Why Did We Turn Our Pool into a Pond?

Why Did We Turn Our Pool into a Pond?

On 22nd March, 2010, Perth suffered a terrible storm, with hail the size of golfballs. Billions of dollars damage was done, and it took months to clean up. At my home, we lost power for about 26 hours. We were really lucky,

However this got me thinking about how vulnerable we are to the elements. About how much we rely on the government and other organisations for our basic survival. And, on an unrelated note, how awful and tasteless the fresh food is in the supermarkets.

That's when I decided to abandon our dream for acreage for now, because that was not something we could do straight away. What we could do, immediately, is start making our suburban block of land less ornamental and more productive.

From that day forward anything I planted had to be food. Later, more adventurous plans started to evolve, such as killing our expensive (to run) swimming pool and growing fish in it instead, getting chooks, and growing meat rabbits to satisfy our protein requirements.

Grapes, Pepinos, an apple tree and mint all share a small plot of land

So I now have 46 food-bearing plants at the front of the house:
Lemon
Lime (2)
Apples (2)
Apricot (2)
Mandarin (2)
Nectarine
Sugar cane (2)
Pepino (2)
Peach (2)
Blueberries (5)
Dragon Fruit (3)
Locquat
Pawpaw (4)
Macadamia nut
Fig

This 2-year old pawpaw is bearing fruit

Pineapple Guava
Rosemary
Grapes (2)
Bush Fruit (2)
Pumpkin vines (2)
Cape Gooseberry (3)
Pear
Raspberry

Some are bearing fruit already, for example the locquat was self-sown a few years ago and this year we had a bumper crop. The apples have 4 fruit on them at the moment, and I have 14 figs on my juvenile fig tree!

It's not all working at the moment though: my dragon fruit are fast turning bright yellow. I think I put them too close to the concrete rendered wall between my property and the neighbour's, and the concrete foundations are affecting the pH of the soil. Tomorrow I am going to move them to more friendly soil.