Kentgrove opens to display innovative gardens and historic orchard

In 1840, the property Kentgrove in Goulburn was established as an orchard that had 30,000 fruit trees at its peak.

Doug Rawlinson, now owner of Kentgrove, says there were pears; apricots; plum trees, including damsons and quinces; the apples Snowy, Claygate and Scarlet Pearmain; Irish peach, Quarrenden and Gloria Mundi varieties; and cherry trees including White Heart, Napoleon Bigerreau, Florence Bigerreau, St Margaret, White Heart, Mary Duke and Tararian. In 1893 it was said Kentgrove had the biggest cherry tree in the world, measuring over 35 feet in diameter.

Jam from these fruits was made and packed at Kentgrove under the Argyle Jam label. The two-pound jam tins were made on site, the tin being beaten into shape by a small factory of workers. In the 1890s the jam was exported to England. The cannery still exists, though it was converted to a shearing shed in 1930 when Kentgrove was transformed into a sheep station with 3200 acres added to the property.

Doug Rawlinson's first association with the place was in 1955 when he was four years old and his father was employed to manage the sheep station. Fifty years later, in the middle of a drought that those of us in this district all recall, he bought the place he loved.

He has rearranged the water infrastructure and roadways and extended the fence lines, filled in old gullies and added stairs to the original two-storey stone stables with their underground seepage wells that are still operational.

This weekend, on November 1 and 2, you are invited to visit Kentgrove as part of the Goulburn Connects Sustainability Festival. There are formal and semiformal areas, a large rose garden, a native garden walk among large eucalypts and an English-style parkland on two acres.

Rawlinson says his main love is "sustainability in action", and an 800-square-metre tennis court was converted into a Victorian kitchen garden in January 2013. It follows many of the gardening principles and practices of Victorian England, when sustainability was the norm and estates supplied food for many people.

He has grown vegies since the age of seven but this is his first big garden after he spent 34 years in the nursery industry.

There are 80 different vegetables growing in the kitchen garden, some heritage/heirloom varieties and some modern: 50 dwarf fruit and nut trees, herbs, and 30 berry and grape vines. He raises half the plants from seed in a hot-house and buys the rest as punnets.

Rawlinson does most of the garden work himself, and his wife Sharon does some of the watering and harvesting, as well as cooking and preserving. He loves growing his own produce and sharing it with friends, and he encourages everyone to start with one veggie bed to discover that it is easy and fun to raise edibles.

Rawlinson has implemented "climate change gardening" using good old-fashioned gardening principles. He protects and conserves all micro-fauna such as bees, birds and other beneficial insects by having water, food and shelter for them all year. He works with all extremes of climate, using windbreaks to protect against wind storms, raised beds for good drainage against huge rain events, and plenty of water in dams and moving of water by gravity to manage drought. Most of the veggie patch is under shade cloth that protects crops - and himself - against heat waves.

Earlier this year Rawlinson embarked on an ambitious project to convert part of the cannery into a temperate rainforest room for increased food security and protection of fragile eco-systems. He did all the building, landscaping and design of its ponds, waterfalls and lighting and planting hundreds of rainforest and food-bearing plants.

OPEN DAYS:

Kentgrove, 67 Gorman Road, Goulburn opens November 1 and 2 from 10am to 4pm for Open Gardens Australia, entry $8, proceeds to local community action group The Goulburn Group. Plant sales by local Australian plants society; tea with homemade cakes served by CWA and Goldie's mobile cafe; permaculture and beehive displays; fire-prevention trailer; and raffle to win 30 bags of Curly's compost from Penrose (of which Rawlinson has used 15 cubic metres in the kitchen garden).

Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.