Garden

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Ghandi

When I was a vegetarian, I kept chickens. As a chicken keeper, and consumer of their eggs, I felt responsible for not only the welfare of my birds, but also for their waste. Being a gardener, what would have otherwise been pollution, was instead put to work in the garden as a valuable resource.

Today, I no longer have my chickens. And I choose to eat plants.

The idea of adding in animal products like pig manure or blood and bone, into my garden now seems incongruous.

Frankly, a year ago, it wouldn’t have bothered me. Now, I’m uncomfortable inviting factory-farmed waste into my garden, in the same way that I am reluctant to use chemicals on the food I am planning to ingest.

But is it possible to create a thriving, abundant, verdant garden, quite lierally, without all the crap?

As vaguely ridiculous as a plant-based garden sounds (because aren’t all gardens, plant-based? I mean what do you call a garden without plants?) I set about planning a garden without animal inputs.

Thankfully, if you are looking to cultivate a plant-based, or cruelty-free garden, there are so many options! Even if you are somewhat partial to poop, or choose to maintain livestock these strategies will help your garden too.

Compost

Maybe I’m just too simple for my own good, but there is nothing really more satisfying than making and using your own compost. Your waste is incedibly valuable and if you don’t already think so, it’s time to change your mind.

Compost is really just a fancy word for controlled, rotted organic material.

Anything you eat or use that was once alive (including your junk mail, hair, paper towels, seaweed, nutshells, even old cotton or wool clothing) can be composted and the nutritional value returned to the soil and plants.

The details of composting will be covered in a future post! There is so much to know!

I have three compost tumblers. I feed each in turn, with bin one feeding until I reach about a cubic metre in volume, while the other two are turned and matured. I much prefer composting in a closed container. The compost stays relatively free of ants, snails, slugs and slaters (pill bugs) not to mention rats and snakes! The contents don’t dry out and the heat is retained.

I had a big fancy porcelain compost bucket to sit on my benchtop and collect all our kitchen waste, but when it cracked I didn’t miss it much! It was heavy even when empty and would take a few days to fill. With the lid on, I would often smell it before I could see it was time to empty it. I switched to a smaller, open bucket. I can fill it in a day and it is an eyesore, so I empty it regularly!

Fertilising Plants

Some plants give plenty back to the garden where they have grown.

I’ll be writing about these useful plants in the coming months, but the most commonly known and cultivated fertilizing plant would have to be Comfrey.

Comfrey is an excellent soil conditioner as its roots penetrate deep into the subsoil to access nutrients more shallow rooted plants simply can’t reach. A fast-growing comfrey patch will provide you with plenty of mulch, rich in silica, nitrogen, magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Comfrey leaves contain as much protein as legumes, 15 to 30%. Its leaves can be added to slow-moving compost piles as an accelerant, and its leaves submerged in water make a pungent, but effective compost tea.

Cover Cropping

Cover crops are also described as “green manure”. Typically, crops like alfalfa, hairy v-tech, buckwheat, clover, fenugreek or ryegrass (or a combination of those plants) are grown. Cover crops smother weeds, prevent soil erosion, keep the soil “alive” and add organic material to rejuvenate the nutrient content of the soil.

Once sown, the crop is not allowed to flower or seed. Instead the plant is mowed or tilled back into the soil.

Typically, cover crops are planted at the beginning of winter. But here in Western Australia, I plant mine early summer. That way, if an unexpected heatwave zaps them, I’m not crying over plants that never had a chance to harvest.

I let the cover crop grow for about 6 weeks before I till it back into the ground, sprinkle with worm castings then smother with mulch. This keeps my soil alive and enriched until it is cool enough to plant again in the autumn.

Crop Rotation

Different plants have different nutritional needs. Growing the same plant, such as tomatoes, in the same plot, season after season depletes the soil, resulting in poor plant health. Poor plant health means a lessened resistance to pests and diseases.

Crop rotation ensures that whatever one plant has taken from the soil, the next plant will replace. Crop rotation can get complicated (and again, a subject for a future post!) but the basics are simple.

1. Fruit – Tomatoes, aubergines, tomatillos, the list goes on!
2. Root – Carrots, beetroots, turnips etc.
3. Legumes – Peas, beans and pulses.
4. Compost – Optional, but recommended! You can skip straight to Leaf after Legumes.
5. Leaf – Lettuces, kales and all leafy greens. Follow planting with fruits and continue the cycle.

Companion Planting

This is another area that can get detailed quickly, and again, a subject for a future post!

Companion planting recognises the beneficial relationships that some plants share with each other. By leveraging these relationships, the need for aditional nutrient resources is reduced.

The most famous of these relationships is the traditional Iroquois system known as the Three Sisters, comprising corn, beans and marrows. Corn is planted first, and when about 15cm high, climbing beans are planted at the base of the corn and pumpkin interplants with the corn patch.

As the Three Sisters grow, the bean nourishes the corn, the corn provides the bean with a growing trellis while the pumpkin covers the and cools the surrounding soil, suppressing weeds. The system reduces or eliminates the need to add fertilisers to the soil.

Vermiculture

I have decided to include worms as part of my plant-based garden. Worms are great composters, chomping through an impressive amount of our kitchen waste, shredded bills and leaf litter.

When planting, I always have a bucket of castings my side to add to the soil to give the seedlings a great start to their life in the garden bed. The concentrated worm wee can be added to your watering can as a regular tonic for the soil and the garden.

Next week, I’ll take you through my worm farm set up.

Brewed Probiotic Tea

Where you have compost or castings, or comfrey or weeds, you can brew your own probiotic tonic. Probiotic tea is basically Kombucha for plants. You can read all about brewing your own Probiotic tea here.

These days, I include my spent kombucha mothers into my probiotic tea, where they eventually break down and add to the brew.

So there we have it! Seven plant-based, creulty-free strategies to create a thriving edible garden without animal inputs. So you use any of these in your garden? I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment below.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

Napoleon Hill

It was about the time that we renovated our house two and a half years ago that the garden started to decline. That summer was brutal, a series of 40 C days. We weren’t living at the house, my regular garden routine was eclipsed by more pressing issues like removing peeling paint, juggling the schedule of over a dozen tradespeople, packing, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Then, when it was done, we flew to New York.

And when I came back I was feeling restless. I had just turned 40 and my so-called mid-life crisis was right on time!

Contrasted with my lovely renovated house, my garden was a huge letdown. The form-ply we had used to make the raised beds was crumbling, the heat had finished off most of my plants and I was starting to resent the time, the effort and the sheer volume of water my garden needed.

Also, my aesthetic has changed. While my garden wasn’t especially ugly, it was scrappy, cheap and cheerful.

I now want something beautiful, resourceful and thoughtful. A foundation for a new bountiful beginning!

So where to start?

1. Evaluate our existing space.

We have a reasonable sized urban block, with some issues, or as I prefer to say features.

• Slope – Our block slopes away from the front verge, a drop of 4 metres to the back fence. If you want a nice flat space, it needs to be carved out from the slope and retained.
• Soil – Our house was built in 1989, on a new estate of reclaimed sand dunes. Yes, it is lovely being so close to the beach, but our soil is essentially beach sand. No nutrition at all.
• Wind – Perth not only the windest city in Australia, it is also apparently the third windiest city in the world! Typically, we get hot easterly winds in the morning, and cooler sea breezes by late morning or afternoon. Either way, it’s rare that we have a still day.
• Sun – Perth is officially the sunniest city in the world! I learned very quickly in my early planting days that when a seed packet recommended planting in “full sun” they did not mean the 8 hours of direct, searing sunshine that we experience on average every day. Shelter is essential.
• Water – Although Perth gets more rainfall in a year than London, it is usually all during the cooler winter months. In the summer, it is dry for weeks and sometimes we can go for months without a drop of rain. Understandably, we have water restrictions that are strictly reinforced.

2. What do we want?

• Wicking beds – My raised beds have always been thirsty for water, manure, mulch and effort! Wicking beds will solve many of these issues as they will be evenly watered, contained and I can much more easily know my efforts are going exactly where they need to, rather than literally draining away. My current raised beds are also long and wide, sometimes making them difficult for me to work without physically getting into the garden bed, tricky if I’m also trying to avoid existing plants.
• Greenhouse – Design and fit a purpose-built space. At the moment it is crammed with bits and pieces collected over the years. I want more bench space, zones for cultivating seedlings, and cuttings. I need a good system for storing all the potting mixes and garden tools.
• Mushroom room – Cultivate and grow our own mushrooms! As we are eating plant-based meals, my interest in mushrooms has grown and would love to experiment more with these delightful fungi.
• Wood fired oven – This has been on our list for a while. A great space where we could cook all our delicious, homegrown produce!
• Garden Storage – I don’t have a specific space for my garden tools. We have a shed that we use for storage, but despite being well organised, it simply doesn’t have the space for bulky garden tools and equipment.
• Utilise unused spaces – we have a few odd spots that could use a creative purpose!
• Re-lay the turf in the backyard. – Almost ten years ago we laid astroturf as a playing surface for the kids. Now they are older and no longer use the play equipment, but we have an outdoor cinema that they love, and we know that astroturf will last us another good 10 years or more! The existing worn astroturf may be repurposed on the floor of the mushroom house, or as a base mat for the wicking beds or even as a weed mat in the greenhouse.
• A water feature – we have French Doors in our dining area that open to the cat run and a hot outdoor mini-courtyard with a view of a weatherboard fence. A water feature would cool the space, look amazing and the sound of trickling water would hopefully mask the sound of the neighbours’ thumpy-thumpy creepy-crawley pool cleaner.

We also want to …

• Cut down our watering. It takes almost two hours to water the entire garden by hand!
• Get a bore and reticulation – I know this seems to contradict the point above. But the parts of the garden that aren’t wicking beds will need to be watered regularly too. We purchased our home fully reticulated and ended up removing most of it as we re-landscaped the slopes to terraces. Scheme water is precious and the water pressure is terrible across our gradient. We know from our neighbours that the bore water quality is excellent, with great pressure too.
• Reduce our inputs – I would love to reduce our reliance on introduced (and expensive) resources like manure and mulch. I need to get my worm farm ticking over again so it can provide us with the castings we need.
• Increase privacy – Thanks to the weird shape, aspect and slope of our property, we have 5 other houses that share a fenceline with us. We also have an elevated position, I can assure you I don’t like being able to see into their yards any more than they like being so visible to me! A bit of screening will also offer protection from the sun and wind.

3. What stays? What goes?

There are going to need to be some plants relocated and I will likely move some and pot others up to be sold on Gumtree or given away. We will do a garden survey and determine what goes, what stays.

Our council provides us with a skip bin each year and we have already used our quota! Removing all the unwanted stuff from the greenhouse might involve a few trips to the recycle dump. Alternatavly, I’m always amazed at what people are willing to take for free listings on Gumtree!

4. Who’s going to do what?

Are we going to do all this work ourselves? Recruit professionals? In all likelihood, it will end up being a mixture of both.

Obviously, the bore and the reticulation will require specialised tools and expertise!

Fortunately for me, Husband is a great designer and project manager. When renovating, he was was the one who kept everything running on time and budget and had the design brain that reconfigured the floorplan, designed an awesome kitchen, bathroom and laundry spaces.

Husband laid the last round of turf and could do again even though his availability is limited. He is keen to give the wood-fired oven a go too, and there will be paving required there as well.

I have zero carpentry skills, but I am keen to have a hand in constructing the greenhouse and mushroom room. Ideally, work could be done on both at the same time. My Dad has all the expertise and tools so I’m hoping to get his help once I have a design together.

5. How much is it all going to cost?

Ah, the $64,000 question! (Let’s hope it comes in cheaper than that!) Of course, the total expense depends on what materials we choose and the amount of work we can do ourselves. I don’t have a huge budget for the garden, and some projects will have to wait until we have the funding to do them.

I will start gathering quotes next week, many of the trades I contacted take this hot time of year off to holiday!

Cleaning up costs nothing, but I anticipate the biggest expenses will be in the following order,

• Bore and reticulation,
• Wicking bed infrastructure & landscaping,
• Pizza Oven and paving,
• Greenhouse & Mushroom room,
• Astroturf,
• Water feature.

6. Where do we start?

I can start tomorrow on the general garden tidy up! The worm farm can be revived fairly quickly and cheaply.

As far as the big projects are concerned, I would make sense to start with the bore and reticulation once we have finalised the reworked garden plan. It’s also likely that this will be the costliest item, with the most earthworks.

I would hate to get all my new wicking beds in place, only to have to move them for the laying of reticulation! Same goes for the laying of the astroturf.

Also, the existing solenoids for the existing reticulation are located in the exact spot where I want to put the mushroom house.

So it seems the items of biggest expense as I listed above, might also be the best order of works.

7. How long is all this going to take?

Of course, if time and money were not constraints, we could have all our plans pulled together in a few short months. But, I’m going to be generous and give us a year before I hope it’s all done and dusted.

Note that I haven’t even talked about what to plant here, the infrastructure and foundations have to come first.

But I am thinking that a hedge of carob trees along the back fence would be a good idea. They can be trimmed to shape, thrive on neglect and grow to over 15 metres tall. They are also evergreen and don’t drop leaves. And after about 6 years, they fruit delicious carob pods…I think I just convinced myself there!

With al the big stuff out of the way, it’s time to get down to the little tasks. I am using my January Garden Journal pages to do exactly that! For the last week I have been somewhat housebound with a headcold, so it has been the perfect time to ponder! Besides, given the heat outdoors January can be the best time to really think about what I want in the year ahead!

If you haven’t already downloaded your pages, sign up below and download them today!

What are your garden plans for the new year? I’d love to hear from you!

A few months ago, I sent my three remaining chickens to a farm.

I never thought I would ever be without my feathery ladies and it was not a decision I made lightly.   [Read more…] about Why My Backyard Chickens Had To Go…

“The earth has music for people who listen.” ~ Shakespeare

Last week I mentioned how I have much less time in the garden than I used to.  I have reviewed my garden plan to add plenty more perennial plants. I have a few plants in my garden that already seem to thrive on neglect, so I plan to propagate them from cuttings and replicate their survival success throughout the garden!

So even though it is technically Autumn down under, (and not traditionally the best time to propagate from cuttings) the weather is still warm here in Western Australia.  I’m giving it a go.

Because I don’t have much to lose! I’m investing a bit of time in the greenhouse and a few dollars worth of supplies.

Which is why propagating from cuttings is frankly, awesome.  Lots of plants for a few cents each for a small amount of effort and a little bit of waiting.

You know I love my thrifty garden solutions. But my paper pots aren’t suitable for propagating from cuttings, they tend to collapse and disintegrate before the plant can strike good roots.  I reuse all my pots, but I run out fast.

But, I have a sneaky propagation hack to share with you that makes propagating from cuttings even easier and cheaper, and I’ve found it improves my overall strike rate.

I plant my cuttings in snap lock snack bag “pots”.

I fill the bag with my seed raising mix, (I’ve added pearlite instead to vermiculite in this instance).

Then I snip the bottom corners of the bag for drainage.

Next, I simply take a hardwood cutting (I’m using wormwood here), dip it in rooting powder and insert into the bag.

I even use the seal to secure the cutting in place, to ensure it doesn’t wiggle about.

That’s it! Too easy!

The best part is, the cuttings stay moist, without drying out or being too wet. If it does rain, there’s no risk of them getting waterlogged. I can check the cuttings easily, you can literally see the roots through the bag!

See?

Plus, I’m able to prepare a lot of them at once.  I buy various sized bags, but the ones I used in the photos I bought from my local discount outlet, 100 bags for $2.

When the roots have established well enough to plant, I can snip the bag off and pop it straight into the ground.

As always, I would love to hear if it works for you too. Or not!

“Stay true to your own nature.” ~ Susan Cain

[Read more…] about What’s Growing On at A Farm of Your Home…