If you need fresh food in a few days, start growing sprouts. You don’t need a garden or any gardening skill to succeed, just view this beginner’s guide first:

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1857237.htm

When the time comes to re-start growing food at home on freshwater flood-affected ground, pay some attention to your soil first. View flood recovery at:

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2546533.htm

If your garden has been affected by saline king tides, here are some tips and tricks for restoring the balance in your patch at:

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2570782.htm

My place may look like the tide just went out, but ‘Bellis’ has been lucky. So far.

‘Bellis’ is 11 metres above sea level. Over the past 40 wet days my garden has mopped up almost a metre of rain (958mm).

So few summer crops have suffered in the wet, it’s hard to believe. But testing times like these demonstrate the value of improving the soil and drainage. Together they act as a buffer against extreme wet and dry.

‘Bellis’ soaks up water like a big sponge and only oozes stormwater to Wynnum Creek that has occasionally raged at the end of my street.

Forest-style gardens and thickly planted native gardens around here have also soaked up, not shed, water.

2011 looks to be the year of the cocoyam.

Jerry Coleby-Williams
13th January 2011