My garden is different to most Queensland gardens due to the altitude of the Granite Belt. Most Queensland gardens are located in tropical or subtropical climates, but the Granite Belt of Queensland is the only region of this State with a temperate climate. The majority of the gardens in Queensland only know two seasons, the ‘WET’ and the ‘DRY’ whereas here on the Granite Belt we have four distinct seasons as in the Northern Hemisphere.

Usually our winters are dry so we seldom get snow and for the same reason we frequently experience more winter frosts than Victoria. Brisbane and Melbourne are the capital cities of Queensland and Victoria. Coastal Brisbane has a subtropical climate but the altitude of Das Helwig Haus (about 850metres above sea level) and our position on the western side of the Great Dividing Range create our much cooler climate.

State capital cities

As my readers know I have a fascination with trees and one of the significant registers of our climatic conditions here are the eucalyptus trees commonly known as a Peppermint Gums. These trees grow along the mountains of the Great Dividing Range from Melbourne to the Granite Belt.

Peppermint eucalyptus

Significantly they have tightly formed bark, which they don’t shed in strips like the other forms of eucalyptus trees growing on our land. It is almost as though they use their bark to keep warm.

Cool mountain climate

The darkly shaded area I have marked in black on this map shows the coldest portion of Australia which experiences four distinct seasons each  year.

If you look again at the map of the State capital cities you will note that Perth in Western Australia is at a similar latitude to Brisbane,  Queensland. There are no cold mountain districts in WA.

When planting seed of frost tender plants I note that most packets have a map on the back showing with differing colours the recommended growing seasons for flowers and vegetables. That is not to say though, that our soil here in Queensland will be as cold as in some of the southern states. It is always the early or late frosts which concern me. While it might be possible for me to germinate cucumber seed in September, it is probable that the seedlings will be frosted. Therefore I seldom plant my summer vegetable seeds before mid-October. Generally we expect autumn frosts by the third week of April, but in 2009 we had a cutting frost on 30th March.

I mention these dates as reason why I am now harvesting the last of my summer vegetables and bedding down my garden in preparation for winter.

Colouring grape leaves

The grape leaves have begun to colour but our garden is not without flowers. Presently the mauve deciduous hibiscus, which is the National flower of South Korea, is in full bloom.

Deciduous hibiscus

Note that I have already thickly mulched the ground around these shrubs to prevent weed growth. The Rose garden is scented with the fragrance of the repeat blooming rose varieties.

March is the month to harvest vegetables, savour the taste of the last fruits of the season like figs and persimmons, enjoy the roses and lay down mulch as a ground cover.

Mr. Lincoln

Pink Iceberg

Double Delight

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

All my readers who have down loaded the free E-book The Summer of the Morning Star will know that I turn my home Das Helwig Haus B&B into a ‘home away from home’ for Korean backpackers in the summer and autumn months. 2010 is the fifth year that I have done so. As these young people are all on Work/Travel visas and are allowed to work for two years in Australia some return to my home for a second year. Usually they are university graduates aged between 25 and 30 years who have had difficulty getting a job in South Korea. Not only do they earn and save money while in Australia they also study to improve their spoken English.  Some believe the added maturity, proven work ability and additional language skills will enable them to find a job when they return to South Korea.  Others plan to return to Australia for a third year on an educational visa with their saved money to undertake training within Australia to fill gaps amongst our skilled workers.

Korean Backpackers

The above photo shows a group of Koreans enjoying a barbecue meal in out gazebo in 2007.

Again this year I have a full house of backpackers, including a Japanese couple, Daiji and Maddie, who came to me in November as WWOOF members and stayed on to work as backpackers when a job became available picking capsicums and eggplant.

One delightful Korean girl this year is Kerry, who when she had no paid work, helped me in the garden. I took this photo of Kerry with her partner, Willy, again in our gazebo with is a popular summer eating place.

Kerry and Willy

Kerry and Willy are now the only two workers on a small mixed farm at Severnlea. Some days they are picking apples, other days they bend their backs harvesting capsicums.

Every year I have made it a custom to lay out my extra garden produce on the end of my kitchen table to be pounced upon with delight by all the backpackers when they come into the kitchen to prepare their evening meal. Recognizing that they like larger zucchinis than are usually available in the shops I leave mine grow an extra day or two before picking them. The backpackers use them in many ways, but a favourite recipe seems to be to slice them very finely into rounds, dip them in an egg batter and fry. With a serve of Asian style dipping sauce they are delicious. This season the backpackers have enjoyed my excess tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, sweet corn, beans, rock melons and watermelons. I invited all the backpackers to bring home any second quality fruit and vegetables they are given to be shared by the group. Kerry and Willy have been bringing home an abundance of capsicums and apples.

Apples and capsicums

Confronted with so many fresh apples I offered to value-add and make them into apple jelly for the backpackers to share.

I cut 2 kg of apples into wedges, placed them in the boiler with 3 litres of water.

Sliced apple

The pot was then brought to the boil before I turned down to simmer gently for a couple of hours. Note - Fruit for jam and jelly making should never be boiled hard before the sugar is added as the heat will destroy the pectin.

After the fruit was reduced to mush I strained it through a kitchen strainer to remove the cores, seeds and skins.

Apple pulp

The next step was to shake the strainer vigorously before discarding a small volume of rubbish. Food for the hens.

Discarded apple pulp

Again the pulp had to be strained, but this time through a jelly cloth, a very finely woven, thin cotton fabric.

The jelly cloth retained two freezer boxes of apple puree, which I froze for future use.

Apple puree

I  then measured six cups of liquid.

Apple juice and puree

The final step in the jelly making process was to return the strained apple juice to the boiler, add six cups of sugar, place on the stove and bring to the boil.

The mixture was boiled rapidly until the jelly would drip thickly off my wooden spoon. As is my custom I then poured the jelly into jars, screwed on the airtight lids, and turned the jars upside down for 2 minutes to sterilize the remaining air in the jars and to create a vacuum seal.

As you can see, the various processes involved in making can be more time consuming than when making jam. The resultant jelly should be totally clear of any residue. This 2kg volume of apples produced eight jars of apple jelly. Because I used red skinned apples my apple jelly is a dainty pink colour.

Clear apple jelly

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Golden ripple cherry tomatoesTo see a former post called Mulching Matters go to the Organic Gardening category in the November archives. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

In that post I showed how I had used clippings from a fallen wisteria vine to mulch an area around self-sown Golden Ripple cherry tomato seedlings. I bought the first packet of seed from the Diggers Garden Club about 1994 and ever since then these tomatoes have volunteered to grow each year in my garden. All the fruit eating birds feast on them and then spread the seed throughout my entire garden. Mostly, I weed them out, but I always leave some plants to bear fruit each summer.

Wisteria mulch

Eight weeks after this green wisteria mulch was laid around the tomato seedlings we could begin harvesting these little cherry tomatoes for salads or for my favourite Lemon & Tomato Marmalade.

Today I once again turned my attention to mulching. It was time to harvest the pumpkins and I had a Korean girl wwoofer, Kerry, to assist me.

Kerry gathering pumpkins

I explained to Kerry that she must cut the pumpkins free from the vines, because if she pulled them she might break the stem away from the flesh, thus creating a wound where rot could enter. I then showed her how to stack the pumpkins on their sides, to allow air to circulate around them. In this way pumpkins may be stored for months and will usually keep throughout the winter. Pumpkins are a staple vegetable in Australian diets, peeled, boiled and mashed or baked in the same manner as potatoes.

Stacked pumpkins

As you will see from the above photograph I have grown several types of pumpkins, but the striped ones would be crossbred seedlings which volunteered in my garden compost. Probably they are a cross between striped Jap Pumpkins and the orange coloured heirloom Butter Pumpkin.

I told Kerry there would be no need to remove the dried pumpkin vines. We would cover them with sheets of newspaper and then add a thick layer of loose mulch.

Firstly, we had to remove Patches from her comfortable bed in a box of saved newspapers.

Patches

I had been busily cutting back wisteria vines and lemon balm which became the first layer of mulch to be laid over the newspapers.

Then I cut away a lot of the lower, loose foliage hanging from the Isabella grape vines.

Grape foliage

As I trimmed the vines, I cut them into short lengths for easy management. Kerry loaded them into the barrow and pushed them to the former pumpkin patch.

Kerry

We spread the mulch thickly over the newspaper. As I trim back various woody shrubs and vines around the garden they will be used this year to form such mulch, but lush growth, grass with seeds and weed plants will still be composted.

Compost bin

Mulch over newspaper

When mulching in this manner the newspaper blacks out the light and prevents the germination of any unwanted plants. Rain will penetrate the loose leaves and soak the papers, which by the spring will be well rotted. The woody stems prevent the leaves packing down to form an impervious sheath against rain. They also hold the leaves in place as they dry, preventing them from blowing all over the garden. Thus it is better to gather some such deciduous leaves while still green, rather than rake them up after they have fallen and are blowing in the wind. But, I never prune back my vines and shrubs severely. That is a winter job after the fruiting buds have set for the next season. A hard pruning at the end of summer would trigger fresh growth in the autumn, not the spring.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

After camping overnight in their swags on the bank of our Severn River the ten youngsters and their two teachers were awakened by a chorus of kookaburras - sometimes called the laughing jackass. The adventurous boys gathered fresh water mussels and boiled them in a billy over the coals of a fire, determined to try real bush tucker.

“What did they taste like?” I asked.

“River water,” was the consensus.

Meanwhile, Tabatha and the girls were busy preparing a stack of breakfast pancakes in our kitchen. Nancy on accordion and Joe on guitar led a round of singing to keep us entertained and everyone occupied.

Joe plays guitar

After breakfast as Nancy stripped her bed and cleaned house for me, while Tabatha packed Bruderhof belongings into the back of their bus, two girls reminded me that I had promised they could pick our elderberries. In past years I’ve made elderberry jelly but these girls said they wanted to dip the whole spray of berries into batter and fry as a sweet pancake. I’ve also heard that the white flowers can be used this way, or placed in custard to give a vanilla flavour.

Ripe elderberries

Bruderhof girls pick elderberries

These berries then had to be found a space in the bus, beside the grapes that other youngsters were busily picking from our Isabella grape vines covering the terrace over the guest parking.

Tabatha loads the bus

Picking the grapes

The previous night I had phoned David Dunn whose family has grown stone fruit near the top of the ridge of hills on the western side of the Glen Aplin valley since the 1920s. He had agreed to welcome this Bruderhof group as a school excursion to the family orchard. The Bruderhof said their goodbyes to Eberhard and I accompanied them on the bus to their destination.

What a welcome they received! Brendon Dunn loaded the youngsters, all sitting down and under the supervision of Mike, into the tray of the farm utility. Tabatha rode up front with Brendon until they reached the plum orchard.

Farm utility

Ripe plums

Nancy, Joe and I travelled in comfort in a 4WD car with David and John Dunn. Nancy was delighted as the smell and taste of the ripe plums brought back to her memories of picking fruit in the orchards of Ontario, Canada where she had grown up in a Mennonite community.

Nancy tries a plum

The children were overjoyed at the thrill of picking an abundance of fresh fruit straight from the trees.

Girls gather plums

From the plum orchard we crossed a track and entered a peach orchard.

Peach orchard

Nancy kept remarking how different these Australian orchards were in comparison to the ones she had known in her youth. As David Dunn explained, his family had cleared pockets of fertile land amongst the granite boulders to establish their fruit trees. The eucalyptus forest growing in the rocky terrain around these pockets provided protection from winds, but not hail.  Much of this fruit was blemished due to hail damage and would be sold as second grade fruit.

Mike watches John Dunn pick peaches

Brendon phoned a neighbour over the hill, who said he was about to throw out fruit he had graded as unsuitable for sale. He drove off with Mike. They returned with Golden Queen peaches (the best type for bottling) and nectarines. After the Bruderhof group returned to Danthonia these could be made into jams or preserves.

Peaches and nectarines

A blue sky day

Back we drove to the packing shed where Brendon brought out boxes of second grade plums from the cold-room, which he gifted to the Bruderhof.

This is the district, the Granite Belt of southern Queensland where Eberhard and I have lived for more than seventeen years. It is the district I describe in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

In my last post I explained our connection with the Danthonia Bruderhof who in the past decade have established a community near Inverell in New South Wales. We have enjoyed many reciprocal visits. Two weeks ago we received a request from Mike, one of their school teachers, to bring a group of ten students aged twelve years for a visit with Eberhard.

Due to Australian immigration laws many of the Danthonia Bruderhof comprise young people who have desirable workskills needed in Australia. They have immigrated as teachers and nurses. Many are young married couples, with the other partner often having other useful skills. This preponderance of youth could lead to an unbalanced community without the wisdom of elders, if it were not for the older parents and grandparents who temporarily live with the community using Tourist visas to gain entry into Australia.

Even so, every year living memories of the early days of the Bruderhof in Germany are being lost with the death of members from the first community. Yet here is Australia the Danthonia Bruderhof have a living connection via my husband. Mike asked that a group of ten children, two teachers and a senior couple be allowed to visit for an overnight stay. He wanted these American born children to hear from Eberhard what life had been like for their Grandparents, or great-Grandparents in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s. In return they offered to assist us with farm and garden work.

Eberhard and Mike

When this excited group of youngsters arrived they served us a a delicious German style kuchen they had brought with them for morning tea. Then after a discussion with Eberhard about the early days in Germany the four adults, Mike and Tabatha (teachers) with Joe and Nancy (elders), asked me what work I would like done in the garden. I told them the primary job was to harvest our abundance of produce - climbing beans, little yellow cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. Then the next job would be to wash down our extensive verandas and the gazebo area and prepare lunch. They had brought home made salami (they have their own butcher shop at Danthonia) cheese and bread. I supplied lots salads, fresh and pickled. The pickled vegetables included beetroot, zucchini and icicle pickles, made from green skinned cucumbers. Nancy was delighted with the icicle pickles, saying she was familiar with these from her youth in Canada within a Mennonite Community.

• ICICLE PICKLES - A TRADITIONAL CANADIAN RECIPE
• 2 gallons of cucumbers cut int 2 inch pieces
• Dissolve in hot water 1 pint of salt and a pea sized amount of bluestone - copper sulphate
• Cover pickles with boiling water and let stand for a week, stirring at least every other day
• Put a heavy plate on top of the pickles so they remain submerged in the brine
• Drain. Cover with boiling water. Let stand 24 hours. Drain
• Dissolve Alum (size of a walnut) in boiling water and cover the pickles
• Stand 24 hours. Drain
• Bring the following syrup to a boil and pour over the pickles
• 8 pints - 16 cups white sugar
• 2-1/2 quarts or 12 cups vinegar
• A handful of pickling spices in a muslin bag
• Let stand for 24 hours. Drain off syrup and bring it to the boil. Pour the syrup back over the pickles
• Repeat 3 more times - 3 days.
• Bottle

After lunch Mike took eight of the youngsters down to the dam, dressed for swimming, which they dragged with our net twice without finding any fish. It seems we need to restock the dam with Golden Perch fingerlings. They then went swimming in the river.

Nancy and two girls remained to assist me in the kitchen by preparing the little yellow tomatoes for Tomato and Lemon Marmalade.

Cherry sized yellow tomatoes

When the marmalade preparations were completed Nancy and the girls went swimming in the river while I stirred the pot.

I observed that keeping such an exuberant group of youngsters energetically occupied while under the supervision of an adult is a key to maintaining harmony within a group. They know they are loved and cared for.

Mike next took the youngsters down to our Glen Aplin primary state school, only 500 metres away, to kick and chase a soccer ball around the playing field.

Tabatha had brought big pots in which to cook spaghetti and reheat tomato sauce and precooked meat balls. It was great to sit back and watch the adults supervising some of the youngsters in our kitchen as they cut up onions and prepared onion ring fried in batter. Then we all moved into the dining room to eat.

Tabatha and Joe

While everyone enjoyed the onions rings, Joe and Tabatha served up the spaghetti and meatballs. There was still plenty of salad left over from lunch.

Main course

When harvesting the vegetables during the morning, the boys had informed me that our Sugar Baby watermelons were ripe. I agreed with them and after they were picked the melons the boys carried them off to our cold room for chilling. Our evening dinner finished with water melon slices.

Tabatha serves water melon slices

The dishes were cleared and the children changed into their youth costume before conducting a small service to show their respect for Eberhard. German songs and hymns were sung, interspersed with Bible verses read by each youngster. Nancy accompanied the children providing music on an accordion.

A sing-a-long

Bruderhof youngsters

Fay relaxes

All too soon the evening ended. Joe and and Nancy accepted the comfort of our guest room, while Mike and Tabatha took the youngsters down to camp overnight beside our Severn River frontage. They built a campfire and then rolled out their swags to spend a night under the stars.

You can read more about the way of life that Eberhard and I have enjoyed at Das Helwig Haus B&B in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

The entrance road to Das Helwig Haus B&B  is marked by a prominent sign designed and built for us by Danthonia Signs, a business which is situated about 2 hours drive south of us in New South Wales. Sign making provides work and income for a Bruderhof community. Who are the Bruderhof?

Das Helwig Haus entrance sign

There are, in the Eastern United States as well as the Dakotas and adjacent Canada , communities of Christian followers of Jakob Hutter (d. 1536), founder of the pacifist branch of the Anabaptists. This offshoot of the Radical Reformation, having endured persecutions, found their way to the New World, where they built agricultural communes and prospered. In the 20th century, a similar branch arose in Germany under the leadership of Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, first as a Christian pacifist collective, then as an intentional community.

The mother of my husband, Eberhard Helwig, then known as Lotte Peters, joined the Christian youth group led by Eberhard and Emmy in 1920. The Bruderhof began as just one among dozens of youth-oriented communes that sprang up in war-ravaged Germany.  Later Lotte married Irvine Helwig and Eberhard Arnold became the Godfather for my husband, Eberhard, born in 1926.

In a future post I’ll be writing about Eberhard’s youth in Germany, suffice to say now that for a period of time between 1929 and 1933, Eberhard’s parents left their four sons in the care of the Rhon Bruderhof while trying to establish a new life in Canada. It was during this period that Eberhard Arnold visited the Hutterite communities in the USA and Canada. After his return it was decided to shape the Bruderhof community in a similar manner to that of the Hutterites.

In the past decade the Bruderhof have established a community near Inverell in New South Wales, known as the Danthonia Bruderhof, and renewed their association with my husband.

Most similar Christian groups were short-lived, suppressed under Hitler. During his time with them in the Rhon, Eberhard remembers the Bruderhof being persecuted by the Brown Shirts of the Nazi party.

Ousted by the Nazis, the fledgling community found refuge first in England and then in Paraguay. Post-war interest in the United States led to the founding of the first American Bruderhof in 1954. Since then the movement has expanded steadily. Today there are six communities in eastern United States, two in England, and one in Australia - the Danthonia Bruderhof. When they moved to the United States, the connection with the Hutterites was severed as this group found them too much in the world. The worldliness of the Bruderhof included a shift from agricultural to industrial production, with an associated embrace of technology.

There was considerable adverse publicity in New South Wales as the Inverell rural community feared the impact of such a group within their district, but the Bruderhof were welcomed by the Inverell Shire Council. It was when reading an Australian newspaper that we first learned of their arrival and we discussed the subject with Bed and Breakfast guests from the region who were staying with us at the time. These guests took the news back to the Danthonia Bruderhof, who were delighted to discover the presence, only two hours away of Eberhard Helwig.

Since then we have had on going reciprocal visits with the Danthonia Bruderhof.

Bruderhof youth picking plums

I took the photo above of these three young people who came here as part of a group to harvest the plums in our orchard in December 2003. The men wear plain work clothes but the women of the group wear a modest costume.

The family is the primary unit of the community, though many of the members are single adults. Babies and young children are cared for in a private nursery during working hours, while kindergarten- through to school-aged children are taught in their own schools. Bruderhof teens attend the Inverell high school, after which some go on to trade schools or to the university. Others sign up for a year of service abroad, do volunteer work, or find an apartment and a job. Disabled and elderly members are also a vital part of the community. They are cared for throughout their lives by others in the community.

Picking plums in 2003

The basis of Bruderhof life is the Bible’s New Testament, in particular Jesus’ teachings on love of neighbour, non-violence, mutual service, and faithfulness in marriage. Instead of holding assets or property privately, they share everything in common, the way the early Christians did as recorded in the book of Acts. Possessions are pooled, and in turn each member is provided and cared for. Meals are eaten together, and worship and business meetings are held several evenings a week. Adult members of the Bruderhof take vows of lifelong faithfulness to God, Jesus, and to one another. They affirm that their calling is to a life of community and fellowship with others, grounded in Christian faith. Members of the Bruderhof have never seen it as their business to “convert” others; rather, they seek to live out their convictions, and let their actions speak for them.

The Das Helwig Haus plum orchard in 2003

Everyone who we met from the Bruderhof have expressed their excitement about living at Danthonia and starting a new venture in Australia. They said they welcomed visitors and were thankful for the many opportunities they have had to learn from local friends and neighbours.

In November of 2008 as Eberhard and I traversed the New England Highway down to Sydney we noted the number of unique Danthonia signs we saw, easily recognizable by gold-leaf lettering and sculpture.

I have written about my work of pumping water, irrigating the plum orchard and thinning fruit during droughts in Wildflowers wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

When we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B we succeeded in creating a hospitality business which became famous throughout Australia and I personally succeeded in constructing the garden of my dreams.

I believe that many people would say that they spend the first 30 years of their adult lives establishing careers, homes and rearing a family. They then spend the next 20 years consolidating businesses or change direction to follow their dreams. As we did some give up other careers, sell the family home and move to a tourism district like the Granite Belt to establish guest accommodation, wineries and restaurants. The urge to change often starts when they pay a visit to a tourism district or read a book like Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. They dream of sitting on a terrace overlooking vineyards while sipping a glass of wine.

Lunch at Felsberg Winery

But, the time comes when age forces them to again change direction. Sadly, most will find that during this productive and rewarding stage of their lives, their children have taken other directions and may even be living in distant states or foreign countries.  The children are far away and not interested in leaving careers to take up the parent’s lifestyle business.  Recognizing that their bodies have aged and infirmities are starting to trouble them they consider the prospect of selling their dream businesses and retiring.  While establishing their dream businesses they had expected that one day when they sold the business the price would provide them with the equivalent of a superannuation income.

One of the reasons that this seldom happens is that younger people have their own dreams and they don’t wish to buy an established dream unless it is a profitable business, which can afford to pay labour. When dreaming they do not see the reality of how hard they must work to establish their vision, but when viewing an existing business they confront the issues of management. Which, by the time we had established our dream became the issue confronting us.

As I approach my 70th birthday this year, this is the reality which Eberhard and I must face. We listed our property for sale and held an auction in October, but no one was interested in buying our property. So, we have made the decision to down size.

The first decision was to down size the work of maintaining the non-productive section of our garden. The  shrubs and trees of the eastern and northern portions of our ornamental garden are now well rooted and capable of withstanding long dry periods. Thus I don’t expect that these trees and shrubs will die if I no longer water them weekly. They will continue their purpose of sheltering the house and providing a micro-climate.

It is my intention to give up pumping water from the river for the purpose of maintaining a luxurious green front garden. I expect there will be times during heat waves when I will look out my windows with dismay as I see trees wilting and leaves dropping. I will have to harden my heart and think ’survival of the fittest’. In making this choice I have decided that I may have to watch shallow rooted perennials die and I will no longer be planting flowering annuals. While my garden will lose some seasonal colour, I will save the cost of fuel, plus the maintenance costs of running the pump at the river. Perhaps more importantly, I will save my time and effort planting and watering flowers.

I have grown sweet corn and vine crops on the upper western terrace this summer, pumping a little water from the river to get them established. We have had good summer rainfall since mid-December which has meant I have had to spend very little time and effort to reap this harvest.

Pulling sweet corn

There is a lower terrace close to the house. This is somewhat like a sunken garden as I must descend off the veranda to enter this area. Our bio-cycle unit to treat gray water is positioned at the higher end of this low area. It has an outlet hose which drains to the south. This summer I decided to grow all my other vegetables in this area, utilizing only the gray water. The natural rainfall has helped but I’ve been rewarded with a remarkably productive garden.

Climbing beans

Now, as I consider my potential to continue gardening over the next decade I am thinking of removing a number of non-productive greenery plants in this area, so the space they occupy could be put to a more productive use. I had planted this ivy to cover an old wooden stump, but equally water melon vines could ramble over this spot next summer. I could then grow my summer garden entirely within this lower terrace, which is no bigger than many suburban backyards.

Green ivy

I can also allow my hens, housed in that igloo at the rear, to free range through this back area during the winter months when I don’t grow a vegetable garden. Hens usually lay eggs in the morning so it would be a case of opening the gate of their pen at lunch time and closing it after I feed them grain in the evening. I would have to close off a couple of walkways to prevent them entering the extended garden. Thus they would help turn over the soil and eliminate weeds or insect pests.

Usually I do not plant my summer vegetable garden until after September when I expect the frosts to end. I could then direct my hens out the western gate at the rear of the igloo and into the grass country beyond the garden fence. This will give them free range forage during the period I am growing vegetables.

Western gate

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

I begin this post about Peter Spencer by saying that my green credentials are obvious. When Eberhard and I bought our property in 1992 there was no garden surrounding the small timber house that was to grow to become Das Helwig Haus B&B. I set out to build the garden of my dreams and have achieved a remarkable result. We recently opened our garden for the Australian Open Garden Scheme. I’ve planted trees and shrubs in this organic garden to attract the birds, bees, butterflies and other living creatures.

White Buddleia - butterfly bush

Yesterday friends visited just as I assembled a new electric shredder. Although I compost leaf matter from the garden, I realized that most of my shrubs are now so large that when they are pruned back I needed a shredder to mulch their woody branches.

Nick, Tyson and Mary Jane.

Having used these photos to establish my green credentials I will continue to explain why I support Peter Spencer a man willing to lay down his life for people like me. Many years ago our land belonged to the Ferris family who mined for tin along the Severn River and established the Severn River Vineyards. In 1981 this land was divided into two portions.

Property Map showing Lots 1 & 2.

In 1992 we purchased, as freehold land title, portion 1 of this property. At that time the only restriction on our land use was the amount of water we could draw from the river according to our irrigation license. Since then there has been a proliferation of laws and moratoriums limiting our use of our land. We constructed two dams on a swampy gully during the 1990s, but by 2000 farmers in this district were prevented under new Queensland State laws from building such structures.

Geese on farm dam

Then came another Queensland State law. Those farmers like us who still possessed forests on our land suddenly became aware that we could no longer utilize this land or manage it appropriately. It had been claimed as Remnant Forest by the Queensland State government to allow the Australian federal government to sign the Kyoto Protocol using our land as a carbon sink. My readers may wonder why there was not a greater protest at the time this legislation was put into place. Most people thought the law was to prevent large scale clearing of old forests, not that our land would be locked up. Also, it can be said that many farmers were not seriously effected by this legislation. Thus there was no united stance.

Remnant Forest map

The above map clearly shows that while most of our land became locked up by this legislation the other five farms surrounding us suffered minor loss of their land. They were not effected in a manner that would cost them the ability to operate their farms or earn an income. Yet we, and others in a similar situation were offered no compensation. Our free hold title land was literally stolen from us. Now, we are in the position of tenants who must apply to various departments for permission to remove a tree, build a fence or create a firebreak. For instance, I found it impossible to run electric power to the river to install an electric pump. This means that I must continue to manage either a diesel or petrol driven pump, which is becoming increasingly difficult for a woman of my age.

We can still earn a living from our land which we bought to establish our Das Helwig Haus B&B. But, we can not further develop our farm. Peter Spencer lost the ability to earn an income from his land. The story is told in full by Justin Jefferson who was one of the people to visit Peter Spencer last week. It is only on blogs that the full story is being told. Be warned - our Federal government wants to censor the internet. China already limits the information its citizens may receive. The main stream media within Australia has seldom mentioned Peter Spencer, but when they did they tried to portray him as a man either wanting to save a tree, or to clear trees. They will not touch the real story of how country landholders were robbed of land rights so our Australian government could claim our forests as carbon sinks, without paying compensation.

As of today, Peter Spencer has fasted for 41 days. I wish to emphasize the length of time that Peter Spencer has suffered to bring awareness to the plight of many fellow Australians.

ON LINE opinion - Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Government theft

By Justin Jefferson
Posted Tuesday, 29 December 2009

On Friday, December 18, I joined the protest of over 80 people at Peter Spencer’s property, up in the mountains near Cooma. Mr Spencer, 61, was then past the 28th day of his hunger strike, perched high above the ground on a communications tower on his property. Looking down from his eyrie with baleful eye, he seemed at first somewhat curious and disheveled, but when he spoke he was lucid, his arguments were cogent, and passions ran high.

Mr Spencer is demanding the Australian government pay fair compensation to him and all Australian property-holders whose property rights were taken without compensation pursuant to the Kyoto Protocol. He also demands a Royal Commission into the way governments acquired those property rights, because it seems to have been deliberately intended to, and did, subvert the constitutional protection against the unjust acquisition of property.

But why, you might ask, is Mr Spencer directing his fire at the Federal government, since it was the State government, through the Native Vegetation Act (NVA) that passed the laws restricting farmers’ use rights? The answer is because the federal government moved the states for, benefited from, and paid the states to make these unjust acquisitions.

The Commonwealth decided to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions by restricting farmers’ land use across Australia. Farmers obviously made an easy target compared, for example, to power stations or other targets.

Under the Australian Constitution, if the Commonwealth wants to acquire a person’s property, it must do so on just terms, i.e. pay fair compensation. Since land-use rights form part of the equity of a property, therefore the taking of land-use rights, and vesting the control and benefit of them in government bodies, is in effect a compulsory acquisition of property rights.

To give you some idea of the scale, Mr Spencer’s property is 12,000 acres, the use-rights of which were in effect confiscated along with his livelihood. One farmer there told me that these laws cost him $30,000 a year. Another landowner I know lost $1.2 million worth of equity from a 40-acre block of land.

So just think of the whole of Australia, and you can see that the value of the property rights thus forcibly acquired without payment, from the entire landscape of property-holders, must run into the billions of dollars.

Faced with the problem of coveting other people’s property but not wanting to pay for it, what did the fed do? It got the states to take it instead, because unlike the federal Constitution, the state Constitutions, except for one, contain no provision for the payment of fair compensation for the taking of property. New South Wales legislation requires it, but the NSW State simply overrode it with ordinary legislation, smacking of rule by decree.

The mechanism was the Commonwealth Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act’s cash for laws by which the Commonwealth gave their accomplices in NSW $1.2 billion that it got from the sale of Telstra, for its part in stealing billions of dollars worth of other people’s property.

So Mr Spencer’s case is this. He can’t sue the Commonwealth because although it sponsored the acquisitions of property, acquired the benefit for their purposes, and is constitutionally liable to pay compensation, the fed didn’t actually do the deed itself.

And he can’t sue the state because although it was its actions that acquired his property rights, it isn’t legally liable to pay for it.

In the High Court, the Commonwealth is arguing against Mr Spencer that the Constitution was not intended to protect against forced acquisitions of property by the executive arm of government! The absurdity, or dishonesty, of this argument should be obvious, for if it were accepted, it would make the very idea of private property and constitutional and limited government meaningless.

And now to compound the offence, faced with Mr Spencer’s hunger strike, the Commonwealth says it’s all a state matter.

Either it is entirely appropriate to call for the Commonwealth to fix the problem, since they can obviously use the same measures with the states to fix the problem as they did to cause it, or the Native Vegetation Acts should be repealed and replaced with nothing.

If you want someone to grow beef, or wheat, or tomatoes on their property, you don’t pass a law making it a criminal offence to grow something else. If there is a social need for a person’s property which is to be forcibly acquired, then society needs to pay for it. But if society can’t afford to pay, then it can’t afford to have it and is not entitled to it.

To breach this principle, as the federal and state governments have done, violates basic ethics, blatantly subverts our Constitution and is already spelling the end of limited government and a free society.

All Australians should understand that the Commonwealth is implicated up to its neck in what it blames on its accomplices, the states, and they should join in demanding a Royal Commission into this devious and appalling abuse, and for fair compensation for all persons affected by this unprecedented governmental theft.

Justin Jefferson is an Australian who wishes to show that social co-operation is best and fairest when based in respect for individual freedom.

Here on Christmas morning at Das Helwig Haus B&B we have the Christmas decorations in place and the aroma of fresh pine needles and a baking ham pervades the house. The Christmas cake, cookies and things to nibble wait beside fresh bowls of peaches, apricots, plums and cherries - the summer harvest fruits of this cool mountain climate, the Granite Belt of southern Queensland. I picked our fresh fruit from the trees of our garden

December cherries

It is a pleasantly cool day with an overcast sky and there is a weather front coming through which should bring soaking rain to the drought stricken western regions of New South Wales and Queensland. This would be a remarkable Christmas present.

I did not bake a Christmas cake or Advent cookies this year, but instead visited the Market in the Mountains in Stanthorpe last Sunday to purchase the products that other women had baked in their kitchens.

Christmas food

This morning as I sat down to write this post to show my appreciation of the sacrifice that Peter Spencer is making for the people of Australia, my daughter brought me champagne and said with a laughed, “All you need Mum - the three Cs - Chocolate, Champagne and a Computer!”

Chocolate, champagne and computer.

So while I sit in my office toasting Peter Spencer, where is he this morning? He is high on a wind tower in the mountains, exposed to the elements. It will rain there today - a cold, freezing rain.

Peter Spencer

Peter Spencer - I salute you!

Fay Helwig

Book Cover

When I read this feature article on On Line Opinion I was grateful to Max Rheese for writing so succinctly on the problems we country landholders have encountered in recent years. I will illustrate his words with my photographs. Below is a photo of Das Helwig Haus B&B surrounded by ‘Remnant Forest‘. We are not allowed to clear any trees within this area.  The photo was taken from high on the hill on the other side of the valley, which does tend to condense the thickness of the forest surrounding our home and it fails to show that we had already cleared a firebreak around our buildings before the ban was introduced.

Rooftops of Das Helwig Haus B&B

It must be realized that because we are unable to clear any regrowth within this forest that it will grow more thickly until a bush fire destroys everything in its path.

ON LINE opinion - Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Environmentalists have crossed the Rubicon

By Max Rheese
Posted Friday, 18 December 2009

Environmental advocacy in Australia is increasingly producing perverse environmental outcomes that are changing the way we live, largely as a result of political decisions for electoral gain.

Somewhere after the release of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the protest movement of the 60s, environmental advocacy started to stray from the generally useful path it had taken in fighting for improvements to the way we used our forests, water, land and energy resources.

Society can be pleased with the many good outcomes for the environment resulting from persistent environmental advocacy up to about the early 80s.

Timber harvesting was scrutinised until it moved to world’s best practice operations; agriculture was put under pressure to change accepted traditional practices in favour of demonstrably better methods that lessened the effect of necessary agriculture on the landscape.

Stubble is not burned.

Improvements were sought and gained in vehicle emissions leading to much improved air quality. It is unlikely these and many other improvements to our lives would have occurred without the campaigns led by environmental groups that achieved them. These campaigns led to self evident improvement in the environment and could be, in the main, supported by science and evidence.

These successes were undoubtedly a fillip to the environment movement which saw expansion to the point where many groups became bigger and more influential than their traditional adversaries. For some perspective, at the time of the 2004 Australian federal election the environmental campaign spending of the major environmental organisations was three times the combined expenditure of Australian political parties.

There is nothing wrong of course with the environmental movement organising itself so that it has layers of administrative staff, media officers and a multitude of campaign directors to jet off to Copenhagen, purchase research vessels and take out full page campaign ads in major newspapers to further their ideals, providing they operate in a transparent, democratic manner for the public good. After all, much of the money used to finance these activities comes from the public.

Activities of the environment movement in Australia today display few of these attributes.

In a desire to maintain relevance - not to mention careers and balance sheets - there must always be a campaign to win, whether that is for the good of the environment or not. The low hanging fruit had already been harvested; to stay in business environmentalists became more ambitious.

Campaigns clearly in the common interest gave way to campaigns steeped in ideology.

The changes to native vegetation laws earlier this decade in New South Wales and Queensland saw a neat fit between the ideals of the Wilderness Society, state governments and a federal government keen to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, even though it did not even ratify this agreement.

Farms surrounded by protected forests.

Basically, the new laws prevented farmers, many of whom had occupied their properties for three or more generations, from clearing native regrowth. The laws also prevented new clearing. These state laws prompted by the federal government allowed it to claim it was meeting its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

On the face of it, this could appear to be a good environmental outcome. Not so. On 20 million hectares of western NSW and southern Queensland thousands of farming families are watching helplessly as native regrowth takes over their long cleared properties with near monocultures. Some properties are now 80 per cent covered with these thick stands of regrowth that preclude any understory or biodiversity. This was a result campaigned for by the Wilderness Society.

Not only is this a poor environmental outcome for significant areas of these two states leading to erosion and a lack of biodiversity, but the social outcomes are devastating as once viable properties will now not support farming families. One farmer from the Brindabella Ranges near Canberra, Peter Spencer, is perched ten metres up a communications tower on his property as you read this, 20 days into a hunger strike seeking compensation for the loss of property rights to satisfy an environmental campaign and the requirements of an international treaty regarded as a complete and utter failure in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Thousands of citizens of NSW and Queensland have been gutted on the altar of Kyoto and most Australians are not even aware of it. Wait until they see what a full blown emissions trading scheme can do.

Perhaps we can shrug that off as sacrifice for the common good? A Kyoto outcome financed wholly by struggling landholders, to satisfy green political agendas.

Major environmental organisations in Australia have a stated policy of stopping the harvesting of native forests and have worked incrementally towards this goal for more than 30 years, while at the same time campaigning for a ban on the importation of illegally harvested timber from other countries. It is well recognised that native forestry operations in Australia operate on world’s best practice that improves the management of our forest reserves while other countries do not. Surely it is better to provide timber and paper products that society craves under strict guidelines we can monitor, than to pursue an ideological agenda leading to increasing deforestation in overseas forests over which we have no control. Apparently not. Even though only 9 per cent of the forest reserve in Victoria is available for sustainable timber harvesting, under government supervision, campaigns to reduce this amount available continue.

There can be no good global environmental outcomes from the success of such a campaign, but it does mean another big tick win for Australian environment groups if they shut down sustainable timber harvesting in this country.

Campaigns to exclude timber harvesting and controlled, seasonal cattle grazing from the Riverina red gum forests of Victoria and NSW have already led to perverse environmental outcomes. This year four new national parks were declared in Victoria’s red gum forests along the Murray River, leading to the exclusion of seasonal cattle grazing which is the only effective means of reducing fine fuels in the forest of fire sensitive red gums. The Department of Sustainability and Environment conducted a small fuel reduction burn last year of 25 hectares that destroyed 80 red gum trees (PDF 1.33MB), some up to 500-years-old, in a known nesting site of the nationally vulnerable superb parrot. They recently conducted a 70-hectare burn near the Barmah township after townspeople agitated for fuel reduction via cattle grazing fearful of a repeat of Black Saturday firestorms coming from the 29,000-hectare forest nestled up against the township. This small burn appears to have killed more than 50 per cent of the red gum forest within the burn.

Aged trees are vulnerable to fire.

The conservation values of the forest have been sacrificed to the ideology that low intensity, controlled cattle grazing, practised in the Barmah forest for 150 years, is harmful to the environment. The Victorian National Parks Association, Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth who campaigned for the national parks and the exclusion of grazing, have not commented on the destruction of habitat trees - the very values they sought to protect.

If people are regarded as an integral part of the environment, certainly a core value of the Australian Environment Foundation, then the Wild Rivers legislation enacted by the Queensland government on the Cape York Peninsula at the behest of the Wilderness Society produces a perverse environmental outcome. This legislation has fractured the close relationship between environment groups and Indigenous people as it precludes small scale development by Indigenous people to overcome welfare dependency, on land they have cared for and occupied for millennia. Backroom political deals between the Bligh government and environment groups hid the extent of the protection sought by the legislation until the state election was completed. Open, transparent and democratic this was not.

Perhaps the greatest environmental and financial impact on the largest number of people in recent times has been the success of the environmental movements No Dams policy in Victoria over the last 20 years. All Victorians are paying the price for a policy induced water crisis imposed by a cabal of environment groups opposed to more dams. For sure, Victoria is in the grip of drought like much of Australia and this should have sharpened policy responses, but the Victorian government sat on its hands hoping it would rain, not daring to announce new dams or implementation of water recycling for potable supply, fearing political backlash. Captured by the environmental ideology it courted.

The political solution to this environmental crisis needs to be in place before Premier Brumby faces the electorate in November 2010.

The two major solutions, with a price tag of $5 billion, were the building of Australia’s largest desalination plant and the transfer of up to 75 gigalitres of water from the parched catchments of northern Victoria - a scheme first rejected by the Brumby government as too expensive, but embraced when it realised the desalination plant would not be in operation prior to the 2010 election. The irony is that environment groups oppose both of these solutions, which they helped bring about by their ideological campaign flatly opposed to more storage capacity.

Without a doubt these political solutions to Victoria’s water crisis are a result of a No Dams policy that had little merit in the face of state government intention to grow the Victorian population by another million people in the next few decades. Clearly, the environment and the Victorian taxpayer have been the losers in this public policy disaster driven by a green agenda.

However, our biggest test is yet to come is the introduction of an emissions trading scheme [ETS] that purports to limit the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a largely naturally occurring and essential element for life on earth, to stop climate change.

Despite the compelling lack of evidence to link man-made carbon dioxide emissions with constant climate change, the environment movement is in overdrive seeking the imposition of an ETS to bring about a change in our energy use.

Steam train visits the Granite Belt

Climate realists continue to push for open and transparent debate on the science used to justify reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and that is resisted at almost every turn. That they continue to seek empirical evidence is hardly surprising given the continuing exposure of manipulation and fraudulent data, such as the hockey stick graph (PDF 188KB), promoted so keenly in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report, but absent without explanation in the Fourth Assessment Report.

While efforts to find efficiencies in energy use and replacement forms of energy are to be applauded and supported, the introduction of the proposed, prostituted ETS will not provide a good environmental outcome but will divert massive resources away from genuine environment issues.

The notion that spending $120 billion to reduce Australia’s 1.5 per cent of emissions by 5 per cent is a good idea is preposterous.

Harking back to Peter Spencer and thousands of other hard working farming families that have been devastated by our compliance with the Kyoto Protocol and one could ask: for what gain? Political point scoring by the Howard government, aided and abetted by an indifference of city based media and the populace at large to an unseen and marginalised group in society. But, citizens of a supposedly fair and just Australia all the same. We have collectively basked in the righteous glow of meeting our Kyoto targets, while ignoring the cost borne on our behalf by rural communities.

Divide and conquer, incremental campaigns that see rural communities further marginalised with little fallout in city based electorates that are the green movement heartland, ambit claims and a willingness to distort the truth manifest itself in an attitude that the end justifies the means: this has unfortunately become the hallmark of environmental campaigning.

Environmental advocacy needs to return to an evidence based approach in order to serve people, communities and the environment, rather than ideological agendas promulgated by minority green groups practised in manipulating the political system to their own advantage.

Max Rheese is the Executive Director of the Australian Environment Foundation.

Thanks Max! When I photographed the rare sight of a steam train passing through Glen Aplin in September the Rural Fire Brigade had to wait at every crossing along the line to prevent the possibility of sparks igniting a fire. Why? Because the grass verges of the railway lines are no longer burned as regular maintenance.

Book Cover

Last week there were 80 bush fires out of control in New South Wales and several more in southern Queensland. Why? Is it because landholders are no longer able to maintain their country properties, as did their parents?

No doubt we will be told that those bush fires were due to Climate Change not due to Government changes forced on the people who live on the land.

You may read about the consequences of such a bush  fire in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and Wine.

helwig@halenet.com.au