Thread: Gardening

Originally Posted by Berlin

Man, I don't know if I should bother with vegetables, both your and Pete's gardens look lusher than I think I'll be able to achieve. I will bother, but I'm pretty sure I'm in for some grief

We need some great big tanks, that much is clear.

I was going to ask whether you would be on tank water, for big tanks you also need the roof on which to catch the rain, good excuse to get the big shed , or the big under cover area, also, I would be looking at rain water harvesting methods other than just tanks, swales for e.g. and using your grey water, if nothing else just to grow mulch using the grey water, gives you a degree of separation from it, add lots and lots of mulch, and then there's all the wood shavings to use, the caveat here tho is don't dig it in, just leave it on the surface and add nitrogen to it, (wee on it) I will leave it in a pile and let it age for as long as I can and (wee on it) and then spread it thinly on the surface of a garden bed or if I use it to make a path it will be at least 4" thick (wee on it) and it will last a couple of years and then scrape it up and spread it on the garden bed, a few more caveat's, don't use man made board and if you are on any medication, don't wee on it unless you can be certain there's no ill effect to the soil life.

Before growing veges maybe look at growing just mulch, arrowroot is one I grow here for just that reason, it will put up with a fair bit of neglect and once it gets a bit of water and warm weather away it goes, available from http://greenharvest.com.au/Plants/Ar...oGalangal.html
Lots of info on their site and stuff to look at, something else to look into is Permaculture specially for water harvesting methods, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren are to names to look for if you are looking for a book, hope I'm not telling you how to suck eggs with all this stuff.

Lab Lab I think is an annual I'm gonna find out, this is the first time I have grown it.

I've been here must be 8 yrs and there's still lots to do and learn about growing, I would have starved ten times over if I had to rely on my output of veges. It seems tho that once you get something happening like say a swale with a bit of water in it that stays and soaks into the ground rather than just run away there's a snowball effect, worms start appearing that start feeding on mulch and they improve the soil then something grows better than it did before so you can grow a bit more mulch and feed a few more worms etc. etc..



Pete

Thanks for the ideas Pete, I really do need to work on some swales. I read Bill Mollison's book and was very inspired but I have to say my main interest is endemic natives but I can see a lot of that good permaculture land management stuff will be necessary on our site to rehabilitate the soil before the veggie crop or the native re-vegetation.

My favourite permaculture book is Linda Woodrow's 'Permaculture Home Garden'. She's a genius. She mentions the saw dust paths too. We will be using our saw dust in the composting toilet but we bought a deadly looking mulcher that we will put woody weeds through so maybe that
should go on the paths. I've already been busted by the neighbour weeing on the citrus trees so I might have to wait for the screening plants get up a bit before further applications of Nitrogen.

I was a little worried about putting grey water on the veggies. Have you had any trouble with salt and what have you or do you just put on the mulch heap?



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Matt, have you tried the water conservation section on the Greenlivingpedia site. Some useful links there.
Cheers.

Originally Posted by Berlin

Thanks for the ideas Pete, I really do need to work on some swales. I read Bill Mollison's book and was very inspired but I have to say my main interest is endemic natives but I can see a lot of that good permaculture land management stuff will be necessary on our site to rehabilitate the soil before the veggie crop or the native re-vegetation.

My favourite permaculture book is Linda Woodrow's
'Permaculture Home Garden'. She's a genius. She mentions the saw dust paths too. We will be using our saw dust in the composting toilet but we bought a deadly looking mulcher that we will put woody weeds through so maybe that
should go on the paths. All the above good good. I've already been busted by the neighbour weeing on the citrus trees so I might have to wait the screening plants get up a bit before further applications of Nitrogen. neighbors you might have to educate them in the ways of the nitrogen cycle.

I was a little worried about putting grey water on the veggies. Have you had any trouble with salt and what have you or do you just put on the mulch heap? I haven't been utilizing our grey water, it is on the list of things to look into, from what I have read and understand of it there can be some issues with build up of soap residues and other stuff, no one solution fits all, a familly of 10 is a different problem to a single person that only uses bicarb and vinegar and then there's another extreme of complete unknowns like 100 000 people converging on Woodford for the folk festival for a week, a natural system (reed bed) cannot deal with such a sudden change so is ineffective. Just doesn't work, they truck it all out which flies in the face of the ethos off the festival but practicalities dictate such.
It really depends on your circumstances and whether you have people who will forgo their bottle of L'oreal with the latest whatever in it and just use a basic simple shampoo, sorry if I'm waffling on here.
It also depends on whether you want to go with a system off the shelf or a more natural system like a reed bed or something real simple like rinsing the dishes in a tub with next to clean water in it that just gets chucked out the door onto the grass.
If you have some doubts about your grey water but still want to use it then for a degree or two of safety you could only use it to grow an above ground mulch which you then use on the vegie patch, or put it thru a reed bed, but once again a reed bed system needs to be matched to a regular amount of water inflow.


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I haven't had any issues with salt that I am aware of, I have heard those that say our water isn't the best as far as salt levels go, I do try to not have any bare soil so lots of mulch to reduce any evaporation right at the soil surface.


Pete

Every time I go near "MY" shed I cop a verbal lashing from various parents offended by my proximity to their precious ones. The two nests attached to the orange leads are willy wag tails, the nest attached to the yellow lead is a scrub wren. Earlier in the breeding season I had a grey shrike thrush set up camp next to my tormek sharpener. The other photo is a yellow tailed black cockatoo helping itself to a green golden delicious apple.

Mark, you old biker you, pray tell what type of runner beans did you inherit? I've got the scarlet runner bean sometimes called the seven year bean.
Cheers
Brendan

The newest member of our Brachychiton family, it's a Boab. The next pic is a bottle tree followed by a flame tree then the Kurrajong.

Originally Posted by HUON

The newest member of our Brachychiton family, it's a Boab. The next pic is a bottle tree followed by a flame tree then the Kurrajong.

Love Brachychitons!!!

The Illawarra flame trees have been the best I have see this year, and that is right up and down the coast from Hervey Bay
to Sydney.

Try an Ormeau Brachychiton. A rare tree in deed with only about 24 known specimens!! Seeds might cost a packet!!

Keep me in mind when you get a spare seed, artme.

It's a rewarding genus. We've been planting lots of the Little Kurrajongs B. bidwillii, and have more than a dozen flame trees (B. acerifolious) in pots that we grew from seed.

The Ormeau is a beautiful tree! There is a lovely pair? at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens but I've never seen see seed pods on them and I have looked

Go Green rainforest nursery have just received a batch of about 15-20 Ormeau's in 6" pots going for $11.40

I pulled some beetroot today and bottled it, i have rock melons and Butternut pumpkins growing but this year there is a
definite lack of bees to pollinate. When i'm in the garden i'm lucky to see one bee a day. When the farmers start reaping i normally get
hundreds of small native bees in the garden, i don't think i saw any this year.
I have one Queensland Blue pumpkin which self seeded early and it has two big pumpkins on, ( i love pumpkin soup ).
After a couple of near 40 degree days my worm farm is suffering, even after putting wet newspaper on them and tipping a bucket of cool water in the farm i've still lost around 50--60 worms.
My garden is sand, in the five years i've been here i've put sheep manure and chicken manure on it and i mulch with pea straw.
As i'm renting i'm not prepared to import soil. I'm glad i didn't, i've been told the bank is taking the house from the owner. Bugga.

The sand has changed colour slightly but it drains that quick it's not funny.

I have onions and banana capsicums growing as well as tomatoes.
Got about thirty orchids ( cimbidiums ) and about the same amount of cacti and succulents.
Herbs are Basil, Tarragon, Oregano, Flat leave parsley and Sage.
Have one really hot birds eye chillie.Eye watering. lol
While the garden is small i do get a huge amount of pleasure from it.

Good going Fred, apparently the honey bee numbers are in decline, I have Aus native bees here in a log but they never seem to be interested in anything I grow, the Cahdagi trees 2 blocks away when in flower hold more sway, the seeds they bring home are a real issue, the seeds will completely block up the entrance/exit, bit worried about them at the moment, activity level seems to be quite low.
Must be a bugga knowing that you are renting and trying to develope a garden and then the reality hits that you might have to move


Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

Good going Fred, apparently the honey bee numbers are in decline, I have Aus native bees here in a log but they never seem to be interested in anything I grow, the Cahdagi trees 2 blocks away when in flower hold more sway, the seeds they bring home are a real issue, the seeds will completely block up the entrance/exit, bit worried about them at the moment, activity level seems to be quite low.
Must be a bugga knowing that you are renting and trying to develope a garden and then the reality hits that you might have to move


Pete

I'm hoping to rent off the bank when i get the knock on the door, it's not going to sell quickly so i figure they will try to get whatever they can
until it is sold. Unless one of the holiday rental companies snap it up.

Cheers Fred