Meet the grower
Chooks, fish and aquaponics make up part of a Brisbane gardener’s patch
It seems a gardener with a passion for growing food can never have too much space. Even on a 735m2 block, Nicki McKay is looking for ways to upsize her garden. The house takes up much of the land, with most of the growing space sited in the front and sides. “People laugh when I say I want to knock down half of the house so I have more space for gardens,” Nicki says, “but I’m not joking!”
The block in Brisbane’s outer northern suburbs borders a small park from which a huge gum tree emerges to tower over the eastern side. The park is full of wildlife, and so is Nicki’s household. There’s Pinny the cat, Lucy the beagle and five chickens – Satay, Pesto, Lucky, Soy and Popcorn – sharing the property with Nicki, husband Nathan and their two small children. They also have about 30 fish. “We don’t name the fish because we eat them,” she says.
a diverse approach
Set on the highest point in the suburb, with views of the Glass House Mountains, Western Ranges and Moreton Bay, Nicki’s patch takes up practically all the space around her home and utilises a number of gardening methods. The north-facing front garden is given over to diverse vegetable beds – raised, no-dig, double-dig and wicking. A mandala-style circular plot brims with annuals edged by perennials and fruit trees, such as a fig, pomegranate, mulberry and finger lime. “Our front yard is the best place for vegies, as it gets full sun year-round and has less issues than in other areas of the garden,” says Nicki.
From here, steps through a shadehouse lead down the eastern side of the home into the backyard, but not before you’ve negotiated the two 1000L fish tanks and four grow beds comprising the aquaponics garden. Here, those anonymous fish – jade perch, barramundi and red-claw crayfish – spend their brief but happy lives going about their, um, business, to help grow the majority of the family’s herbs and greens. “Aquaponics keeps us going throughout the summer months when it’s too hot to grow much well,” says Nicki. There’s a chook run here, too, bordered by the park and shaded by passionfruit vines over the summer months.
Out the back is the children’s domain, a space Nicki calls the ‘food forest’. “When I started designing the garden, I wanted to create a shady little space with lots of things to play and interact with, but which would still give us food,” she explains. “So we have more fruit trees and shrubs here – banana, pawpaw, vanilla-bean orchid, coffee and a peppercorn vine, and a little tepee with madagascan climbing beans and blue butterfly pea. Those flowers are really fun for making natural paints, as they have this blue dye, which turns pink if you add something acidic to it.”
Rounding the corner to the western flank, there’s a vertical garden mounted on the fence. “It’s great having it right near our kitchen so I can just go and grab some herbs,” says Nicki. “We’ll probably change that into a hydroponic garden because it gets too hot. At the moment, I have a ►
Kratky hydroponic system with lettuce growing in it – it’s a passive growing method that doesn’t need any electricity or pumps. I’m still experimenting with hydroponics, but it’s all about finding the right system for the right spot.”
weathering the conditions
Nicki’s abundant food garden hasn’t been without its challenges. The property’s elevated position means it is subject to strong winds, and it has been a matter of trial and error to find the right plants to grow as windbreaks. “The back of our house is a wind tunnel,” she explains, “and because I hadn’t had a lot of experience with high winds, I planted my coffee beans out there and they didn’t like it at all!
So I researched quick-growing plants ideal for our climate, and came upon pigeon peas. They did really well and established a nice little windbreak. Because of them, we’ve been able to get a banana and pawpaw growing well. Before that, they were struggling.”
In the front, she put in perennial basil. “It’s also quick growing and has that density to divert the wind up and away.
It’s about choosing plants that will grow quickly while those we want to keep long-term can get established.”
Seasons, too, differ greatly from the southern states: “In contrast to temperate regions, we have a very short cool season.
It’s more like three seasons instead of four. Winter is like a cool, temperate summer, spring is like a Mediterranean summer, and the tropical summer is hot, wet and sticky.”
As for the wide variety of growing methods they’ve introduced – each has its place and reason. “Our soil is rock-solid red clay,” says Nicki. “We’ve mostly built raised beds to combat this, but as we’ve needed more space or want to plant more fruit trees, we’ve grown daikon radish and used ‘chopping and dropping’ to break up the soil, adding loads of organic matter to build it up, and taking a no-dig approach.”
Roots from neighbouring trees have also impacted the design. The aquaponics and chickens have been set up near the gum
Follow Nicki’s gardening exploits on Instagram @loveofdirt
tree in the adjacent park, and in places where other tree roots are an issue, the family is retro-fitting regular raised beds into wicking beds. “They’re a great solution, because they’re sealed and don’t allow the roots into the growing medium,” says Nicki. “They’re also very water efficient, but do have their downside when it gets really wet, as they drain more slowly and certain plants won’t grow in those situations.”
And if she had to pick just one method? “It’s like trying to pick a favourite child!” laughs Nicki. “If I didn’t have any problems with external factors, I’d probably go with the no-dig approach. It works really well, but that’s probably because I’m a bit lazy
– I don’t like digging!”