From Russia with Love.

Andrey and Irina  were on a round Australian trip in their caravan when they arrived in Geraldton two years ago. They stayed here and bought in Geraldton  The house needed a lot of work and the young couple set about doing that. 

Andrey's Veggie patch

We met them on a wet afternoon and asked them what they had in mind for the future of their place in Geraldton. Turns out Andrey was a fan of the Anastasia books and understood the concept of Dachas or home gardens which had always been common in certain parts of the Russian country side. Their shared vision was to create a sustainable garden once the renovations were complete.

We met the pet Galah, Gertrusia, inside and they showed us the tricks he (or she) was taught.

“Does he understand Russian?” I asked.

“No!” Irina explained. “He follows the movement of my fingers and is rewarded each time with food. That is how we do it. He doesn’t understand Russian” she laughed.

Irina's pet pink and grey Galah

 

 

Outside Andrey showed us the English rabbits he is breeding while the geese and ducks paraded around. He remembers as a kid in Russia how the grandparents all kept rabbits and ducks for food and raised veggie gardens and this spurred him and Arina on to try and develop that lifestyle here in Western Australia. In parts of Europe today and in Russia after the collapse of the USSR there were hard times and food was short. 

Large English rabbit

 

The small gardens helped people through these periods. Andrey said his home country of Uzbekistan was a similar climate to Geraldton (without the wind) but the soil was very different! Arina hails from Vladivostok which is a long way from Uzbekistan, and she said it is very cold with wind. It is seven days by train to Moscow and eight hours by plane whereas Sydney is seven hours from there.

Andrey has planted mulberries, grape vines to form a trellis for fruit and shade, fruit trees including mangoes and mulberries. He showed me the veggie garden, corn growing for animal feed and spoke of the future where the whole yard would be an orchard and a place to call home.

We left wishing them well in their dream of creating an ecological and sustainable garden inside their back yard in suburbia.

Geese and Muscovy duck.

 

I was glad to meet up later with my mate Bob and share with him what I had seen, although he was fairly blasé about my constant rhetoric on the theme of sustainability.

“What happens when all the bugs turn up and eat everything like they do every year?” he asked.

“You have a good point,” I replied. “Even now the green caterpillars are coming onto the cabbages and broccoli and I have seen aphids on the beans the other day. But until a balanced eco system is in place we are going to have to spray.”

“Thought you greenies were against spraying?” he said.

“We are, but there are sprays we are going to have to use like Dipel (Bacillus thuringiensis) which is a naturally occurring bacterium. It controls many leaf-eating caterpillars of moths and butterflies, but does not harm other insects, birds, fish or warm blooded animals. Dipel does not kill caterpillars immediately. Once a caterpillar eats treated foliage, it stops eating, but may take up to 3-4 days to die and drop from the leaf. You can mix Seasol with the spray as a wetting agent” I replied.

“That’s a mouthful, coming from you, been googling again hah? Anyway, it’s your turn to buy,” he said.