The Ripe Blog

A Productive Backyard Surprise

Submitted by Ripe Near Me on 3rd April 2015

Tangerine Meg is an artist and graphic designer living in suburban Adelaide with her husband, adult son and 2 orange cats. Meg's thing is Bold Art for Bold Souls – her favourite subject matter includes fruit, veggies and flowers from the garden.

 

We spoke with Tangerine Meg about her abundant, backyard garden, and what she shared with us makes for a great read!

 

What kind of garden do you have?

It looks like a standard garden from the street - with non edibles and a lawn that would love to be watered more often - but the back garden is a productive surprise! Following the fence of our relatively small backyard is a linear orchard of 21 fruit and nut trees and an enthusiastic grape vine. In between the trees we have a yellow daisy, lemon verbena, green onions, a few roses and some sages. I haven't done much lately with veggies (haha, thank goodness for the Farmers Market).

 

How long have you been growing food, and what got you started?

I've been growing food and flowers since I was little, my parents always had a little section of garden for us kids. I loved visiting my grandparents farm while on holidays in Queensland, seeing and smelling the passionfruit, mangoes and other wonders of their tropical orchard. At their home we picked strawberries and baby tomatoes by the dozen. 

 

What inspired you to share your produce on RipeNear.Me?

The crops that come from our trees - particularly the stone fruit - are generous and seem to ripen all at once! We are lucky to have lots of juicy produce to find good homes for.

While I would love to eat any and all amounts of stone fruit, right now I can eat just one or two pieces. It kind of breaks my heart, but keeps my IBS-like digestion happy & well!

 

 

 

Before RipeNear.Me, what did you do with excess fruit/veg?

Keep our eye on the fruit, until the week everything on the tree was ripening almost at once and frantically try to off load bucket loads of fruit onto unsuspecting family and friends! We're ok that the birds took some, but do enjoy sharing fruit with humans, too!

 

Your best RipeNearMe experience so far?

I enjoyed the RipeNearMe introductory event & food swap at Burnside Town Hall (where Sophie Thompson and Costa Georgiadis spoke along with Alistair and others). I've since met several lovely people, kindred spirits visiting to collect our excess fruit! I'd also like to mention: the ripenear.me website is straighforward to use... now I can easily click the “Ripe” button to announce when fruit is ready.  

 

What advice would you give to others thinking of sharing or selling their produce?

Go for it – join in! I think RipeNear.Me is the way of the future. By facilitating sharing the basic human need of fresh local food in a fake food laden world, this app in particular supports us moving towards a healthier - and more interwoven - community.

 

Anything else you'd like to add?

Haven't the RipeNear.Me team done a fantastic job of making a good idea come to life as an app? My hat is off to them! I happen to know they have other benefits coming soon too – stay tuned! 

 

 

---

 

Visit Tangerine Meg's art website - you can even download free art printables - there are bright bookmarks and a Reading Girl Bookplate PDF available this very moment!

 

Would you like to share your experiences on RipeNearMe's blog? Contact us and have a chat.