Monday, March 29, 2010

Edible garden reading essentials

I've been a practicing novice gardener for about a year now and will remain one for some time yet.  However, prior to purchasing my very own patch of real soil, I'd spent a considerable amount of time as a theoretical gardener (i.e. "dreamer") - reading book after book about all sorts of garden & self-sufficiency related subjects.  These books are my vice.  I have amassed a small library of publications, some absolutely brilliant for beginners (i.e. me), others I'm sure I'll find fascinating once I develop the skills and knowledge to fully appreciate them.

Having seen some excellent recent Blotanical posts about the essential tools, such as this one by karly_winkler, and about planning for your garden, such as this one by kitchen_55, I thought I'd jump on board and add my own five cents (lowest denomination coin in Australia).  My contribution is simply a list of those books I personally consider to be a "must read before you start".  They're the books I find myself reading and referring to again and again and wish I'd found before spending a small fortune :)  They're slanted more towards edible gardens and they're not general introduction to gardening books - there's probably way too many good ones of them to count and they'll be more hemisphere specific.

It's supposed to be a top five, but I hope I'll be forgiven for stretching it just one to six.  I've not included links to any particular book seller because: a) I'm Australian so probably use different online sites; and b) so noone thinks this is a massive spam post attracting people to the wiley services of the good Mr/Miss Amazon.com (enter that domain at your own risk.

My top six are:
  • Gaia's Garden: A guide to home-scale permaculture (Toby Hemenway)
  • Edible Forest Gardens Volume I & II (Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier)
  • Composting: A down-to-earth, water-wise guide (Penguin Books)
  • No-Dig Gardening (Esther Deans)
  • Gardening Down-Under: A guide to healthier soils and plants (Kevin Handreck)
  • Fabulous Food from every small garden (Mary Horsfall)
The last two are published by "CSIRO Publishing" (Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and are excellent books.  If, like me, you'd not considered CSIRO books as you'd expected them to be weighty technical tomes, I can strongly recommend that you at least have a browse of these two and probably buy or borrow "Gardening Down-Under".

Of course, this post is also to attract some pointers towards great books I might have missed or those essential books I'm just about to grow into.  So, tell me, what are your top three books?

What else must I add to my library?

Sunday, March 28, 2010

No need for the jury to retire: Going solar - the outcome

It probably seems like a very early finish to what was expected to be a long running battle between the teams plastic (clear and black) to prove once and for all which one could dominate the reigning champion of weeds - Kikuyu grass.  I too was expecting a close fight between these two behemoths, but sadly, as is all too often the case, I've had to step in to end the contest prematurely, declaring black plastic the winner by a long margin.

The clear plastic was clearly not generating the high temperatures I'd been expecting, only getting warm enough to act as a nice little green house for the grass.  In fact, as you can see in the photograph below, the only damage done to the Kikuyu was caused by the bricks I had used to keep the plastic down.

Clear plastic after two weeks.  Dead area caused by the brick not the plastic.

In the other camp, black plastic, with its amazing powers of light suppression, was making clear inroads into the Kikuyu.  As can be seen in the photograph below, after the same two week period the damage to the grass is obvious.

Black plastic after two weeks.

With such dramatic differences between the two and needing the area for a new garden bed it seemed a sensible decision to end the competition and use the winner.

Clear plastic has its supporters so it obviously must work, but not in my situation. It's probably a combination of climate (temperatures don't often get above 30 degrees Celsius), the location of the bed (it's not 100 percent full sun) and the hardiness of the grass (it's hard to get the plastic tight to the earth).

It's not all bad news though - I've now got about five metres of cloche material :)

And just to prove it's not just me on an anti-Kikuyu crusade.  Below is a poster for a local landcare event scheduled for this Easter - note the competition categories: "Longest Kikuyu runner".

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Hello, stranger

I thought I owed a low-word count post after the previous Great Walls of Text and as I recently got a new camera, I thought I'd introduce some of the strangers I inherited when we moved into our little piece of paradise.  Of course I do hope I might get a few clues as to what they actually are, but even if I don't it'll be nice to look back on the flowers in the depths of winter.








I believe these three are hibiscus of some sort (I'd never been big on flowers, but I do like these)

I'm not sure what these two below might be and while I took a number of photos, they only demonstrated that I should go back and read the manual, particularly the bit about getting the autofocus to focus on the bit I'm focussing on rather than whatever it happens to have taken a liking to in the background.

I'll leave them up as some miracle worker might be able to give me a clue as to what they might be - or at least point me in the general direction.

  Updated - the one on the right is most probably a gardenia (thanks to gippslandgardener for the pointer).


Now where did I put that camera manual.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

How do you solve a problem like Kikuyu? Going solar.

Probably the first post in what's likely to be a long running series – think Rocky, but with less talent and lower budget.

Let me say upfront: Kikuyu has its uses. It's a good pasture and is quite a good lawn – the sort of lawn you can enjoy walking over barefoot. In our climate, it's set and forget. But, this grass is not a homebody. It likes the jet setting lifestyle and is keen to explore every nook and cranny of your garden, sending out rhizomes like a demented octopus. And once it finds a place it likes, such as my nice new garden bed, it moves in, suppressing all around it (well, all I've tried to grow so far).  So, my challenge is to create safe vegetable enclaves in the semi-hostile territory currently controlled by Kikuyu - all without resorting to extreme chemical measures.

Talking tactics
As far as I can determine there are three main strategies to successfully conquer this persistent little plant – digging, sheet mulching and solarising. I'm currently some way into trials of all three approaches, but unfortunately this commenced before my epiphany that record keeping is a gardener's friend – i.e. I don't have any really good before photos. But, it's still very early days, so better late than never.

Going solar
I started with solarising as I didn't have all the ingredients for sheet mulching and as a new earth gardener is seem a little beyond me. Solarising on the other hand was pretty easy to grasp – get plastic, wet grass, cover grass with plastic, wait. That I felt I could do. And it required much less digging than, well, digging.

There seems to be two trains of thought when it comes to solarising Kikuyu – clear plastic vs. black plastic. Clear plastic will apparently generate higher temperatures than black plastic, whilst black plastic claims light suppression as a key advantage. I started with black plastic as I could get it in greater widths and it was cheaper than clear plastic.

 Solarising: Phase I

I started with an area that I had decided to convert to raised beds and steps after a less agile member of the family tumbled down the grassy slope that dropped away from the house (hmmm, I seem to recall that conversion bit required quite a lot of digging). Anyway, as you can see above, the slope is well covered with black plastic and remained so for about 10 weeks over summer.  I spent my time doing summery things - frolicking in the sea, having picnics and so on.

Until the day of the great unveiling...


Well, to tell the truth I unveiled the top bed about two weeks prior to the photograph and planted out a cover crop to take advantage of some rain we'd had.  But so far there's not a hint that Kikuyu plans a comeback tour.

I'd keep score, but mother nature will always win and claiming a victory will only incite some form of retribution (toads probably).  We'll call it a compromise arrangement currently in my favour.






Saturday, March 13, 2010

Thinking of a Master Plan

It's early autumn and my year ahead calendar has a lot of blank space on it. In fact, if it wasn't for the three little notes: “Peas ready”; “Potatoes ready” and “Rye ready”, it'd be completely empty (and looking at early growth I think my “Rye ready” is a little optimistic). While last year I just put some random items in the ground based purely on what was available from a lovely catalogue, this year I want to develop the garden into something productive. Productive and balanced. I want a range of fresh, delicious, home grown produce. “My year with garlic” might sound like a neat idea for a book, but it's not really a basis for a great diet (or for maintaining friendships for that matter). This year I need a plan – even if it is just a rough map to start with.

So what am I looking for in a garden? Ideally, I'd a garden that supports our vegetable needs entirely, and our fruit needs to some extent (I'm yet to learn what's possible fruit-wise here). I want diversity and am happy to try all sorts of plants as I've already found some surprise treats. Who'd have guessed nasturtiums tasted so good (I've so much to learn) and I tried kale as an “alternative” to cabbage – in my opinion, cabbage is a poor alternative to kale.

I'm pretty sure I have the space to create such a garden. I don't need to accommodate the needs of pets (indoor cat) nor children (indoor fur child). I do have that Australian icon, the “Hills hoist” (it's a washing line) in pride of place in the back lawn, but the sloping ground means I can encroach upon its radius for valuable vegetable space. I removed the red cedar from the back yard when I first moved in (why such a tree was planted in such a small space I do not know) as well as a very, very old flowering plan which really was on its last legs (roots?). I'm starting with a clean slate. I should have more than enough space in the backyard alone to feed a family of four, and as we're only a family of two it should work out quite nicely.

So why aren't I out there now planting row upon row of seeds/seedlings/trees/shrubs etc? Well, two challenges I need to deal with – probably the major tasks for this year.

Firstly, my aforementioned clean slate is more a green slate – kikuyu is the grass of choice here and I can only say it thrives in the area (it had run so wild on the national park island off the coast that it was choking off the penguin breeding grounds). It's super grass - able to leap tall fences in a single season, grow under concrete drive ways, invade vegetable beds faster than a speeding bullet. Judging from the actions of a neighbour, who I will call “Chemical Kathy”, the usual manner for dealing with such an invasion is a scorched earth approach utilising all the aids modern chemistry has to offer. I personally would rather leave the chemicals where they seem to belong, in the supermarket vegetable aisle, so am exploring what appears to be the only other available, low labour options of solarisation and/or sheet mulching. I'll make these the subject of a future post as the jury is still out on the results.

My second challenge is one I'm happy to have to deal with – I have a clay soil. Now while I'm not yet sure what sort of clay mix the soil it is, I can say I need a mattock and crow bar to make a dent in it. Needless to say I've some work to do before those common vegetables stand a chance. But, using a combination of gypsum, green manures and my secret ingredient, Bokashi (did I mention I love it – and did I mention it'll take meat and dairy scraps), I've been making some inroads into a more vegetable friendly soil (I received a wonderful compliment from a long term resident and neighbour on the soil in my first bed). But, there's only so many food scraps a two person household can reasonably produce, so I'm having to do it in stages – whilst trying to find solutions to challenge number one.

So, for those of you who are still with me and wish I'd just get to the point, this year's plan is to:

  • continue with the lawn to garden conversion, focusing primarily on the 9m x 7m space I have available in the backyard (me vs. Kikuyu + soil preparation).
  • Prepare for and plant some stonefruit trees in the thin strip I have near the neighbours fence. Peaches are a must.
  • Convert the two newly converted raised beds into productive vegetable contributors – fix the clay.
  • Create a centre for herb excellence somewhere convenient for harvesting as I cook.
  • Explore water harvesting options – water restrictions and vegetable gardens aren't a happy marriage.
  • Learn about the birds and bees.  Judging from last year's results, I need more guardians of the harvest.
  • Learn to be succinct.

For those of you who persisted all the way to the end – I promise my next post will have photos.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

I love bokashi

As I wasn't really in a position to create and maintain a standard compost bin/heap and as I had access to a reasonable quanity of food scraps, including material not suited to standard compost, I thought I'd have a look at bokashi (I already had a worm farm).

Admitedly, I balked at the cost of the commercially available starter bin+mix packs and wondered whether it'd really be that much better than just digging a hole and burying the scraps in the ground. But, in the end I thought it'd only be in use if it worked, so parted with what I felt was a large sum of money for what was a small plastic container with a tap and a small bag of the mix. It was a start.

Getting to the point, fast forwarding twelve month - it's brilliant. It's helped turn my wormless garden bed of clay (which required a crowbar and mattock to start) into a thriving worm metropolis which is a joy to plant. Material decomposes into the soil much, much faster than buried material without bokashi. Corn husks have broken down to nearly nothing in as little as three weeks with bokashi, whereas they're still almost whole some two months later if simply buried.

I was hooked on the result, but still couldn't face the expense of the packs of bokashi mix and I needed more bins. I filled the bin in four days and then had to wait two weeks until I could empty it. I thought I'd DIY both the additional buckets I needed as well as the grain mix.

DIY Bokashi Bin
Materials used
  • A 20 litre handy pail - basically a 20 litre bucket with a tight fitting lid
  • A tap (optional). I set the tap as close to the bottom of the pail as possible. Cut off any extra piping from the tap to aid with the flow of the juice.  If you don't intend to syphon off the juice as it ferments then the tap is entirely optional - my latest bucket doesn't have the tap
  • A plastic microwave dish with several holes drilled into it - it should fit snuggly just off the bottom of the pail.  This separates the solids from the liquid - the microwave lids I use provide about a 2->3cm gap between the bottom of the bucket and bottom of the food scraps..
  • A garbage bag to cover the scraps as you add them.
Total cost was about $20 per bucket with tap. The water filter tap I used was a significant portion of the cost so a cheaper tap would decrease the cost.  Of course if you don't plan to use the juice then you don't need the tap at all.


Bokashi Mix
Ingredients (I remember the ratio 1:1:100:150)
  • 30 ml of molasses
  • 30 ml of EM (Commercial product of Effective Microorganisms - primarily lactobacillus bacteria)
  • 3 litres of quite warm water
  • 4.5kg of wheat bran
Equipment
  • a jug/bucket which'll hold 3+ litres
  • a plastic ladle/spoon for stiring the liquid mix
  • a large air-tight container, such as a plastic storage container with a lid
  • a tarp for drying resultant bokashi grain mix
Steps
  • Mix the quite warm water, molasses and EM in the plastic jug
  • Pour the liquid mixture over the bran
  • Mix the bran and the liquid until the bran is moistened evenly (break apart any large lumps of bran).
  • Put the mixture in the air-tight container. Squash it down to remove as much air as possible. I usually fill the remaining space with some lengths of scrap plastic - it also helps with the air-tight seal as the container I use has a clip on lid.
  • Leave it for about a month in a warm place. (normal room temperature). The surface of the mixture should become covered with a white mold.
  • When it's done, spread the mixture out on a tarp, away from direct sunlight and moisture and leave until it's completely dry. Break up any lumps. I'd also recommend drying it out of reach of the cat. I left my very first mix for a minute and the cat snuck in to add its own special ingredient, clearly thinking I'd created the largest cat litter tray in all of history.
  • Pack into large ziplock bags and store until needed.
Useful links:
My bokashi efforts were guided heavily by information presented in the two links below: