, whether the compost bin is actually composting properly or even what is the best way to grow some of the best veggies and flowers in town.
If you ever do it means that you need to hang out at a community garden more often, and once you do you’ll be kicking yourself for not going earlier.
It’s as sustainable as it gets out at Trevor and Paula’s place.
Heading off to Hidden Valley I wasn’t quite sure what I was to expect but when I got there it was truly amazing.
I love the idea that councils get involved with sustainability awareness through many workshops and festivals, educating the public how to be more efficient in recycling, reusing, and reducing, a very important factor in everyone’s lives.
Every week I have the fortune of travelling through many different gardens throughout Victoria, viewing some of the most amazing gardens while learning great gardening practices and experiencing the passion of gardeners who happily share their views and produce and even a glass or two of the good stuff!
Home made wine of course.
Well we all love growing our veggies now don’t we!
All I know is that one day when I grow older, past my 65 years that is, I would love nothing better than to garden all day and cook all night just to have my beautiful children and hopefully grandchildren come over to visit me and my wife for some good company and an even better feast.
Not everyone lives on a large enough property where they have the fortune of being able to plant everything you could imagine.
For Kerry, her garden is slightly larger than a typical court yard and yet large enough to cater for her and her husband, but her real passion lies within the cracked tiles she collects and relays in all sorts of patterns.
I don’t know why but as the years go by, I think I’m developing a soft spot for flowers?
Although, I still believe that anyone with a tiny, tiny garden should attempt to grow productive plants over ornamentals, but for those with plenty of space flowers are looking pretty good too.
I suppose there’s room for every type of plant to exist on this earth and because everybody has a slightly different opinion as to what they like to grow in their garden, I’m beginning to think that flowers are cool too, especially the ones you can eat.
It’s not often I visit a home only to find that it’s the wife who does the bulk of the gardening.
Sure you might say that some homes have small gardens that a wife can easily maintain without the help of her strong muscular husband.
As we near the end of summer, most of you would have picked a decent crop by now, I know I did although some of my plants did suffer extreme heat exhaustion from the hot summer sun, scorched leaves and fruit that practically boiled on the plants.
Do you ever think about what sort of crop you will have next year?
If gardening is your passion but frustrated that you don’t have enough room in the garden to grow everything you dream about growing, or disappointed that you don’t have a garden at all and just a balcony or a courtyard that has been concreted from wall to wall, except for the cracks in the concrete.
Every year I look forward to attending the annual home made wine festival held by the City of Darebin, 5 years running now and I’ve attended every event with over 100 entrants all competing for the Annual ‘Best Home Made Wine award.’
And I must say for a man who doesn’t drink, even though I do like a glass of red on the odd occasion,
I always dream about the day I retire, what I would do, where I will be…
First I said it would be at 35 - who was I Kidding?
Then I thought maybe there’s a chance by 40?
Well didn’t 40 come and go faster than the last Melbourne cup!
Oh my god!!!
I couldn’t believe it, as soon as I walked into Mark’s place I thought I had shrunk in size.
Everything in his garden was just huge, giant Birds of Paradise, Palm trees that seem to reach the sky and Birds Nest plants large enough for a pterodactyl to nest in.
Meet Vincenzo, a retired assistant mechanic whose passion now lies within his garden of paradise.
He never knows much about gardening when he first came to Australia, but he didn’t waste time learning everything.
He puts it down to the simple love and pleasure of nature that he has and the beautiful fresh organic produce that he harvests every day for him and his family.
This week we went out to meet Adrian and his family in Wheelers Hill and what a lovely family they are too!
Every week we talk about keeping the traditions alive in gardening and all things about sustainable living and Adrian is doing just that.
Only in his early 20s, Adrian was inspired to get into gardening as recent as 2 years ago but if you were to take a look at his garden you would think that he’s been gardening for years.
Actually you are never too old to learn about gardening from the young ones either!
That makes more sense.
If it doesn’t then that means you are not listening to today’s young ones.
The kids now days want to participate more and more in gardening and everything about sustainable living, and it’s as if it really comes natural to them.
You know what… It really does!
When Michael and his family invited me over to see his garden, I was quite confident that I would be well impressed with everything.
I met Michael and his wife Carolyn at their local shopping centre in Melton, Michael began to explain that it was only his second year that he was gardening with lots of attention given towards sustainable gardening practices.
Wouldn’t you know it!
Some people work 24/7 and some literally are on holidays 24/7.
My good friend Peter rang me last week asking for my help to plant some spring veggies in his garden.
Obviously I accepted to help with open arms but then I found out that he is in Greece and taking it easy…
He was supposed to return a month ago, but no…. he couldn’t resist, he had to stay a bit longer and now it’s my job to plant out his garden.
What a shock I got when I turned up to his place, Pete’s back yard is totally barren, all he has are some well established conifers along the boundary line and some very tired looking Lilly Pillys too.
Normally when we go out to film a place and come across a house that is practically full of fruit and veggies in the front garden instantly your mind goes to the older Italian and Greek generation.
Well wasn’t I in for a surprise!
Meet Simon, your typical Aussie whose love for the organic and sustainable approx to gardening oozes with passion.
Has hasn’t got a huge parcel of land but what he produces out of it is amazing to say the least, he has left nothing out when it comes to practicing sustainable gardening.
So where do I start?
That’s what the sign said when we turned up at Des’ place out in Dingora West Vic.
As soon as we arrived all I could think about was getting some worm tablets into me, but I was quickly assured by Des that it’s not those types of worms that he has, its compost worms!
With all this beautiful rain we’ve been having lately, surely the water tanks and all the buckets lying around in the garden would be full by now?
Give us plenty more I say, ’cause you can never get enough of that precious liquid.
But one thing’s for sure, not only have the buckets filled with water, so have the gardens with many unwanted plants!
Weeds!
Well that’s what you call them if you’re a little naïve like me, and in next to no time run out into the garden at the first sign of a break in the weather and attempt to pull them out or spray them with some sort of herbicide.
But wait!!
If my friend Marion has anything to say about this she’d tell you to leave them alone.
“They’re not weeds” as she’d say. “They’re herbs!”
And that is exactly how her garden is, full of weeds….. I mean herbs.
If you love a bit of salami in your life well you’re going to love this week show where we meet Sam his wife Rita and their lovely daughter Maryluise.
When ‘comedian’ Gabriel Rossi invited us over to meet his father, he warned us that his dad just loved to talk, and as passionate as they get when it comes to organic gardening, we are talking traditional gardening folks!
Well he wasn’t far off the mark about his dad being so passionate let alone wanting to share everything he knows about gardening.
You are never too old to garden, and just like Costa’s house they’ve been gardening for 65 years.
We visit Costa and his wife Thomaiy at their typical suburban block in Coburg.
For those who of you that love wine, when ever you are in Greece I seriously recommend that you go and visit Gerovassiliou winery.
On Todays show we visit a beautiful town Aghia Kiriaki in the province of Kastoria, it was named after the church which was once burnt down during the war.
On today’s show we go to Platania, a very small town in the Province of Kozani where we meet Haralambo who is a goat herder and his wife Dimitra with her veggie garden.
If you love sweets you will just love Elenidis pastry shop and if that’s not enough, you can make your way down to Hatzis sweets.
We head to Prespa to learn how the best beans in the world are grown and maybe take some of their great ideas and practices back with us to try in Australia.
We folks, on this show you will get it all in one, from wine production with another award wining vineyard, to visiting an animal protection site for bears, and then to finish off the show we visit another cheese factory.
Unlike Australia, Greece’s history dates back thousands of years so we thought we’d better go and visit a couple of museums to learn a bit more about it.
Never enough wineries I say, the more the merrier and the drunker we get.
If you ever wondered about owning a farm but were worried that you might find it too hard to grow and maintain the fields on your own, well rest assured that we have the answer for you.
More wine folks, that’s right more wine, but this time it’s not a major production company like Alpha or Gerivassiliou winery, instead it’s just Yianni and Maria from Velvendo who take us through the growing fields and back to the winery where we taste some really nice wines.
Greece is not only about wine and cheese as some of you might think, it does have some beautiful sights to see too, as you will see when we visit some beautiful waterfalls a very old monastery and church and even a newly built dam, something that we in Australia are in desperate need of.
With so much fast food ‘junk food’ that exists in the world today isn’t it time that we learnt how to make some good wholesome traditional Greek food, and what better way than to have the 3 wise ladies of the north to teach us how.
