With spring just around the corner, we have been making some big changes to our garden design in the front yard. We have dedicated almost 100 square metres of the front yard to growing vegetables, while the south east side of the yard is now solely for fruit trees and perennials. We have added 3 more apple trees, another pear, two feijoa trees, a 4th strawberry guava, and a plum tree, taking our fruit tree total to almost 30 trees, not including the community orchard.... We're adding some extra "fruity" to our "funky front yard farm".
This Sunday, after much deliberation, we decided to harvest our giant bunch of bananas, and we were gobsmacked at how heavy the bunch was. It got us thinking... with all the new growing space in the front yard, maybe it was time for a new challenge. I suppose the old question of "How much food can actually be grown on a suburban block" has always remained conveniently rhetorical. Well, not for much longer, as we aim to find out.
THE ONE TONNE CHALLENGE
Using a highly sensitive set of rusty bathroom scales and a state of the art set of cheap Chinese plastic kitchen scales, our aim is to see exactly how much food we can produce in terms of weight over the next 12 months.... and diligently record it in chalk on our kitchen blackboard! So, yes, its going to be rather scientific. It shall be known from this day forth, as ....(drum roll) the Funky Frontyard 1 tonne challenge (clashing symbols). Its highly unlikely, but our goal is 1 tonne of home grown food.
And what better way than to begin our weigh in than with our great big bunch of Blue Mountains bananas! the official bathroom scale weight is 22kg for the Bananas! not a bad start.
The challenge has officially begun, let's see how many more kilos of produce the Funky Frontyard Farmers can grow over the next 365 days!
