A tale of two interviews + 1

Last Wednesday I agreed to do an interview with local ABC radio here at home. At 10.30, reporter Jess Hinchcliffe arrived and what a delight she was. A country girl from Rockhampton, I showed her  the garden and the chooks before we shared tea and cake with Hanno in the kitchen.  Then we settled down to talk for a while. The first part of her interview can be listened to here: ABC Radio. It will continue over a few weeks. I hope you enjoy it.

That interview was scheduled for 10.30 and while I was washing up at 9.30, the door bell rang. I opened the door to the two people standing there and said: "You're really early, I'm not ready."  The man replied: "We're not who you think we are. We're from the Department of Agriculture." Gulp. I let them in.

It turned out they'd read about me planting Sunny's seeds a while back and wanted to know if they'd been declared at the border. They had, Sunny has been in and out of Australia enough times to know the procedures. But they still took the seeds for checking and have just returned them to me. There is a huge problem with unchecked seeds being imported and they are potentially harmful to our environment. I told the inspector I'd put up a link to the database where seeds and plant material can be checked to see if they're allowed or not. Please use this database, particularly if you're importing seeds via eBay or any other overseas dealer.  We all love our gardens but have to abide by the rules that protect our local environments.

Here are the steps to access the database to discover the import conditions for a wide variety of goods, not just seeds or plants:

1. Go to - www.daff.gov.au
2. In the centre of the page click on – Importing to Australia
3. Then click on – ICON Import Conditions Database 
4. Then click on the word – ICON (which is highlighted)
5. The next screen asks for the Commodity, Country and End Use

If you enter, for example, Ginger, All Countries and All End Uses you are taken to a page which then lists the import conditions for a variety of ginger etc with the import conditions for each item. You then just click in the particular commodity that you want to import.

Please take care when importing anything. We live in a beautiful country and I'm sure that, like me, you want it to stay that way.

PLUS ONE: I also did an interview recently with Yours magazine. That is in this month's edition. :- )