WHAT’S YOUR BACKYARD PRODUCING?
DON’T WASTE GOOD SOIL - GROW SOME FOOD
IT’S about that time where my backyard vegie and fruit garden is becoming quite a busy place, as it’s right in the middle of the changeover from cool season to warm season varieties.
A bit about my patch a little later.
This week, I simply would like to put out a challenge to those gardeners who have a little patch of spare soil in their sunny backyard. The challenge?
Grow some food!
As you will see from today’s pictorial exposé, quite a range of food can be grown in small spaces in your garden.
All you need are a few basic conditions to be met.
They are: 1. An open east or north facing aspect that receives at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day, preferably morning sun, 2. A soil of good structure that holds some moisture but drains well, usually improved by the addition of organic matter such as composts, old manures, or quality soil conditioners, 3. Some form of nutrition for soil microbes and plants ideally organic, 4. A reliable water source, 5. Mulch, and, 6. Some time and effort.
If all the above are in place, it’s quite amazing how much food can be grown in a small space.
Now, back to my garden.
While I have turned the majority of my backyard into a number of productive spaces, you’ll see from some of the following photos that you don’t need an entire backyard to at least supplement your family’s fresh food requirements.
1. A shot of the majority of my backyard, looking to the north-west. The back fence faces east, below which is a narrow, 40cm wide bed, and on the northern end our four chooks enjoy the run of “Egginburgh Castle”, a low-profile deep litter pen. The chooks enjoy garden weeds, nasturtiums, comfrey and leaves from productive plants nearly every day. The three sleeper-bordered beds in the centre of the shot are approximately 2.4m x 3m - around seven square metres of growing space each.
2. This first bed is pretty jam-packed at the moment, containing nine sugarloaf cabbages, about four metres of carrots, eight King Edward potatoes, eight purple sprouting broccoli, six dwarf sugarsnap peas, three ‘Autumn Bliss’ raspberries, and a stash of self-seeded nasturtiums for the chooks. Oh, and a self-sown climbing bean I’ll soon trellis.
3. Bed two contains 10 Kipfler potatoes, three purple sprouting broccoli, five soon-to-be retired Tuscan kale, a row of “perpetual” spinach (going to seed…) and a newly-planted Tommy Toe tomato. Dwarf snow peas recently removed will make way for a leaf vegetable such as lettuce soon.
4. Bed three is newly revived with ‘Carbon’ soil conditioner and planted with “chop suey greens”, and a couple of Tommy Toe tomatoes. Soon to be planted here are a block of sweet corn and a couple of Lebanese cucumbers on a slanted trellis to save space.
5. This bed is between the main three beds and the house, and contains five varieties of garlic, a few dark-leaved lettuce, some late kale plants, and a few dwarf-fruited capsicums. Perennial clumps of chives are randomly dotted on the bed edge. Next to this bed, closest to the house, are potted food plants – a dwarf ‘Figalicious’ fig, dwarf ‘Lemonicious’ lemon, oregano and basil, thyme and lavender.
6. The narrow, east-facing bed on the fenceline is newly created and improved with ‘Carbon’ soil conditioner and home-made compost. A couple of 1m rows of seeded beetroot are powering along as well as dwarffruited capsicums. A bit further along are a couple of kiwiberry vines, scrambling along wires strung from post to post. I have strung wires along most of the fence’s length, in anticipation of vine crops in the future.
7. The last raised bed of about six square metres contains a perennial patch of delicious asparagus, now coming into peak production, as well as a bed of turmeric rhizomes (not yet sprouted), some dwarf sugar snap peas, and a Tommy-Toe tomato.
All beds are covered with fine, organic sugar cane mulch and hand weeded during every visit to plant or pick.
Newly planted seedlings are watered in with a beneficial microbe product and well as a seaweed solution.
A quality dry organic fertiliser is added to the top 5 cm of soil about every six months, with no deep soil disturbance at all.
Occasionally (maybe every three weeks) a liquid organic fertiliser is applied to the whole garden.
If you want advice on how to start your own productive patch, no matter how small or large, contact me at wellsleyhorticultural@gmail.com or via my Facebook page – Wellsley Horticulture.