The first, Thrifty Gardening (Murdoch Books soft cover, $27.99), is a modest little book packed with what it calls "collected wisdom from the Country Women’s Association of Victoria".
That comment resonates here, as illustrated by Yeo’s excellent cartoon on Monday (reproduced below) on the high cost of fruit.
Thrifty Gardening has sections on getting a garden started, improving the soil, making compost, seasonal jobs for vegetables, fruit and flowers and thrifty hints galore.
Some examples are: soaking banana skins to make a potassium-rich fertiliser for houseplants; dehydrating surplus zucchini (courgettes) to use in casseroles in winter; using baked, crushed eggshells to deter slugs and snails; and "training" plants to use less water by watering deeply but less often.
Thrifty Gardening wouldn’t be a CWA book without recipes, some modern and others, like strawberry and rhubarb jam, reminiscent of my South Otago childhood. There’s a lovely sticky date pudding, good old bubble and squeak, lots of preserves, cakes and muffins.
This is a wee cracker of a book.
The Stewarts say: "In a world where our climate is changing before our very eyes, it is obvious that as well as taking measures to mitigate climate change, we also need to adapt to it …"
They point out that scientists believe extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, will become more frequent, so growing plants that need less water "is an obvious place to start when it comes to futureproofing your garden".
Almost as important as improving the water-retaining capacity of the soil is ensuring excess water can be carried away in a way that minimises flood risk.
As expected from Australian writers, Futureproof Your Garden focuses on efficient water use, such as different mulches and wicking beds.
The last third of the book has the section that is likely to be the most useful to gardeners here, a list of 200 plants that are tolerant of dry conditions. Most are decorative Australian natives, such as wattles, myrtles, grevilleas, banksias and kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos), many of which grow well in much of this country.
The exotic (non-native) list also leans heavily to decorative plants, although there are some drought-tolerant fruits, including the "Eureka" lemon, quince, pomegranate, fig, grape and black mulberry. Herbs are quite well-represented here, too.
Apart from NZ spinach, also native to Australia and known there as Warrigal greens, the book is almost completely lacking in vegetables, reflecting an issue that needs to be addressed worldwide to future-proof food supplies.
Perhaps the most important section is not Harrad’s philosophical and health-based philosophies but her arguments in favour of a zero-waste kitchen.
Apart from adding to the world’s methane mountain, tossing out food is like throwing away money. In the UK, "the [annual] cost of food that could have been eaten but is thrown away is around £14billion" ($NZ26.7billion).
There’s lots more interesting information and tips for healthier eating without pushing for us to stop eating meat.
Following Harrad’s guidelines would reduce pressure on the environment, in some ways taking us back to the time-honoured practices espoused in Thrifty Gardening.
•I wish all ODT readers a happy Christmas and a stress-free 2023 - Gillian
