Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Lucy Mora - The Kitchen Garden
153 Plays3 years ago
Lucy Mora coined the Term 'Garden Mapper' after being approached to illustrate water colour maps of Australian gardens. After moving back to the country some years ago she got her hands in the soil perfecting the skill of edible gardening. - Lucy & host Mykal Hoare chat about combining her two passions illustration & Veggie Gardening to create her new book - 'The Kitchen Garden'
CLICK HERE FOR PATREON
________
Episode Links:
Lucy's Instagram - @thegardenmapper
Buy - The Kitchen Garden
________
Mykal's Links:
Instagram - @mykalhoare
Facebook - @mykalhoare
_______
Growing Media Links:
www.bringthejungle.com.au/pages/growing-media-podcast
Instagram - @Growingmediaaus
Facebook - @Growingmediaaus
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Independence
00:00:09
Speaker
Growing Media is a proudly independent podcast produced by me, Michael Hall, with zero corporate or network interference in our content. But this means we are running on the smell of an oily rag over here.
Supporting the Podcast
00:00:23
Speaker
So if you like the show and would like to make a small contribution, you could head over to our Patreon. You can find the link in our show notes.
00:00:33
Speaker
The producers of Growing Media recognise the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded and pay respects to Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging. Hello, I'm Michael Haw and welcome to another episode of Growing Media.
Acknowledgment of Land
00:00:54
Speaker
Lucy Mora has spent her life as an illustrator where she has found her niche as a garden mapper illustrating top-down maps
00:01:01
Speaker
of well-established Australian gardens. Bit of a dream job, right? After moving back to the country several years ago, Lucy got her hands into the soil and has become a wealth of knowledge in the veggie patch. The reason I wanted to chat with Lucy today is because she has combined her passions for both illustrating and her edible garden and is releasing a book called The Kitchen Garden, available today wherever you buy good books.
Lucy's Journey and Book Release
00:01:28
Speaker
Hi Lucy, how are you?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm good. How are you, Michael? I'm very good, thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. Oh, it was an absolute pleasure. Tell me, where did you grow up and what kind of childhood did you have? I grew up in Bunyondor, which is sort of north of the ACT, but it's in New South Wales. And I had a pretty nice upbringing. I come from a
00:01:54
Speaker
online of farming families. I'm seventh generation Australian. So basically, sort of sheep and cattle owners and, and, you know, I just grew up just going to the local school up until when I was 12. And then when I was 12, I went to a country boarding school. So quite a kind of nice and uncomplicated childhood, I'd have to say.
00:02:20
Speaker
Lovely. Of course, you would have left the country at some point and made your way to Melbourne.
Returning to the Countryside
00:02:26
Speaker
I did. I was actually really keen to get into the city. I was not inspired by staying
00:02:34
Speaker
in the country at all. I feel like when you grow up in the country that's sort of either same experience you just can't wait to like leap into city life. There's got to be so much something so much more exciting out there so I was on the hot pursuit for something more exciting and I went to art school in
00:02:53
Speaker
Sydney lived in Paddington and just absolutely loved it. And then I went to art school in London. So I definitely had submerged myself into a sort of like a city lifestyle and actually was it in the city right up until when I moved to Newstead only.
00:03:11
Speaker
seven years ago. So I had a good 20 or so years in the city. In the city. And it was returning to the country kind of feel like, did it feel like a homecoming? Did it feel like a breath of
Emotional Property Purchase
00:03:24
Speaker
fresh air? It was like the perfect time for me. I was just starting to yearn that sort of country life and that became way more attractive than city life. So I did a sort of switch over.
00:03:38
Speaker
You know, I was always sort of looking at country real estate, not even really. It was just like a fantasy trolley thing because I really hadn't even planned to move. Oh, my partner at the time, I said to him, let's go and have a drive in the country.
00:03:54
Speaker
and look at this property that's for sale that looks really amazing. And he was said the whole way going, are we buying this? So why are we even looking at this? And I was just sort of like, I don't even know why, I just felt very drawn to having a look. And even as we came through the front door, I said to the woman who was selling us, and it was actually her property, I said, oh, we're just looking, we're not even gonna buy, poor thing.
00:04:19
Speaker
Anyway, we sort of wandered through the house for a time. When we got to
Family Influence on Gardening
00:04:24
Speaker
the pantry, I just stood in there and I said to Julian,
00:04:29
Speaker
I have to have it. And then leading up to an orchard and then vegetable garden, I just like my just my heart's saying I just thought I have to be here. So we kind of like did this kind of crazy get together by a property together, which was sort of that was something we hadn't even really planned. So the house really brought us together in that respect. But we were yeah, it's just and just knew, you know, I haven't looked back.
00:04:58
Speaker
on living in the country. I just love it. It's one of those things, I think, living in the country that just either you love it or you hate it. And I think growing up in the country, it's one of those things that you just have in you. And there's almost an innate sense of it pulling you back, you know, getting its grips back into you. I think you need to have a kind of relationship with the country and the countryside and certainly growing.
00:05:25
Speaker
you know, just to live in the country is sort of like, maybe it should be, it would be all right, but for me, I need to be sort of involved in it, you know. Let's get back into that then. Who in your family growing up was the gardener? Well, my father was the gardener, but interestingly, he was, he only really was interested in, in lawns and trees. Ah, yeah. Our garden, which was very extensive,
00:05:54
Speaker
was very park like. And, and so he spent most of his time sort of mowing and raking. But I sort of up the road where my grandparents lived, they lived in a really big old homestead. And they had a full time gardener. And yeah, well, in actual fact, in this, you know, we're talking in the 70s. No one
00:06:24
Speaker
No one was really into gardening themselves, unless you were a sort of Italian. Yeah. Vegetable gardens weren't such a thing. But or big established old houses, you know, with their own gardener, they would have a vegetable garden. So it's kind of like it's not like this. It wasn't back then. It wasn't like everyone had a vegetable garden like so many people do now. It was a niche kind of thing.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, so my grandparents gardener was an old chap called Ernie, who was a sort of grumpy kind of fellow. And my cousins and I used to go and we'd always be down the hill to where the vegetable garden was and, you know, annoying him, no doubt. But I was just fascinated in sort of rows of cabbages. And I love that kind of kitchen garden order, you know, and he had it in spades, you know,
00:07:15
Speaker
So yeah, so that was sort of like, that's my influence, I suppose, as far as gardeners go, was probably mostly Ernie.
00:07:25
Speaker
Did he take you around as a child and show you the garden? Did he spend time with you in the garden? He used to, depending on what mood he was in. But some days he was cracking open pea pods for us and making us taste them and showing us how to pull up the carrots and that kind of thing, which was very memorable and quite nostalgic.
00:07:55
Speaker
about it.
Illustration Career Path
00:07:56
Speaker
So now your book The Kitchen Garden has over 130 hand illustrated pieces of individual art throughout it. Where did you find your love of art and watercolours? Yeah so the watercolours something that I just, I mean I wish it, I look at oil paintings and I just think I need to do that but can I struggle with it every time? So watercolours I seem to have
00:08:24
Speaker
quite a lot of control over when I'm using them. And, and, and I'm very keen with, with watercolours. I've been using them for many, many years. I don't use them in that sort of classical sense of like watering out and fading. I use them quite intensely.
00:08:42
Speaker
Of course, so the color on the paint on the page basically is probably thicker than a lot of people use it. And yeah, I like it. You know, it's always an instant neat way to look at them. They're all really neat person, but you don't have this kind of crazy studio, you can just pick that you can take your paints. It's like the size of, you know, your iPhone and some water and a couple of paint brushes and you can go anywhere. It's very versatile.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah. So how did you end up turning that into a career? I just sought out different careers just on the basis of illustrating. So I sort of prefer to call myself an illustrator rather than an artist. I don't know if that sort of feels less pressure to me. Yeah. And I
00:09:34
Speaker
In my first marriage, I was married to an art dealer and I sort of, I know the whole gallery side of things. And so I'm really, it didn't appeal to me. I just sort of took illustrating jobs for sort of like for cards and for designs, for t-shirts, sort of children's label. And I just seem to keep moving in different directions with it, but it's sort of like it's, you know, fundamentally, it's always illustrating.
00:10:04
Speaker
So at a certain point, then, you mesh your illustrating with your love of gardens.
Becoming a Garden Mapper
00:10:12
Speaker
You became a garden mapper. What is a garden mapper? Yeah, I kind of like feel like I sort of came up with that term. Yeah. Not sure. It kind of works. So basically, when I have been approached by several really quite established gardens,
00:10:34
Speaker
and people who own established gardens. For the first map that I did was a fellow who's turning 50, had a beautiful property on the Mornington Peninsula. And he asked me if I would do a garden map. And I just thought, wow, I'd love to. One, it was an absolutely amazing garden. And two, I just love the whole idea of that. So I said to him that I have never won for being absolutely accurate.
00:11:03
Speaker
I'm just, it's more to me, it's more like a garden portrait, to be honest. It's a very, it's loose and it's fluid, and I like it to have the feel of the garden. So it sort of stands out differently from any sort of landscapers, drawings. They're quite kind of structured and formal. They're mine art, mine have much more of a flow to them and- There's more of a soul of the garden in them then.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And that's what really what my clients are after. That's that. But they take they take a very long time. I mean, the gardens I've worked in have been quite extensive. And, you know, it'll take me up to two months. And often I'm having to be in the garden. So I like to sort of be situated
00:11:52
Speaker
there. So which is, which is fantastic as well. Do you do the entire illustration from the garden or do you sort of spend like a few days there? And then I start off with kind of like any, any sort of structural drawings that the owners might have, I take them on board and then I get my professional drone pilot and get photographs of the garden. And then I just sort of like
00:12:21
Speaker
situate myself in the garden and I work on sections and I walk through it and then go back and paint that sort of section. It really is quite beautiful. In your book you describe yourself as an eager recipient of the wisdom given to you by some of the head gardeners at these gardens.
Learning from Gardeners
00:12:42
Speaker
What is some of the wisdom that has really stuck with you?
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like, oh, I love, I love gardeners. Gardeners are always. They're good people, hey. Yeah, they really are. And they just, um, and you know, you always sort of like, I would often sit with them for their morning tea breaks. I mean, these gardens have, for the ones I was, I have worked in, have like several gardeners, like have head gardener and then they have two or three other workers as well. So it's always sort of like a morning tea that breaks and you know, it's like the tin mug and the
00:13:15
Speaker
handmade biscuits. And, and it's just really nice conversation always about plants. And so for me, it was just sort of like, amazing just to sort of sit and listen and, you know, just to talk about it's usually about rare plant types and, and, and also getting rid of things in a garden as much as planting things. It's sort of like, it's just sort of forever evolving.
00:13:44
Speaker
And then these gardens really do need a team of people to look after them. They just, um, this is, there's a lot to it. Yeah. So, so immense. So what do you have any names that you can drop? What, which gardens are we talking about? I can, I'm sure I can say, um, Kranlana, which is a, um, it's actually a city garden in Turak, um, Melbourne, and it's the Meyer family's garden. And it's, they were doing a hundred years celebration of the Meyer family.
00:14:13
Speaker
And this house has been sort of, you know, the center of everything. It was Sydney Meyer and Dame Merlin Meyer's home back in the, I think it was the, so it's 100 years old anyway. I had a very, very famous landscape designer called Harold Des Brown Aeneir. And he's very well known as a sort of like a really good landscaper,
00:14:42
Speaker
you know, back in the day. That was that was an amazing project. And I actually was installed in the little pool house. Well, I did that one. I also worked on Corial, which is a beautiful gothic revival style house that has been restored by the Williams family. And
00:15:09
Speaker
It's on the Bellarine Peninsula. It's an 1850s house, and they're developing the garden, really. But there's some significant big trees and things, as they always is. And I've done another one in Shoreham, which was a beautiful, established garden that the house had burnt down at some point, and they'd rebuilt something, that the garden was
00:15:36
Speaker
was the thing that was very special about that place. Yeah, so that's sort of, and I've got another one in Dalesford that I'm about to start, which is like a, it's the craft house and garden style of house.
00:15:58
Speaker
Fantastic. Yeah.
Veggie Garden Challenges
00:16:00
Speaker
So, in 2014, you, as you mentioned, moved back to the country to Newstead. Over the last few years, with, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic and all of that, I feel like there has been a big move back to the country from, you know, young people, younger families searching for a simpler life. Now, when you moved back to the country, how did you get back into veggie gardening specifically?
00:16:29
Speaker
Well, for me, it was sort of like I just couldn't wait to actually get going with it. And I remember... Oh, look, I knew so little about vegetable gardening. I just laugh now when I think about it. Yeah. Which is actually why it's been easier to write the book, because I kind of like, I know all the pitfalls that you can face when you don't actually know what you're doing. Yes. I think I had four raised garden beds sitting there and there was just nothing much in them.
00:16:59
Speaker
Um, and so I sort of like, you know, went out and bought my ceilings and sort of like put them in and stuff. And I was just like, nothing really was happening. Um, which I found really frustrating. So I was just like bought every garden book and read everything I could and soon discovered that it was sort of like, you know, I needed to get into the,
00:17:19
Speaker
I needed to change the soil. The soil was so bad. And once I sort of started triggering, all these sort of things started happening in the watering, how I watered, we have really hot summers here. And I think what I used to just kind of like, you know, just wiggle the hose over the
00:17:36
Speaker
over the garden bed and then flip it over to the next one and you know just like that next start of watering it's just like a complete waste of water basically there's nothing for your plant yeah yeah that's why I just kind of like it just kept reading more more and more experiencing more working out what grows around here working out when to grow things
00:17:57
Speaker
Um, it was, um, it just, it just kind of, the knowledge just kind of evolved as I, um, the more I did it. One thing that stuck out to me with your book was how strong the sense of seasonality in it is. How important is seasonality to your gardening and to your kitchen for that matter? Yeah. Well, it's sort of like, it's, I, you know, cause
00:18:20
Speaker
you can go to the greengrocer or the supermarket and see everything's available. And I like being a really good lesson to learn about when things are in season. And it's very important that you know this when you do your shopping, because the prices are going to be lower and the tastes are going to be better. And they haven't traveled for miles to get to you. So to understand the seasons with vegetables is a really important one.
00:18:50
Speaker
The book also is for sale overseas. So I needed to make it so that it was strictly seasons rather than months. And and it's just sort of like, you've just you've got to sort of keep ahead of the game a bit when you vegetable growing, because if you miss your your window where you're supposed to have planted out your seeds or your seedlings, you know,
00:19:20
Speaker
Forget it. You've got no hope. Oh, yes, that's right. Cauliflowers are in season. You cannot suddenly go plant a cauliflower. So you need to have thought about that 12 weeks before with the cauliflower, especially. So yeah, so it's sort of like planning, I suppose, planning around the seasons. I, for instance, it's winter now and I had all my winter vegetables planted.
00:19:47
Speaker
which is kind of like that. I always find that really hard because the, the kind of summer ones hold on for quite a while and you don't feel like ripping the whole lot out just so you can get your
Gardening Mishaps
00:19:58
Speaker
winter ones in. But sometimes you just kind of like have to just so you get. So, um, but, um, I did have all of mine planted out and they were looking good. And then the chooks have decided they've got some wings that they can use and they flew over the fence and
00:20:15
Speaker
They've eaten a lot, so that'll be enough. There's too cold to plant, anything else. What a shame. It took some of those things that you love, but then every now and again, you know, something like that happens and you go, oh. Yeah, or it's sort of like a possum has been digging great big holes in the bit. I mean, these are all the things you can face.
00:20:33
Speaker
when you've got a vegetable garden. So it's like endless attacks from wildlife. Yeah, yeah, pests and all sorts. I ended up with my veggie patch at my place, fully enclosing it. It's not huge, but just fully enclosing it just to try and keep. We have a massive possum family about and they just raid everything that we ever planned. So how do we dig in holes in mine? It's very strange. So it's like maybe a nice little cozy spot to
00:21:03
Speaker
spend the night or something. One thing I loved about the book was that you have on the one page or you know in the one little section you go from how to grow the plant right through to how to use the plant in the kitchen.
Book Format: Gardening and Cooking
00:21:21
Speaker
How did that format come about? Why was that so important for you? Because it's not just a straight gardening book, it's not just a cooking book, it kind of is this beautiful fusion.
00:21:30
Speaker
Oh, thank you. I think you need to make things simple when it's like it is a user guidebook. It's not just like a pretty book. There's so much information in there. It needed to be sort of formatted in some sort of way. And my original sort of like brief with the publishers was Tencent Hudson.
00:21:57
Speaker
wanted something that was basically gardening and I kept on saying, no, I have to have a recipe as well. Sorry. We need to take it through. We need to take it through to, to using the produce. Just like it works really well. I'm really, really pleased with the formatting. It's just, I'm not, I'm using it myself. So, you know, when I'm sort of, you know, remind myself of what is needed or when to plant, I'm clicking through it. It's very, very easy to use.
00:22:27
Speaker
I can vouch for that. It's very practical, very easy to use, beautifully laid out. The illustrations are stunning. Thank you. It's really nice. It's a really lovely book and I really would encourage anyone out there who is a new vegetable gardener or is someone who knows what they're doing to grab the book and have a look at it. It's a great wealth of
Companion Planting Benefits
00:22:50
Speaker
knowledge.
00:22:50
Speaker
You know, you've got a whole section in there about companion planting. We all know, you know, we always hear these things about companion planting, you know, you got to do it, blah, blah, blah. But what are some of the benefits when you can actually get it right? Well, it's one of the great benefits is that you can use far less insecticides or I don't tend to use insecticides ever.
00:23:15
Speaker
It's really it's true that the kind of like a certain insect will be kind of like distracted by marigolds or any other sort of plant that you might be growing alongside another. And the other thing is they can often provide a certain amount of shade for another plant beside it or it's a really useful tool. Most kitchen gardeners will use its
00:23:44
Speaker
It's definitely worth reading that chapter on how to work with the Canadian plantings. Yeah, it's a really good chapter and it's very clear and easy to follow, which I love. You touched on it just before. How do you intend the book to be used? Yeah, I really feel, I'm really hoping it's for the novice actually, because I think anyone who's massively experienced probably will go, oh yeah. But someone who's learning will just like get so much from it.
00:24:15
Speaker
But as you know, I would have to say I'm an experienced vegetable gardener now, and I still need to refer. So I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's a lot of information in there that's going to appeal to anyone who's just interested. Well, you know, if you want to inspire someone, I think it'll have a broad audience.
00:24:37
Speaker
Well, I think it does. When I was having a look through it, I thought, you know, there's so much information in here that, yeah, sure, I might, you know, know, but it is that refresher that's really great to read sometimes. Sometimes I think with gardening, you just need to read things numerous times before it actually kind of sinks in, in well. I mean, I haven't been vegetable gardening for, you know, eons, but for a good, you know, four years now. And there's still things that, you know, doesn't, don't work out for me and doesn't go to play.
00:25:05
Speaker
I have spectacular fails. Don't worry. It's how you learn, right? Yeah, absolutely. My tomatoes, for instance, this last summer were absolutely pitiful.
Tomato Gardening Challenges
00:25:22
Speaker
I had the exact same thing here, but we just had basically no summer. It was just raining the whole time. But you can have sunlight, I don't think. Yeah, no, we were dark. You had a very kind of
00:25:34
Speaker
overcast summer, didn't you? Yeah, I read somewhere that apparently we only had nine days of actual sun in the Blue Mountains. Yeah, I didn't, I couldn't, I, all my capsicums would kind of like, they all came up beautifully. They're all big and green on the vine, but then they need a lot of sun to turn them red. Yeah. So I think I got one red, like in the, by the time, you know, they just never turned red all the other
00:26:02
Speaker
they were still green. So, you know, you're right. There is there are certain things that you know, you know, you discover as you go, that my tomatoes were just terrible. And I feel like my soil probably has probably got enough bad fungus or whatever going on in the soil from from because you can never plant tomatoes in the same spot. You have to keep rotating beds.
00:26:32
Speaker
and rest beds for a few years but I actually think I need to take the tomatoes out of my soil completely for the next couple of years so I will have to create completely new garden beds for them.
00:26:43
Speaker
You know, in your book, you've actually got a section which I think is great. You know, it tells you what you can put into pots. So, you know, tomatoes would be great in pots. Well, that's exactly what I'll be putting mine into those wonderful kind of sacks that you can buy, which are which are fabulous. You can actually imagine what's great about them is that you can move them around and, you know,
00:27:05
Speaker
If you're going to get an absolutely stinking hot day, you can actually protect them better by dragging them out to somewhere cooler. Or if it's like you're hardly getting any sun, you can put them in the sun. So you can kind of like, you can turn planting can be useful even to someone who has acres of land. Absolutely. So what's your favorite produce to grow?
Advice for Growing Tomatoes
00:27:28
Speaker
Tomatoes. Tomatoes. I absolutely love it. I love all the varieties.
00:27:32
Speaker
I love them as it's probably my favorite food anyway is a tomato, tomato on toast just that'll be that's you know my idea as good as it is. Especially homegrown heirloom varieties you can't get better flavor can you? No you really can't and just like I just encourage everyone to grow their own tomatoes I mean even if you just if you're just not very confident just start with cherry tomatoes you know they've
00:27:59
Speaker
They just go crazy. Go berserk, yeah. Take us through your garden process. So you make your own compost. You've planted your soils set and ready. You've planted your seeds. What do you do for your plants in terms of fertilizing? I liquid a lot, which I think is important. And that, you know, that can be, you know, fish emulsion or
00:28:25
Speaker
And or you can just use weeds and make a sort of like a tea weed. So just like a big garbage bin full of weeds and then just put water in on it and let it sit for a few weeks and then just pour it into a watering can and water your garden. All these things are wonderful, especially things like nettles, which will come up a lot in sort of winter months. But I think liquid feeding is really
00:28:55
Speaker
important thing to do. And also just sort of setting up your watering system well. Your watering system is good. How often would you be liquid feeding? Once a week, once a fortnight? In the summer months there's, I would do it
00:29:16
Speaker
Once a week, definitely once a week. It just gives the plants a lot of strength to survive the heat and stronger, healthier plants will have less insects attacking them. Every single day you need to be kind of like nurturing and tending. So what gives you the most joy in the garden?
Joy of Harvesting and Sharing
00:29:43
Speaker
I think it's sort of like the most joy is picking your produce and just sort of like, you know, you've got your truck under your arm and then you're just like picking it and you're thinking, okay, what am I going to have to, you know, these are the, you know, the zucchinis are looking amazing. I'm going to do, you know, zucchini task or something simple. It's the thing about when you've got a vegetable garden, the system might just
00:30:11
Speaker
just cook simply, you'll have all the flavor and taste because the quality of the vegetables are so much better than what you buy in the supermarket. So it's just sort of like, it's just as simple as you can. And that's what gives me the most joy anyway. It's just like, you know, and I get a truck of vegetables in the kitchen and I'm just like, I marvel over it every single day when I do.
00:30:37
Speaker
I can't pick up an eggplant and I go, I can't believe I grew this. I still feel like that. It's like a big, real eggplant. And then also to give vegetables out to neighbours and friends who come. People love it, absolutely love it. Oh yeah. And I think that's half the joy in gardening is sharing the produce and sharing your little wins with other people. Lucy, thank you so much for your time today. Actually, it's a Michael.
00:31:09
Speaker
Well there you have it. That was Lucy Mora chatting about her new book released today called The Kitchen Garden. You can pick that up wherever you get good books and I really strongly suggest that you do. It's just a great reference book. I have been flicking through the pages planning for spring.
00:31:29
Speaker
Now, thanks for joining me today, guys. I've been your host, Michael Haw.
Connecting and Supporting the Podcast
00:31:33
Speaker
Of course, as always, you can catch up with us on Instagram at Growing Media Oz. I'm Michael Haw on Instagram, M-Y-K-A-L-H-O-A-R-E. And of course, don't forget to tell your best buds about us. And it'd mean the world to me if you could leave us a quick little review on iTunes or wherever you source this podcast. All right, hooroo, see you in a month.