New beds and terraces

Spraying our tomatoes with a chili/water mixture to deter monkeys.  Well, it's an experiment...

Construction on new terraced beds

Old planks sunk into a hollow (the soil removed to form the hollow is turned into the bed itself) make a solid pathway leading between two beds...

...and these planks are then covered with saw dust.  This bottom bed is being made to incorporate the two wild tomatoes that seeded themselves

...and into this tomato bed we planted basil seedlings in a ring at the base of the tomatoes, as well as peppadews, pineapple sage, and oregano plants, and then planted coriander, lettuce, rocket and spinach in between

Head gardener Steph walking through her pride and glory

Beans are loving the summer!!

Making a stairway down through the garden by levelling off squares, filling in with saw dust and old tiles

To date we have still not spent a cent on our garden, except on seed.  Everything we've done with our own hands and hard work, borrowed tools, and raw materials found in our area and donated by friends and neighbours.  Even the new terraced beds were put together using pruned branches from the main garden's coral tree.  Sales from surplus herbs over the Xmas season were enough to buy seed for the next 2 - 3 years.  We have already begun to rehabilitate the soil, and we have not used a single drop of artificial (chemical) fertilizer or pesticide.  The garden is populated by loads of different bugs and birds, including a kingfisher who has made a nest in a hole in the boundary wall to the one side of our compost heap

Produce!!

Busy Season

Surplus herbs freshly picked and getting ready to go to the local restaurants:
Lemongrass, oregano, marjoram, garlic chives, swiss chard, parsley, rocket, rosemary, coriander, mint and basil!!

Many of the visitors to our garden do not know what plants they are looking at, so labels help

Lunch, fresh from the garden!

 growtest.org

Compost Vol. 5

On left, dry heap that's been building up over the last 2 months, being turned into new heap, far right.  In the middle is our first heap, now fully decomposed and ready to be used

Empty dry compost lot in foreground, finished heap in the background complete with chimney

December Growth

What happened to our garden while we were away for 3 weeks:

Sprawl!!!

Tomatoes went berserk (which is a good thing).  We failed to anticipate the speed at which they would grow, so we didn't stake them properly.  And now they are doing their own thing...  Hopefully the little basil and oregano plants (in there somewhere) will get enough sunshine!

Spinach are growing into giants, beet is almost ready, parsely is rampant, nasturtiums need a bit of a cull...onions, garlic chives and radish doing well; just got to keep an eye on the cucumbers.

Rocket is up, marjoram and rosemary slips are growing well, as is the new cycle of spinach, and the wild flowers are still having no trouble seeding themselves

Coriander to left, squashes starting to creep and crawl... lavender slips coming along finally...

Mung beans are very slow growing things...but the climbing beans are reaching for the sky!  And nothing can stop the nasturtiums, it seems

Coriander, beans and squash shooting up and out!  Rosemary slips taking off, and sage growing steadily and surely

Our second cycle root bed has astounded us the most: beet, radish, coriander and lemongrass are already, well, ready!  The carrots seem to be happy, as well as the second round of chives, parsely and wild flowers.  Interestingly enough NONE of the marigold seed we've sown has come up yet.  Both Starke Ayres and Mayfair varieties have failed us.  Moral of the story: heirloom is best!

"Head gardener" Steph's little patch on the north side is growing too, though it's not in full sun like the rest of the garden so it is growing a little slower...

...but she's already harvested a full stack of bush beans!!

We have a new member in our garden, Mr. Woo a.k.a. Cous-Cous, a little stray that the ladies have been feeding...well, he's hung around and now he's a regular on the garden wall and in between the greens...

All in all the garden is looking wild and lush.  There is also, of course, plenty of wild 'weed' growth, including the ferocious grasses that have sprouted after the rains, to feed the new compost heap...

Two climbing beans in a pot plus some rocket, and parsely with an onion in the middle outside our front door

To the left, four yoghurt pots with a second variety of tomato - kept separate from the variety growing down in the garden to prevent cross-pollination - next to our little spekboom and portulaca plants, also outside our front door

Stay tuned!!

To Those With Ideas

For Tracy, who cornered me in a supermarket because she had an idea:

Watch this 6 minute film to see more about permaculture's transformative ethics being taught to a class in Hawaii.

There is a future for humans if we want one.  It does not exist within the current system of economics and bottomless deathtraps of consumerism.  It exists within the sunlight, within the soil, the water, the air, the trees, plants and animals, within ourselves as humans, and within the relationships between all these.  It is Nature.

Our Food Garden Thus Far...("before & after")

 From July...

...a wildlife corridor on a steep gradient of hardened soil, rocks and building rubble...

 

...to November

...a garden in the process of becoming established with climbing and bush beans, various squashes and gourds, tomatoes, onions, carrots, radish, beetroot, cucumber, potatoes, rocket, lettuce, various spinaches, wild mint and other herbs such as oregano, marjoram, parsley, garlic chives, rosemary, lavender, coriander, sage, and basil, banana, wild cherry and guava trees (among others), and a variety of flowers both wild (naturally occuring on the site) and sown from seed

___________________________

All you need is to start on your own doorstep...

 

spekboom

...do lots of walking around the garden, looking, thinking and loads of planning...

...decide what you want to grow and then obtain seed, seedlings and trees...

...start a compost heap and have a compost processing zone...

...an earthworm bin for castings (vermicompost) and nutritious earthworm wee

...you will also need a good pair of gloves...

...and it wouldn't hurt to have a herd of cows walk past your front door every now and then.

...If not, make friends with someone who has a farm and do a trade for manure.  And if that isn't possible you can just use your own kitchen scraps, weeds from the garden, cardboard, newspaper and water and create your own soil from scratch! 

YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE A HUGE GARDEN SPACE TO GROW FOOD.  YOU CAN LIVE ON THE 20TH FLOOR OF AN APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY AND STILL GROW YOUR OWN FOOD.

For more information on how to become more self-sufficient in an energy-efficient and completely non-harmful way please consult any of the sites and organisations listed in our check OUT: box on the right