Starting out...

I've been gardening since I was a tiddler in one form or another - helping Mum by collecting pebbles out of the driveway for drainage in the bottom of pots was my introduction. 

One of my earliest memories is admiring a neighbours plant and asking what the name was (it was a geranium) and knowing that I wanted to grow one too! My Granddad died when I was 5yrs old, which was quite a loss (for both of us!) as he was the only gardener in the family. I still regret not having the chance to learn from him.

When my children were young, in the days before the internet when we all had to learn everything from books, I attempted to grow fruit and veg as time allowed but usually with sad results. I had bought Esther Deans No Dig Gardening book amongst others and still follow the easy method she used. Before this I used to turn the sod which was very time and energy consuming.  We moved a lot which meant I had lots of practice :(  I did study propagating quite a bit and had numerous pots filling my porches with all my efforts.

Due to all the failures to produce any good veg crops, I pretty much gave up trying to grow anything but ornamentals for many years, then we had the 7yr drought and I gave up growing anything at all as nothing would survive on the little bits of water I could find the time to dish out. This was a sad time with no gardening...felt like an amputation.

A couple of years ago the rains came back - always being a bit of a health freak and coeliac I felt the time was right to start learning to grow fruit and veg seriously (I already had some fruit trees planted that survived the drought) and bought some custom made raised beds from KISS Products http://www.kissproducts.com.au/ at the Caboolture Markets. I decided to go with the raised beds after quite a bit of research. 

I chose the height with the notion that it would be easy on my back as I aged...but I still have to bend forward over them. A shorter depth and sitting down would have served the same purpose I think, but I love the depth of rich soil now building up in each bed.

Now the fun starts...

12.12.09 The beds are delivered and placed to (hopefully) make the most of the sun over the year. The backyard has an easterly aspect. They were very light and easy to manipulate empty - I was aware of the need to place them carefully in the beginning as once filled, it would be a huge job to move them. Here's two of my dogs, Freya and Gretel,  showing off the new empty beds. You can see how sad and brown everything was at the end of the drought. 

Each bed is 4m long, 1m wide and 60cm tall. I bought the huge roll of sugar cane mulch from a charity fund raiser for $50 delivered. Rough, but good stuff to start the whole process off. All the really rough bits ie lengths of cane, went into the bottom of the beds for drainage.

Just for comparison here's the same beds now 2yrs later:

Each of the beds has been filled and refilled numerous times with organic matter and plants and the contents are now rich and full of worms. 

I use whatever comes to hand - mostly grass clippings by HUGE amounts thanks to the mower men I had at the time, garden clippings of all descriptions, animal manure of whatever type I can get my hands on, sprinklings of dolomite (calcium), basalt (calcium and iron), granite/deco (potassium), potash, blood and bone, Organic Xtra and anything else I come across. 

I do not follow any scientific method of composting - everything gets thrown on the pile you can see on the right side and left to it's own devices until I need it. I do tend to put the rough stuff in the beds first and top it with the more broken down material. 

In the beginning I had enough composted material that I could plant directly into this. On other occassions I just top off the organic matter with a layer of garden soil bought by the bag from Bunnings. PH for these is good and this works well. By the time the seedlings/seeds have sent down roots the material below is being consumed and turned into soil by the huge amount of worms who have moved in to their lovely new high-rise.



I do not worm farm. I have tried, at great expense and time, on a number of occassions. The last being an expensive hanging thing that was to consume all the dog poo in the yard. I followed all directions to a tee, but the poor worms wouldn't touch the poo and eventually all died off. The hanging thing was given away for someone else to try. 


Why bother?? The worms already live in the garden and do the job with no help from me.

I do bury all my kitchen scraps - my rule here is nothing cooked goes into this as it will attract vermin. I have always kept a bucket under the sink and put all raw veg scraps in this, including onion, garlic and orange - and place it in a shallow depression under a different fruit tree each week with a bit of mulch thrown over the top. My dogs love avocado and will root around looking for skins to lick, so no point in going to too much trouble. I just come back and cover it over again when they have finished. The worms reduce this to nothing in no time at all - perhaps a week or two. The onion, garlic and orange is no good in a worm farm but fine out in the general garden.





Here's a link to my Brisbane Local Food Group blog containing full information about that first growing season, Winter 2010 http://brisbanelocalfood.ning.com/profiles/blogs/winter-2010-first-attempts-at