Garden

CHOP & DROP MULCHING

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chives-parsley-basil-sage-dandelion-milk-thistle-rosemary-mulch

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high summer preparation
free, easy mulching solutions for the busy gardener to replesh nutrients in their soil and protect their plants form the hot weather.


legume-bean-nitrogen-fixer-mulch

The seaweed mulch we covered the garden beds with has been decomposing nicely, shrinking away to nothing. adding nutrients to the soil. However the companion plants haven’t grown large enough to cover the bare spots and the cool weather crops are ending. On the otherhand the herb border went wild during the Spring Flush!

What to do… let’s chop & drop!

Herbs accumulate a lot of micro-nutrients in their leaves, especially the perennial ones with deep roots, they’re pretty sneaky and can get hidden nutrients out of even the worst soil. So if you can’t eat them all it makes sense to chop up the leaves and mulch with them, as they decompose they’ll make those nutrients accessible to your annuals. A lot of these are also great compost activators and some plants like legumes actually accumulate nitrogen from the air! I use trimmings of the River Wattle bushes we have in our food forest as it is nice and fine. Always finely chop your herb mulches so they breakdown easily and in the case of nasturtiums don’t start spouting! You can even use leafy kitchen scraps, but don’t let your chooks/worms go hungry! Add crushed eggshells for additional calcium.

Just like us plants need a balanced diet to be disease resistant and healthy. In nature leaves fall to the ground adding nutrients back to the soil, some are eaten by animals and insects, but they too add to the soil in the form of manure. How can we expect the soil to remain healthy when all we do is take and take? A diet of sugarcane mulch alone is just not enough! To avoid problems of malnutrition, spread your herb mulch throughout the garden to evenly distributing a broad specturm of nutrients.

So why waste time and money buying fertilisers and chemical additives?! You just need to follow nature’s example, chop & drop the leaves where you found them! It’s not lazy if it’s smart! Ha!

NOTE: Some herbs have negative allelopathic effects on other plants so should not be used as a mulch. These “anti-companions” release biochemicals that stunt growth, cause plants to bolt or just outright kill them dead. Why would they be so cruel? Perhaps as a defense mechanism to ward off herbivorous animals and insects, but is that really an excuse?


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micro-nutrients found in some common herbs

If you know of anymore please share with us, let’s add to the list!

    PERENNIAL HERBS

    MARJORAM – calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, trace amounts of manganese
    OREGANO – calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, trace amounts of zinc
    ANGELICA – potassium
    ROSEMARY – phosphorus, potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc, calcium
    THYME – potassium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc
    CHAMOMILE – calcium, potassium, phosphorous
    COMFREY – nitrogen, calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, silica

    ANNUAL HERBS

    PARSLEY – calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, trace amounts of phosphorus
    BASIL – calcium, iron

    NITROGEN FIXERS

    ACACIA – nitrogen
    VETCHES – nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, copper, cobalt
    LEGUMES – nitrogen
    LUPINS – nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium

    WEEDS

    THISTLES – potassium
    NETTLES – calcium, iron, copper, sodium, sulphur, nitrogen, potassium
    DANDELION – iron, copper, potassium, sulphur, manganese
    PLANTAIN – calcium

    EDIBLE FLOWERS

    SUNFLOWERS – potassium
    PRIMROSE – magnesium
    YARROW – copper, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous
    BORAGE – potassium, calcium, silica, phosphorous
    NASTURTIUMS – sodium, fluorine, sulphur, magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, iron


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amaranth-seedling-hardening-off-summer-preparation

And then in an instant the rain is turned off at the mains and it just gets hotter and hotter, it’s High Summer. It’s dry and water is scarce, the snails and slugs of spring fade away to be replaced by the dreaded mosquito – good for the garden, bad for the gardener! Mulching your garden to prevent moisture lost is imperative!

You would have planted out all the “all season” plants like lettuce and silverbeet in True Spring under cloches to keep them safe from snails, but now it’s time to plant out the warm weather crops. Here is Melbourne November doesn’t dip below 10C so it’s ideal for tomatoes.

Get as much as you can planted out now, it will be a frenzy, but worth it when your plants have grown large and lush enough to look after themselves when it gets really hot. In late December you want to be enjoying an ice cream on the beach, not worrying about your entire crop turning to ash.

HARDENING OFF

But just look at those little seedlings in your nursery, they’re spoilt aren’t they! Soft and delicate little things, they won’t be able to hack it in the real world, just one stiff breeze will send them crying to the ground!

Tough love time – they need to be hardened up!

But in all seriousness transplanting can be very traumatic for our delicate seedlings if not done right. The shock can stunt growth or cause your plant to bolt to seed prematurely. If you are really unlucky it will just flop over and die. A sudden change from a cosy nursery to an exposed spot in full sun or freezing rain is likely to be a shock it will never recover from.

“Hardening off” off means introducing them to their new home gently, over a week or two. Only for a few hours at first, let them get use to their new microclimate, but protect them from extremes. If in a greenhouse I begin by removing the lid. Then I like to pack everything going into the bed in a poly box for ease of transportation (a trick I learnt from my permaculture bible) and to offer a little insulation from said extremes. By the end of the week I just leave the seedling sitting where I will plant it.

Keep them well watered, drying them out before transplant is also a death wish and choose a nice mild morning or evening to do the deed. A drink an hour before planting out will help soil stick to the roots, a little bit of water in the hole they go into will make sure the soil is nice and moist. Morning is good in cooler weather as they have a day of sun to get use to their new spot, and evening in summer so they have the night to drink up water and settle before the hot day.

Do you have any special tricks when transplanting?


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Garden

Our Permablitz Garden on BH&G

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Jo's Permablitz Permaculture Inner City Home Garden on Better Homes & Gardens with Jason Hodges
Jo's Permablitz Permaculture Inner City Home Garden on Better Homes & Gardens with Jason Hodges

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better homes and gardens australia
segment on community gardens featuring
our inner city permaculture garden


For anyone who missed it here’s a link to the Better Homes & Garden’s episode featuring our inner city permaculture garden! (We’re on second, third if you count the ad) I was away hiking at Wilson’s Promontory so missed the whole thing and came home to a whole inbox of messages from friends saying “you have bees?!?! what….why????”, they obviously haven’t tasted homemade honey before, or been frustrated with unpollinated pumpkins (we permaculturists have slightly left of centre concerns don’t we?)

Here at the Desert Echo we like to spread Permaculture 1.5 minutes at a time. hee!

Easily digestible in length, I hope this segment showed people that a beautiful, productive edible garden is possible for everyone, no matter what their budget, no matter their level of inexperience. Stay tuned to see our latest design for a garden in Pascoe Vale on a tight budget that aims not only to produce enough food to keep the cash strapped host fed, but also create a lovely garden for them to relax and entertain in!

If you want to help spread the word about Permaculture send BH&G a message that you’d love to see more of it on their show!

Check out the behind the scenes photos of the filming.


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Garden

double-decker poly wicking bed.

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tomato experiment preparation




recycle-reuse-rubbish-plastic-bottles-polystyrene-boxes

Whenever I passed the Queen Victoria Market there was always a mound of polystyrene broccoli boxes so impressively high that it reassembled a hot weather igloo palace. It was kind of sickening and ever the innovator the powers that be came up with a solution to this spectacle pointless waste – hide them out the back and crush them out of sight and out of mind.

I could only reduce those insatiable mountains of foam by 20 boxes, but if you feel inspired to make a double-decker wicking bed too too dear reader, perhaps we can get something started! I have a concrete driveway beginning to be filled with poly wicking beds for my tomato experiment.

Tomorrow we’ll work our way up to lofty heights of Everest, today let’s start local!

WHY A WICKING BED?

On those exhaustingly hot weeks you just don’t want to find yourself hose in hand every night after a long day in the office with mosquitoes buzzing around your ankles.

Wicking beds have a water reservoir at the bottom so you have to water less often – about every two weeks. The water is down deep so it encourages deep roots, so stronger plants, more resilient to a bit of sunburn. They offer a more constant water source too, so in theory it should be perfect for things like tomatoes that split and carry on if their water supply is erratic.

WHY POLY BOXES?

There is so much embodied energy and money that goes into making a regular wicking bed, what with the pond liner, the brand new poly pipe, agi pipe, shadecloth, etc, it doesn’t seem the right fit for the home garden. A poly wicking bed however is entirely made of unwanted materials, so you can feel smug while you make it! Ha!

WHY DOUBLE-DECKER?

I’ve seen single poly wicking beds before, but I wanted to make them for deep rooted plants like tomatoes, so why not simply make them stackable?






INGREDIENTS & METHOD:

1LEVEL GROUND – a level surface allows water to be evenly distributed. Concrete driveways and paved areas often have a slight fall to them which could lead to water pooling down one end. Cans and pots of varying height can be used to elevate the boxes off the ground and create a more level base. A builder’s level is accurate but unnecessary, you can simply fill the container with a little water and see if evenly covers the bottom or pools at one end.

2SEALED CONTAINER – no plastic pond liner or staple guns required, a broccoli box has no holes and is well insulated against temperature extremes. I simply snap the top lip off and place it on the can/pot base.

3WATER DISTRIBUTION – another chance to raid the recycle bin. 7x600mL bottles with their bottoms cut off instead of the usual PVC and agi pipes. Wide mouthed ones are best because a standard hose can fit in the top, but otherwise just cut the tops off. On such a small scale, the gaps between the three bottles laid on the bottom will be enough to ensure even water throughout the reservoir. The remaining four stacked will allow you to deliver water right to the bottom of the wicking bed.

4WATER RESERVOIR – no more than 30cm deep to avoid stagnant water. Can be filled with scoria, gravel, broken terracotta pots…anything that allows big pockets of water between and can become saturated to encourage the wicking/capillary action up into the soil above. Nothing too fine as it will clog the plastic bottles. Fill with water to level out the scoria, then use a sharp stick to make 1 or 2 holes at the opposite end to the filling end. These act as overflows to prevent flooding when it rains.

5SOIL SEPARATION – something to prevent the soil from getting into the resevoir, but that allows water to wick through. Hessian or old sheets can be used, they will eventually need to be replaced, but in such a small wicking bed that’s no big deal. Use shadecloth if you are looking for something more permanent. Fold the hessian up the edges of the bed so no dirt gets through and so it is easy to remove should you want to take the wicking bed apart.

6NUTRIENT STORE* – high nitrogen poultry manure mixed with high carbon straw or dried leaves will make a most delightful reward for plants that grows nice deep roots. Then fill this to the brim with homemade potting mix.

72ND STOREY – cut the bottom out of the second broccoli box leaving a lip for it to sit on the one below. Fun fact: in a moment of despondency when my scissors broke in two I found that a half scissor works a treat at sawing through polystyrene, don’t throw them away!

8PLANT POCKET/SUPPORTS – As I have mentioned before it is best to prepare any garden bed at least 2 week to a month before you plant out plants that hate transplant to avoid soil settling crushing delicate roots . That is why I made a cardboard mould the size of my plastic bottle greenhouse so I can fill the wicking bed with soil and get the companion plants established before the tomatoes are ready to plant out. It is then as simple as pulling out the mould and slipping the tomato in the hole. Add stakes/supports now to avoid disturbing roots later.

8POTTING MIX – fill in the gaps with potting mix, plant some companions plants and mulch thickly. Voila, now it’s ready to plant out your tomatoes when the temperature reaches a consistent 10C+.

*TOMATO FACTS
Although tomatoes love nutrient rich soil do not spoil your tomatoes by over fertilising the soil with high nitrogen manures! They will become brattish – soft and lazy, shallow rooted plants that appear green and lush but require constant watering and attention susceptible to disease with thin skinned tomatoes prone to rot.
Additional nutrients should be delivered in the form of compost/seaweed teas ONLY once a plant has already started fruiting to extend cropping and overall yield. An even better idea is to bury poultry manure out of reach 20-30cm nearby or under your plants so their roots will access it only when they have grown deep and their fruit is ripening.





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