“Today I started tearing up my lawn” redux
Just over a month ago I wrote:
Gardening, it’s a political act. What bigger rebellion against the “golden straightjacket” could there be, to instead of buying food, grow your own and eat it?
Here’s the long awaited update.
The rain has made turning the soil over somewhat easier. The far side, with stakes to prevent it becoming a play area for my Jack Russel’s, was dug over, with a layer of compost going under the layer of upturned soil. A couple of weeks ago I planted some snow peas which I intend to dig back into the soil for nitrogen.
The area in the foreground was turned over with the most recent rain. A little bit of my rather depleted compost heap is mixed through the heavy clay in the immediate foreground.
As you can see, I’m running out of compost. I feel that it would defeat the purpose of this exercise if I start buying in material to fertilize and condition my garden bed with (although i must confess I bought a bag of sugarcane waste to keep the moisture on the bed when the going was hotter), so I’ve decided to go around the neighborhood and ask if I can raid people’s green waste bins.
Fertilizer, in particular phosphorus, is another import I want to avoid buying. Pigeon dung is meant to be a fine source, and I’ve managed to lay my hands on a couple of unwanted pigeons to live in the old budgie cage.
I’ve also decided to expand my project to include producing my own eggs, so I’ve built a rather sturdy little chook pen out of some scrap wire, an old bed frame and the remains of a dog kennel. Now to find some chooks…
Before we go, here’s a couple of links. This is a website on gardening in your backyard, here’s a website where you can buy some really weird and wonderful veggie seeds and here once again is a link to some photo’s of Ken Lovell’s garden. I’m still in awe.
This seems like as good a place as any to plug a forum on community sustainability I attended last night.
If any other bloggers want to share photos of their veggie gardens on their blogs, I’ll happily link to them in this and all future posts of this nature. Gardening, it’s a political act ladies and gents.
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Posted: by Kieran June 6th, 2007 under Protest, Environment.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from Kieran
Time: June 9, 2007, 8:28 pm
Time for another update. I’ve liberated three chickens from a “free range” chook farm. Free range chooks come minus feathers around their hind quarters for some reason, perhaps to do with how many were crammed into those “free range” pens.
I’ve also dropped a note in the letter boxes of my neighbours asking if I can raid their green waste bins in future.
I must same I’m getting more and more excited about this project.
Comment from Kieran
Time: June 10, 2007, 1:07 pm
Got my first cackle brick!
Comment from Greg Naylor
Time: June 16, 2007, 9:41 am
I live in the King Valley. Last year, during the worst drought on record, I had the most productive vegetable garden I have ever had by following the principles of pioneer farming together with those of Peter Andrews.
I noticed that pioneer farmers prepared their production area by burying it under a foot of organic manure both animal and vegetable the year before production.
They then raked the mulch back to plant their crops which used the nutrients from the manures.
Peter Andrews promotes the concept of mulch farming by growing a stand of pasture, mowing and windrowing it at 3 metre intervals to catch the rain runoff. The windrows of hay act as temporary reservoirs releasing the water and nutrients to the areas between the windrows.
This got me thinking about my vegetable plot where I have always had raised beds. I suddenly realised that my garden was upside down. I went and got free mulch from the Rural City of Wangaratta (as much as you like) and found a horse farm that could not get rid of the horse poo.
I filled up the pathways between the beds until they were a foot higher than the beds themselves. I now had sunken garden beds with compost heaps between them that held the moisture and leached all those good things down into the vegetables.
The tomatoes were the sweetest ever. The lettuce went spastic. I have beetroot over six inches in diameter and still growing.
I have given away so much produce that my friends are almost embarrassed to accept it. I have made sauces and chutneys that everyone loves … and I am going to extend the system this coming year.
I already have 22 beds of garlic each with 200 plants feeding happily on horse poo and council mulch … and the soil has never been so healthy.
On the sustainability front, I hope to establish a King Valley vegetable distribution system by combining my excess production with that of other growers in the district and developing a weekly delivery round.
In the rural areas, everyone produces more fruit and vegetables than they can possibly use and too much of it rots on the ground.
For the life of me, I cannot understand people in this area spending $15 on petrol to drive to Wangaratta to buy a Californian orange and belgian peas when they grow so well in our own back yards.
I guess they will call me Greg the Greengrocer.
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Time: June 16, 2007, 9:54 pm
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