Talkmeme - 8th Dec: the garden

[tielan]

crazy4orcas asked Talk to us about your ideal garden. Will you be able to make any of your ideal a reality in the new place?

My ideal garden is somewhere that I can relax and enjoy, which produces fruit and vegetables, and does so with minimal effort on my part. The best fit is a permaculture garden, preferably with chickens to do a lot of the turning and mulching work in the garden beds.

I read a book called The Permaculture Kitchen Garden by Linda Woodrow waaaay back in the late 90s, and always wanted to develop this kind of garden. Alas, at the time I didn't have the time/skill to do so. And then, when I moved back to Sydney, I didn't have suitable terrain.

A significant slope, plenty of eucalypts (they inhibit other species), morning glory, and wandering trad made for the garden space from hell.



For ten years.

And then we bought a very flat piece of land with a huge lawn out the front, a chipmulched garden section out the front, and a pocket-handkerchief piece of lawn out the back with the washing line.



The garden section out the front is perfect for growing trees, and the pocket-handkerchief space out the back is perfect for a garden.

However, right now, keeping chickens is probably a bit much on top of everything else going on at this time. So I'm just making mulches to clear the backyard of grass, grow a variety of vegies and see how they do, and improve the soil. It's labour-intensive, and not the best way of doing it, but it's how I'm starting this out for the moment.



I'm growing things from seed! Lots of tomatoes, and zucchini, although there's some pumpkin and watermelon coming up, too.



My fruit trees are getting sun and finally fruiting!


I'm growing corn, beans, onions, and carrots from seed!



And capsicum, chillis, and zucchini from seedling punnets.



Some of it is a learning curve: for instance, I don't know how to effectively get rid of the grass so I won't be fighting an endless battle with it. (Maybe I should have just turned the compost heaps over to kill off everything in that section of the yard? Too late now.)

But things are growing and I am excite!

(I even have a paper diary to record what goes on in my garden, so I can track what I do and what gets good results.)

It's not my ideal garden, but it's a lot better and a lot more fun than I've had gardening in a while! I'm nearly done with the vegie beds for the moment - one more compost pile to make so the asparagus plants have somewhere to go - and then it's time to start prepping the spots for the fruit trees - avocados, apples, stone fruits, citrus, and a cherry and a persimmon (from my mother). I'm hoping to get some in the ground before Christmas, although that could be dangerous with the weather we've been having - crazy hot, with afternoon/evening thunderstorms and rain.

Hopefully in the new year, I won't have to do quite so much labour in the garden - it'll be planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, and making sure that the plants are replaced as their production stops.

My gardening blog is suburban permaculture garden, if you have a gardening interest yourself!

tl;dr: ALL THE GREEN THUMB EVER.

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