The Good Life | Becoming self-sufficient | Gardening Australia

Robyn and John Longley moved from the city to the hills to live the dream of self-sufficiency, inspired by the TV sitcom ‘The Good Life’. After building their house from recycled materials on a 10-hectare block they got to work on creating a cottage style garden.

However, the garden is built on rock, which requires some external help to make space for new plantings. Along with a dry climate and low nutrient soil, they had to add lots of manure over the years to create a suitable environment for the plants.

Trees surrounding the house provide dappled shade and a comfortable microclimate for densely packed garden beds of hardy flowering shrubs. Salvias are a favourite, for both Robyn and the bees!

The productive part of the garden is full of eggplants, chillies, tomatoes, herbs – all the favourite summer vegetables, with lots of protection from the intense summer sun. And then there are the fruit trees – thriving citrus, avocados, mangos, berries and more that provide bucket loads of produce.
Robyn’s main tip for growing avocados here is really good drainage. They dug a huge hole and filled it with a mix of sand, compost, and manure, before planting and adding a thick layer of mulch on top to retain moisture.

She also gives them a foliar spray of liquid potash when flowering to keep up with their high potassium needs. When it comes to mangos, it took a long time to become established as they not only get hot, dry summers but also frost in winter. Now it’s thriving, the birds take care of the pruning.

It’s a lot of work to pick the produce, on top of pruning and feeding, so luckily their daughter Jess is also on hand at harvest time. Blueberries are especially laborious as they need to be picked individually and don’t ripen all at the same time. They have around 10 different varieties that together provide fruit over 9 months of the year! Blueberries need an acidic environment, which is easier to control in pots, and they like a thick mulch to protect fine roots. Other than a general slow release fertiliser, Robyn adds a dose of sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of potash at the height of production.

Robyn has certainly achieved self-sufficiency in terms of fruit and vegetables, along with “a very tranquil garden, that is an escape from the busy life that most of us lead.”

Featured Plants
SALVIA, Salvia cv.
AVOCADO, Persea americana cv.
MANGO, Mangifera indica cv.
BLUEBERRY, Vaccinium cv.
Filmed on Whadjuk Country

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