Spring Veggie Garden - basic course

I ended up having less time than I thought I did: 90 minutes rather than 2 hours.

Then the level of skill/experience was greater than I anticipated, so it pretty much ended up just being me trying to answer questions in some kind of context.

INTRODUCTIONS

Name, gardening experience, why you're here

* why do you want to create a garden?
- go around and have people offer reasons
-> why you want to create a garden will vary the kind of garden you want to build and how you want to develop it/maintain it

* What I am going to teach in this course is *modular*. You are not required to use any and all of it. Think of it as *guidelines* rather than *rules*.

Answers I expect.
- a garden for exploration
- growing vegies to show what can be done
- food stability and staples
- pleasure and enjoyment
NB: more than one of these things can be true at the same time

Course was originally aimed at educators - is this still the case? I will be addressing some of the generalities in early education.

1. How much garden do you want?
- enough to grow your veggies?
- as much as you can comfortably manage: a couple of hours a week? a couple of hours a day?

2. What to grow in your garden?
- whatever you will eat
- whatever the wildlife won't eat!
- how much time do you have to maintain it? (note: weeds are plants that have found a niche they can exploit)

3. Where to put it?
- somewhere you'll see it every day and which is easy to maintain
- somewhere with good sun and good water: talk about 'good sun' in Australia, coupled with the conversation about water and water conservation
- soil quailty? Soil can be made, but the direction of the sun and where structures are can't usually be changed

4. food for your garden and your garden for food
- soil, composts, worm farms, worm towers
- "food" for the garden: also "inputs" into the garden's productivity - eg. companion planting/pollinators
- flowers and not just food

5. three legs of a garden
- plants for human food
- plants for soil food
- plants for pollinators

BREAK - things to eat

6. Practicalities of gardening
- weeds: the site and how to deal with weeds - "pull, outcompete, suppress" - make it so there's no space for the weeds to grow.
- water: ollas, mulch and ground covers, composting trenches
- pests: bugs that eat (predatory insects), birds (cockatoos, etc.), possums and rats, and human
- time and energy: do things in 'units of work' - mark off a space for working in, then lay out that space.

I thought I was a bit scatty, but everyone else seemed to think it was great and they came away with info they didn't have before.

Dear Diary - 13th September 2023

Well, that's been a while.

WEATHER:

The nights are still pretty cold - less than 10C - but the days are in the twenties, and we're due for some 30C+ day temps this weekend.

RAIN

Not much. A couple of storms, half a day of some downpour, and otherwise...very little regular. And we're heading into hot-and-dry season.

CHOOKS:

In August, Goong was in clucky mode for the usual two weeks, came out of it, laid an egg, hasn't done much since. Siyao and Carambah are laying every couple of days. Chouquette's comb is getting red, but she's still not laying!

They get really grumpy when they're not let out of the yard - Chouquette in particular gets exceedingly vocal. Admittedly right now they only have one part of the yard to run around in - I'm trying to grow things in the yard on the other side. Not so successfully, admittedly. Once the chooks get in there, it's really quite difficult to grow anything else.

OBSERVATIONS

APRICOTS are not flowering - again. Interestingly, CHERRY has a branch that looks like it's going to do some blossoms, but that's the only one. The PEACHES and NECTARINES are as usual. PERSIMMON appears to be the 'off' year (biennial, I believe). FOUR-APPLE early grafts aren't flowering at all and the late ones don't seem to be budding either. The TROPICAL DORSETT graft on the DELICIOUS is doing a second flowering.

AVOCADO is back in flower again - still harvesting avos off it, need to pick up the pace. MULTI-CITRUS still has some of the smaller orange fruit on it (and an orange or two). MAKRUT LIME had a huge harvest, but I think it's falling prey to some kind of scale infestation, which need to be treated ASAP. (White oil.)

Big BLUEBERRY is in full flower, medium is half-flower, baby is still stuck in a teeny tiny pot, and the newbie I got given by mum is still sitting in its pot.

Have some SPINACH ends from the shop, but they have this white dust all over them. I washed the dust off when I cooked the original spinach, but i set the spinache ends in water and picked one out today...and it's got all this white dust again! Anyway, after a quick Google, I discovered that the white dust things are trichomes, and they're part of the way spinach grows! How interesting! Okay, good to know - I was thinking it was a mite infestation or something like that!

PREPARATION:

PLUM-STONE: get bed frame wired and into place. Plant out spinach ends.

APPLE-CREPE: eat the brassicas and peas, take frame off, get bed frame wired and into place. Put chooks on for a few weeks.

CREPE-APRICOT: get bedframe wired and into place. Plant CORN, CUCUMBERS, BEANS

APRICOT-AVO: flower meadow (that was the plan, unfortunately the girls getting out and scratching around in it means it's not doing so well right now).

AVO-SHED: Get bedframe wired and into place. Plant...something that doesn't need too much sunlight...

PLANTING

TEA CAMELLIAS and WHITE SHAHTOOT MULBERRY need to be planted out into bigger pots. So do the PINEAPPLES (3).

I planted out a whole slew of seeds during August, with the intent of taking them along to the course I'm teaching this Saturday. Some of it will be planted in the community garden where I'm doing the course, but I'll probably hand out the excess to the participants.

CARE:

TOMATOES that over-wintered need some trimming back and feeding/mulching.

RIPENING

Brassicas all over the place.

HARVEST

Avocados and oranges, mostly. Could do makrut lime shampoo if I had the time/exec function to get on with it.

CARROTS and BEETROOT are harvested. The beets (golden detroit) are super tasty and I regret giving the ones I had away! Carrots are decent, but I already gave away three bunches. Unfortunately the PARSNIPS are disappointing: there wasn't any frost to make them sweet, so they're mostly just starches. I'll harvestthem from the bathtub in the next few weeks, then scatter BASIL seed there as I usually do.

PRUNING

Everything's pretty much pruned back, but the runner grass on the back path needs pulling up and disposing ASAP.

THOUGHTS

TO DO:
treat scale on MAKRUT LIME (possibly also on PERSIMMON?)
properly pot two BLUEBERRIES
properly pot WHITE SHAHTOOT MULBERRY
properly pot TEA CAMELLIA
trim back TOMATOES from overwintering and feed.

This Saturday I am teaching a course at a local community garden, run by the next council over. It's a little terrifying; I can rabbit on quite easily, but I don't know if I want to - it's about learning and drawing people out. There's a garden bed at the community garden that I can plant out and which I've kind of agreed to take over for the next few months - it'll be something of a community plot, possibly also an example of what can be done in a small space. I'm kind of excited but also mildly terrified!

I might make another post with my notes.

Diary - 15th July, 2023

WEATHER:

Sunny and dry. Warmer, no bite in the morning - my car said 25C at midday.

RAIN

None for weeks.

CHOOKS:

All seem pretty happy and healthy. Goong has a red comb, Siyao's is pretty red, too. Caramabah is still demanding food all the time, and Chouquette isn't showing signs of going into lay. Chouquette comes close and allows me to pet her, but it's more a "where's the food, no food? no pets" kind of attitude.

OBSERVATIONS

Some major cracks in the front yard. Going to contact a plumber about having a look into them with one of those long and flexible cameras. If I can find one to come do the work.

One of the brick pylons under the house is rather less-than-straight. The middle one on the eastern side of B1's bedroom is not perfectly plumb, like it's gently being pushed over. I don't know if it was always like that or has only been in the last couple of years. The problem is that I didn't notice these things before and I'm noticing them now. It's one of the reasons why observation is so important, I guess.

Native bees are back and active on the warmer days. Very still and quiet on the colder ones, and I try to remember to cover them up a little on the cold nights, then open them up so they won't grow mould. But they're active and involved and seem to be doing well.

The TWO-STONE and DUAL-STONE are in flower. The TROPIC DORSET on the Golden Delicious APPLE is setting buds ready to bloom.

The TOMATOES in the bed under the TWO-STONE tree are generally dying - we had some frost, and although I had the old window screens up to give them a bit of a buffer, the one on the south blew off and I think that the tomatoes that would have been otherwise protected by them are now dying.

PREPARATION:

Green mulch. Need to plant out some green mulch in the summer beds. And I just realised that I prepped some COWPEA mulch for the back beds...and forgot that the stuff is for summer mulch. I guess I can plant it and see what survives, but I don't really like the chances. I should have prepped the Woolly Pod Vetch but that stuff can get weedy really easily and I didn't want to risk it. *sigh* Well, we'll plant the COWPEA and see how it does.

PUMPKIN-POTATO bed should probably be green-mulched.

PLANTING

Today, I planted out four ASPARAGUS ferns into the LOWER STEP BED. I've been trying to grow things in that bed for years and the only thing that really grows there are weeds. But the asparagus grows fine in the upper beds with some fertilising and watering, so I'm doing it. Also put the THYME in there from Wormticklers, and tossed down a lot of MUSTARD. To finish it off, I need to put down the remaining pea-straw from the pack.

I was thinking about fertilising the UPPER STEP BED with matured chook manures collected from the coop back when there were blood mites - I think it was 2021? Going to have to look back at the diary for that. But because I associate this manure with the mites, I'm nervous about putting it on the garden, even though it's a long way from the chooks. Just gotta bite the bullet I guess and do it. Get past the fear, etc.

I also planted PARSNIPS under the apples, both the FOUR-APPLE and the GOLDEN DELICIOUS. Less for the roots themselves, more for the greens and the flowers and the promise of pollinators and pest-control. (If they flower.) Probably should have also done daikon and beetroot, just to break up the soil some.

RIPENING

Still the oranges and I think they're tangerines? The ALPINE STRAWBS have been doing their thing pretty well.

HARVEST

BROCCOLI leaves. I need to remember to cook the BROCCOLI leaves! Occasional TOMATOES from the westernmost bed in the TRIANGLE GARDEN.

PRUNING

Did the RASPBERRY PATCH a couple of weeks ago, trimming most of it down and clipping up most of the canes. I didn't really check for spring/autumn canes, and now I need to toss down a bunch of manure and maybe some hay/mulch to give it some feeding before the spring.

Backyard AVOCADO needs pruning down, snip off the tops of the tree. Needs it soon because it's starting to sprout again and I think the next round of flowers are likely to be coming...

The bush of THAI BASIL and the SALVIAS out the front need serious haircuts and soon. Now's a good time to do it, the flowers on the stone fruit trees and the Golden Dorset branch will keep the bees occupied.

THOUGHTS and PLANS

With the weather looking very fine, I could probably make the wooden seats in the next couple of weekends.

I want to set up potable water collection off the roof - I should probably look into that sustainable house in the inner west, find out what they did and how they did it and whether it's replicable here.

There's a part of me that wants to die very fast and very soon. I'm good for it, no real regrets, no need to live forever. But also, there's a part that would like to see what I've developed here go to someone who wants to use it, not just someone who'd bulldoze the lot and build a McMansion.

house woes

Climate change is affecting our house.

We're hardwood frame, fibro on brick columns, with clay a mere half-metre down. With the drought and rain and drought, the clay is shrinking and shifting, and we're seeing cracks starting in the internal plaster.

Cracks in internal plaster isn't awful, but it's not great, either. Some shifting is not unexpected given the new windows and given the drought-rain-drought pattern of the last decade. I'm almost certainly going to have to do some light internal repairs and deal with the shifting.

I have the awful feeling that I'm going to pay off the mortgage, only to find myself dealing with house issues for the rest of my existence...

I guess that's kind of how it goes, though.

2023 - permabee

WHEW.

Permabee done!

It was a long day - from 10am until about 5pm. A few people left at lunchtime or just after, but the stalwarts stayed on until sundown to finish up the projects to a point where I could manage them myself (sort of). So we didn't get everything done to completion, but we made headway, and I'll take that!

Lunch was a hit - two soups (a Spiced Carrot Soup from a recipe book and a Roasted Thai Carrot & Sweet Potato soup) plus homemade bread (dutch oven, yeast-risen), plus banana bread, and other things people brought/made.

The compost bays are done, reduced in size to be smaller and more manageable. I think the back is hardwood, so that should last a decent while.

To do on Thursday get some lids on the bays - I have some roofing metal, and some wood that can be used as framing - because we have a rainy week in the offing.

The chook tunnels are 80% done - the sides are anchored in the ground, a section of the top is done, but I need to finish off the rest, which I can do myself over the coming week.

to do Thursday: cut/trim all the top sections so they're the right fit.

The garden beds got only about 50% done. The sides are prepped and cut into lengths, I have to drill them into the stakes for the corners and set them into place (sometimes digging down to get them in and level-ish).

to do Friday: take out the old, rotting wooden pieces from the garden, get the screws out (where possible) and put them on the verge for special trash collection.

to do Saturday: set up at least one garden bed, to give an idea of what needs to be properly done, and so I can work out the fitting of the chook tractor over the garden beds.

Not done: chipping the remainder of the tree branches, spraying the trees, fixing up the chook tractor. Ah well, I hoped but didn't expect.

That said, I really need to spray the trees ASAP.

Next things to do:
Clean out the blue water barrels
finish chipping the wood
fix up the wheelbarrows

dear diary: 3rd June - spraying

Sprayed the fruit trees today - Lime Sulphur
Peaches & Stonefruit was 20% solution
Apples was 10% solution
And just for kicks I also did the frangipani (1%) which has rust on its leaves and is probably spreading it everywhere through the garden

Gotta do it again in a week.

Then the week after, the Copper Spray

I think at least one of the trees shouldn't be sprayed with one of the sprays. I think it's the apricots with Copper spray.

Permabee is going ahead - new chicken tunnels! Maybe new garden beds.

"Grocery? No, Sirree!" challenge

My sister is going away for two months as of next Monday, and in her absence I'm thinking about doing a no-grocery challenge.

It's simply this: I buy no groceries until she's back. I have to live off what's in the pantry, fridge, freezer, and garden until she returns. That includes staples.

Now, this isn't a hardship, just constraining. We have a pantry that is absolutely BURSTING with foodstuffs and all it would take to work through it is a little organisation. And maybe a slightly less elevated palate.

I have soups and stews, tinned food of all types and kinds, various containers of frozen fruits and vegies, a lot of frozen meat (if that freezer goes down we are SO SCREWED), the chooks lay eggs, and if I plant some leafy greens now, I could cook those (although I could also use the Okinawa spinach which is growing crazy next to the carport). There's almost certainly sweet potato in the ground, too, which I just have to dig out. And it would make me think beyond my usual diet, which is very 'typical Australian' (I do love my meat).

I have canned and pickled and dried fruit - peaches, apricots, nectarines, apples - and some bought jars (morello cherries), and it's citrus season (oranges on the tree, limes from the neighbours, I'm pretty sure I could find some locals who'd just give me a couple of lemons if I needed), so I'm not going to get scurvy...probably.

The pantry has cooking and baking staples; if I had to make bread, I have yeast. There's dried pasta (and I can make it fresh with eggs and flour if I really need it), and noodles and everything.

I'd have to eat more sparingly of meat, which I can't replace. Proteins would primarily come from the chickens, and maybe from legumes. I might miss tomatoes because it's the wrong season for growing those, or maybe I'd just have to be more considered with the tomatoes that I'm growing?

The main thing that I would miss and which I can't get from anywhere else or really freeze is dairy: cream, milk, and cheese. I have some cheeses in the fridge, and I suppose I could store some cream and milk in the freezer, or I could make the exception for a carton of cream once a fornight (to go in my coffee), or else switch to my sister's soy milk. IDK. See how it gets complicated really fast?

That said, I'm well aware that being able to do this is a privilege. We've had the money to buy all this, to stock up. The house has space to have a garden. I have space to store things, and we have a deep freezer that enables purchase of meat and freezing of things ahead of time.

It increases the requirement of thinking about meal prep; reduces the amount I buy.

I'd make an exception for takeaway (once a week, maybe) and for going out with friends (doesn't happen often) or being invited to someone's house (eg. parentals).

I feel like I could make a charity drive out of it: donate to this charity and I'll do the challenge - raise $5K to get me to do it, raise $10K to exclude everything but dairy and takeaway and dinner out, raise $15K to exclude everything but takeaway and dinner out, raise $20K to exclude everything.

$20K feels like a lot, sure; but I know a fair bit of family with fairly deep pockets who'd probably move to do this.

The downsides?
1. It's the depths of winter.
2. I'll be doing this solo in the house.
3. Excluding social eating confines me to pretty much solitary.
4. None of this would be great for my mental health.

I did the Ration Challenge five years ago, and it went pretty well - raised quite a bit of money because a) it was a cause that lots of my friends believed in, b) people know how much I love my food. But that was only for a week.

I have ten days to think about this anyway.