wicking beds Archives - The Desert Echo

December in the food forest

January 4, 2019 No Comments

I’m taking the time while I have Dylan around to shake off the thick layer of digital dust my photo archive has been gathering. I have so many moments to share it’s hard to pick what to tick off first.

Baby is in a feather light sleep next to me which involves a lot of dummy sucking and arm flailing, but let’s see if I can finally post these photos of what was happening in the food forest as spring turned to summer. Today a scorching hot day, so I imagine it will look a lot different when we next visit. So glad we have a watering system!

Things were too hectic with the new baby to capture the apple blossom in all its powder pink glory, but we were organised enough this year to net the apricot and peach against fruit fly and the red apple against the birds. The billowing white nets are actually quite beautiful in a way, they float above the thick carpet of yarrow like a mist of benign ghosts.

Last year the feijoa had its first two, maybe three flowers. Now it is covered in red Christmas bauble blossoms. The jar of parsley seeds I saved from home and lazily broadcast months ago has also come good. The umbels are beautiful under the trees and promise we will have parsley this coming year too without having to resow. The nasturtiums and pepinos had withered in the late frosts, but their massive amount of regrowth following has smothered all competitors.

The food forest was looking a bit grim in November and I thought it just couldn’t cope without my attention, which had been elsewhere while I was pregnant. Turns out all it needed was a good water after a dry winter and a broken timer on the watering system. Drip irrigation operational and some heavy downpours saw the food forest lush and green in a matter of weeks. The weeds also awakened though and we had to do quite a lot of grass pulling.

The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast.

Garden, Permaculture design

Spring through her eyes

November 17, 2018 2 Comments

Time seems to liquefy in warm weather. A sudden ice melt that goes from drippingly slow winter days to a spring river sweeping you off your feet. Ember’s sudden developmental leaps are an even more poignant reminder of passing time. There isn’t a week that mothers of older children don’t coo over her and reminisce about the time their crawler was at that sweet and immobile age. It has made me want to document our days like I did when we were world travellers. I’m concentrating on revelling in the warm spring days turning into summer and luxuriating in the minutiae.

This week in November

Our first hot nights have been restless and wakeful after a glorious run of night sleeping. When the clouds smothered the sun and unleashed a soaking thunderstorm we luxuriated in the cool. The garden responded to the rains, unfurling spring green leaves from withered crowns. Pink roses and dianthus blooming seductively, calling pollinators to return in the stillness after the rain.

Crafting

Dylan completed our garden arbour, a structure I have longed for and romanticised for some time. Our little grape has a way to go but one day I will be swinging under its dappled shade with some elderflower cordial and a good book. The arbour also functions as a rather grand support structure for our washing line. I christened it with some hand dyed wool coloured bright yellow with turmeric. If I’m not quick on the needles Emby will already have grown out of the honeycomb cardigan I have been knitting although I started it before she was born. Yikes!

Learning

Little one has newly made acquaintance with her hands and now is curiously pawing and kicking at everything within reach. Only a few weeks ago she could only manage to bat at toys and now she grasps and caresses them. She spends playtime exploring them lovingly with her hands and devouring them with her eyes and more often than not her mouth as well. During this period we missed her baby gurgle talk as she concentrated on her favourite new hobbies: splashing water out of the bath in great cascades and kicking mummy in the tummy whilst being changed. The former a serious job demanding full concentration and a stern expression, the latter one of the world’s premiere delights.
After 2 weeks of loosing her voice, she is back to her lovely baby gurgle talk. It came back as suddenly as it stopped, but gaining a new octave of shrieks.

Growing

It has been too long since I shared the monthly happenings in our edible garden. Was it really 2010? A different garden, but at a similar stage, just finding its equilibrium. We have been absolutely plagued by every imaginable kind of aphid this year..Allium? We got it! Rose? You betcha! Brassica? As think as soot! Then more and more red spots appeared in our verdant tapestry lawn, ladybirds making a home in our garden for the first time in four years. What a joy! Ember hasn’t lost her newborn fascination with red and these little beetles require a little protection from her curiosity.

We have been harvesting a lot of parsley which now grows like a weed in every quarter of our garden, even between the pavers and in hanging baskets. Nothing much else is quite ready yet except for some deliciously sweet strawberries which have just given us a taste of the summer harvest to come.

We finally planted our summer vegetables over the Melbourne Cup long weekend. We are resting last year’s tomato bed, but there is still some room elsewhere for planting Periforme Abruzzese, one of my favourites saucing tomatoes and a something new, a Riesentraube cherry tomato as I have heard cherry tomatoes can be a good option in fruit fly prone areas which unfortunately now includes Flemington!

This year we bought lettuce, capsicum, chilli and basil seedlings, but next year we hope to have a mini hot house set up in time for seed raising. Dylan chose the capsicum by its name ‘Giant Bullhorn’, the chilli is a ‘bishop’s crown’ a variety Edible Eden has recommended for its sweet and mild flavour.

We reduce our expiring seed collection a minuscule amount by planting a few saved sunflower, borlotti, tromboncino and butternut seeds. The snails knocked some off before we remembered to put down some pet safe pellets, but the survivors are now almost thick stemmed enough to make it on their own.

Looking forward to sharing our progress with you soon. What are you growing, making and dreaming of this month?

Garden

square foot wicking

November 16, 2017 No Comments

Everything is glistening wet. My freshly planted seedlings have been released from their prison of shadecloth, only slightly singed. Is it only gardeners who feel relief when a storm breaks a 30C streak?

My wicking beds are finally filled and the faces of tiny bean seedlings have pushed through the soil. I had forgotten that feeling of sweet expectancy, waiting for life. Garden it has been too long!

After fantastic results with square foot gardening in my community garden bed I have carefully laid out a grid and begun companion planting a bed of strawberries and tomatoes. It’s a fantastic method for people like me who enjoy getting their watercolours out for a good planning sesh. Crop rotation covered!

Installing drip irrigation and wicking beds is going to reduce my mosquito bites dramatically this summer, no more standing in the dark reviving shriveled seedling! Soon some more wicking beds should be sprouting up in Flemington and Ballarat, as we repay in labour our friends and family who helped move sand, gravel and soil into our raised beds. For anyone interested in understanding how wicking beds work I can highly recommend VEG’s wicking bed site.

I’ve got high expectations for the year’s gardening now I can capture winter sun and hopefully protect my plants from dehydration. I have gone through quite a few variegated oregano and thyme plants in the past so all my optimism is resting on the shoulders of my new pretty herb purchases. Let’s hope it’s not too much of an emotion burden for them to bear and they are bolstered by their new home. Next I want to get my hands on some willow, because tomato stakes just don’t cut it when a woven teepee could be had instead.

Garden

our garden transformation

November 8, 2017 No Comments

It’s 8:14 and the sky has only just shaded a dusky purple. I’m so glad it’s spring!

This winter was particularly dreary because I spent the entirety studying and taking my architecture registration exams. Darkness and endless pages of notes to read, that dragging unending exhaustion. So this spring is particularly special, I’m filled with the energy that only comes after being tied to a desk for the last four months. There is just so much time to enjoy life!

So I funneled all those bouncing beans of energy into a project I had been dreaming of through dark winter evenings. Raised garden beds to capture the sun that brushes a fingernail of light across the back of our south facing garden in winter. Ever the demanding apprentice, I kept a fire lit under Dylan to ensure a Cup Day planting of tomatoes. He did such an excellent job mainly using hand tools, what a champ! It’s so fun to see how the garden has transformed.Next post, filling the wicking beds…

Bare fences begging for edible vines + green starting to invade the concrete pavers. Hanging baskets, strawbale raised garden + seat positioned to capture that sliver of sun.

fences down

Taking the fence down was another step towards creating our little patch of resilient retrosurburbia and doubling it! The fence divided our house and my parents and with it gone we have brought light into their garden and a mini “bushland” aspect into ours.

Charlie was particularly pleased with the extra pats!