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| Looking back at our house from the end of the garden |
It has been over three years since my husband and I moved to Australia and since we arrived in Sydney we have lived in apartments. Actually, I have lived in apartments since I left home at 18, but that's a whole other story. Our first one was interesting, my husband likes to refer to it as 'the insane asylum' and it did sort-of have that feeling about it, though the padded walls were missing. I think what really made it feel that way though wasn't the white walls or the fact that no one could be bothered to make the 10 km trek out there to see us (it really did seem further than that). I have come to the conclusion that it was actually the fact that there was no outdoor area to enjoy, no garden or even balcony where you could have a few plants. There was no greenery at all in that place and for some reason we didn't think to get a few indoor plants to cheer things up a bit.
Needless to say, we only stayed there for about 10 months and practically threw the keys through the real estate office door as we zoomed out of Ashfield at record speed toward bigger and better things. We have never looked back. Onward to Glebe we went, moving in with a mate of ours to help with the rent, we began to enjoy the feeling of having a little outdoor space to make our own. I didn't really stretch my imagination about how to use the space, I put a few pots around the place and my brother gave us a Happy Plant as a housewarming gift, which immediately brightened the place up. Then our mate moved out and my brother moved in with us and that is really where my enjoyment of plants and gardening started. I mean, I had always loved getting my hands dirty and helping my mother in the garden as a kid, but as an adult, living in apartments for so many years, I just never got really into having plants and didn't realise what a difference they can make in your life.
On a visit from the States, where we grew up, my mother helped me put in a "U"-shaped raised bed just below the kitchen window that I proceeded to fill with bags and bags of potting soil and compost from the garden shop. Needless to say, it wasn't the highest quality of soil and didn't really retain much water, so the summer was a bit rough with watering every single day. First lesson learned: use lots and lots of different organic materials in the soil when first filling a raised bed, just potting soil or soil that has been sifted and/or sterilised at some factory just will not cut it and will dry out and get really compressed. Ironically, plants won't really survive well in that kind of soil, at least not without feeding them a lot of fertiliser and other chemicals.
Another lesson that came out of the small raised bed occurred when I pulled up my very first carrot and beetroot. They had been going great guns, had huge leaves, beautiful greens, but when I pulled them up the carrot was about an two centimetres long (compared to its 20 cm leaves) and the beetroot looked more like a pathetic radish with insanely bushy, dark green and red leaves. The lesson you ask? Okay, you didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway: too much Nitrogen in the soil. You see, I did realise that just potting soil wouldn't be good enough, so I added all sorts of natural fertilisers like cow manure, blood and bone, seaweed emulsion, charlie carp...sort of overdid it on the nitrogen love and then planted a whole bunch of peas and beans as well. So, I discovered that Nitrogen is great for green, leafy veggies that put all their energy into the leaves, but that it isn't so good for the Winter root veggies. What I didn't discover until I had tossed them all over the back fence thinking they were useless, is that beetroot leave are actually really lovely to eat and full of vitamins and minerals, another lesson learned.
We had been happy in that spot for more than two years, then about five weeks ago we were asked to leave there. We have now found a great place with a nice yard that is like a blank slate to work with. The people living here before us were obviously not into the garden, what a shame! But it gives me the opportunity of a lifetime to start from scratch! I am so excited, but being relatively new to all things gardening, I am going to be doing a lot of trial and error learning. That is really what this blog is for, to talk about all the mishaps (and successes and many other totally unrelated things) that occur as I turn this blank slate into my Permaculture Paradise.
On a visit from the States, where we grew up, my mother helped me put in a "U"-shaped raised bed just below the kitchen window that I proceeded to fill with bags and bags of potting soil and compost from the garden shop. Needless to say, it wasn't the highest quality of soil and didn't really retain much water, so the summer was a bit rough with watering every single day. First lesson learned: use lots and lots of different organic materials in the soil when first filling a raised bed, just potting soil or soil that has been sifted and/or sterilised at some factory just will not cut it and will dry out and get really compressed. Ironically, plants won't really survive well in that kind of soil, at least not without feeding them a lot of fertiliser and other chemicals.
Another lesson that came out of the small raised bed occurred when I pulled up my very first carrot and beetroot. They had been going great guns, had huge leaves, beautiful greens, but when I pulled them up the carrot was about an two centimetres long (compared to its 20 cm leaves) and the beetroot looked more like a pathetic radish with insanely bushy, dark green and red leaves. The lesson you ask? Okay, you didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway: too much Nitrogen in the soil. You see, I did realise that just potting soil wouldn't be good enough, so I added all sorts of natural fertilisers like cow manure, blood and bone, seaweed emulsion, charlie carp...sort of overdid it on the nitrogen love and then planted a whole bunch of peas and beans as well. So, I discovered that Nitrogen is great for green, leafy veggies that put all their energy into the leaves, but that it isn't so good for the Winter root veggies. What I didn't discover until I had tossed them all over the back fence thinking they were useless, is that beetroot leave are actually really lovely to eat and full of vitamins and minerals, another lesson learned.
We had been happy in that spot for more than two years, then about five weeks ago we were asked to leave there. We have now found a great place with a nice yard that is like a blank slate to work with. The people living here before us were obviously not into the garden, what a shame! But it gives me the opportunity of a lifetime to start from scratch! I am so excited, but being relatively new to all things gardening, I am going to be doing a lot of trial and error learning. That is really what this blog is for, to talk about all the mishaps (and successes and many other totally unrelated things) that occur as I turn this blank slate into my Permaculture Paradise.
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| My future Permaculture paradise |
I am not going to act like I know all there is to know about anything, but I am going to try and find out all I can about gardening, composting, bokashi, soil and all the things beautiful nature has to offer us and try to share what I learn with other people like me who are interested in such things.
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