Well here we are in a new home with no gardens! A blank pallet to start with, and with lots of things to do to the home ie... Put a pool in, a patio, a carport and the list goes on & on hey... sounds like good fun for an oldies like us hey lol?

We are about making use of available resources, We are about recycling, re-using and conserving, you can do as little or as much as you like if you use a system like this to start out with. We do not pretend to grow prize winning or the biggest and best of show, what we do get is good quality food with no added imput from man-made chemicals or fertilisers. All our gardens and exotic food trees are watering almost exclusively with recycled water, we don't pretend that doing this is the absolute ideal but in our current climate of a very deep drought and not much rain you will at the very least have a head start in keeping plants alive and producing. We do also make our own laundry detergent, and no doubt those with scientific asperations or their own personnal barrow to push, can set up any sort of test and prove that what we do won't work, our come back is if it ain't working then how come we get more than what we can eat and give lots away?.

I was thinking of doing this in stages, but have opted for one big page.

Well I still need to get some good nutrient rich fresh vege's growing, while I work out where the 2 X 5,000+ gallon water tanks are going to go. Where to put the food trees and whatever habitat trees I can grow, this is not acreage it is a 740 sq/mtr yard, on a corner block so the footpath almost equals the yard space. It's on the footpath that most of the habitat trees will be grown.
We did manage to get a comfortable home on the right sort of aspect land, keeping in mind that home design has nothing to do with efficiencies like natural comfort, but that's a whole 'nutha story hey?

This instruction will take you right through to harvest time.

So the ingredients for my instant garden are as follows:
20 bags of mushroom compost
15 bales of spoilt pasture hay could also use straw or lucerne hay as well

So as can be seen the bails are set up to create the edges, so likely we will need more for mulching. Next I will apply dolomite lime at the required rate (the soil is acid sulphate fill sounds terrible hey?), of course we also need to add heaps of gypsum as there is a lot of clay in the fill.

I'm using these ammendments even though the garden is a raised bed, this is to make the soil's climate more agreable to worms and other needed bacteria.

A pic of the gypsum/lime will be the next stage of creating the gardens medium.

Something i didn't say yet the bales are only there to define the gardens parameter, i could have used other just as quicky methods but with a little more toil so this is the selection.

The inside dimensions of the bed are: 1 meter wide and 5 meters long.

So here it is the 'dolomite' & 'gypsum' (realy can't inderstand the negativety about gypsum from US of A forums? ok not all clay's will respond, but for me i have never in all the different places we've lived had that experience, same as the ditty doing the rounds over there about digging a hole into clayey soil and it holding water and the plant getting water logged, again using gypsum and amnedments this is the method i use and the problem described has never happened!!) are spread and will be watered in:

Now the scrappy bits go in old cooked food from the fridge:

The cardboard & paper goes in next, that gets well watered as well to ensure water is trapped in those layers to start docomposition:

Next all the prunnings from the garden 'mock orange & roses etc.,. unwanted plants', there is much much more there yet so next time i will hire a shredder:

Ok ok every good gardener needs a helper hey that's me little bro', and yes me lovely was the boss come camera holder person.

Right now the gist of it all the mushy compost:

The mushy is broken up and raked out a bit and i emtied some dead potplant pots i had into there as well, there may be some worms/worm eggs in their to get the garden kick started?:

And the raked bed ready to go almost so the nest time i come back will be to show the compost laid and the seedling in:

Ok here we go this pic' shows the bed has now been mulched (needed to use some sugar cane mulch to finish up with), so this has been watered to help settle it a bit. we used the bale of hay and our grandson to do some compacting of the mushy medium (there will still be lots of settling):

Just for the heck of it after i planted the following:- cabbages, broccoli, snake beans, cauliflower, silverbeet & tomatoes, i took this pic doesn't show much but here it is:

Ok ok so ya' can't see anything well where all the dark patches are there is a seedling.

So the final washup; 16 bales of hay (1 sugarcane), 30 bags of mushy compost + other assorted stuff.

The progress results are as follows:

They get watered with dirty dish water/grey water and wee from the night bucket, and they are loving it:

That is from the oldest end. got lots of plants in pots some from the bit of garden they had here either to be used onsite or sold at garage sale.

This is from the added on end, near the spuds.

did you note the hose for the washing machine water?

The garden is looking a treat hey? we have been eating silverbeat and broccoli for about 4 weeks now, mostly at least 4 nights a week. The tank in the right background is an 1800 litre tank we bought to use as a back flush tank for our salchlor pool, this is to enable us to settle out the sediment in the water then we can utilise that water for gardens etc.,.

Initially we had been putting any kitchen scraps under the mulch between the plants, this has no effect of nitrogen interference, however now that the mulch is breaking down and needs topping up we are now simply putting those same scraps on top of the old mulch between the plants and covering those scraps with a couple of handsfull of sugar cane mulch, the end result the garden is still being fed and the mulch gets topped up, and the worms are as happy as pigs in mud.

The cabbages have all headed up very nicely indeed and continue to fill out & the cauliflowers are getting real serious about getting heads going as well, we have one collie at 6"s across looking real good

Just a close up of the next broccoli to be picked for the first time (that's it on the right), one of the earlier plants has now been picked 3 times and another 2 times, and if you note in the left foreground of the earlier pic' there is another broccoli developing nicely there as well. that silverbeat in this pic' has been picked around 5 times now and a couple of others in the bed have had 2 & 3 picks

That's it for now, we hope this has inspired you the reader? If so please pass it on to others, even if you are not inspired pass it on hey chuckle. A Straw Bale Garden would be a great school holiday project for the kids, even in a school ground scenerio?

We've had to trim our Web page back in this section as it is a popular section understandably. We simply cannot afford the extra costs, we had gone to our internet gardening family seeking help in the form of donations, but if nothing else it would seem gardeners are not a generous group? We are not wealthy people on a high income, we are pensioners getting by, if living costs and internet costs continue to rise this site will no longer be featured.

On an Eco' Friendly note:

We produced good quantities of good fresh food, using minimum input after initial construction of the garden bed.

We do however use a homemade Laundry detergent and an 'Earth Friendly' dishwashing detergent (no dishwasher used here).

Our pile of Sugarcane Mulch and Mushroom Compost, will need more of both when we get stuck into building the remaining beds etc.,.

The Herb Garden, just outside the Kitchen door where it should be.

Looking down the nth/west side our 2 grape vines are growing madly, as yet we don't have the arbour up for them, oh well there are only so many days in an hour hey?? lol.

The tank on the same side, now just over 1/2 full (25,000 litre capacity), currently only used for drinking but soon will connect it to the house and use it there for periods of time. These modern Macmansions don't allow for selective connection to certain areas of the home, so it's a case of "one in - all in".

Front yard pic' looking to the western corner. From left to right of frame - Washington Navel orange, Honey Murcot Mandarin, Red Rio Grapefruit, other incidental plants are: lemon grass, sweet potato, tomatoes, rhoeo(moses in a boat/basket), edible ginger and a white iris (native) & a Day Lilly.

Now looking to the north/western end of the front food tree zone, beginning from left to right Imperial Mandarin and the Lemonade tree, and toward the front of the mulched area fore ground left, shaded by that impatiens is an Artocarpus lakoochaand, along with other incidentals: tomato, Day Lilly, impatiens and hidden background left is a Cardamon behind the Lemonade.

Now to this years first project a new garden bed, using the same principals as previously but instead of bales of hay we are using buiscuits/slabs/slices of hay. As usual all the cardboard from xmas and wrapping and lots of newspaper got used this time so currently we have no paper/cardboard left, but more will come.

So far 4 or 5 bales have been used with 20 bags of mushroom compost and 1 bag of horse stable manure, when it is complete ther will be around 60 bags of mushroom compost used + 5 bags of horse manure and another bale or 2 of sugar cane mulch to mulch the lot. We will most likley plant some more Sweet Corn in it for now, but basically this bedd will give us our first plantings of Brassicas, while we reposition the other older bed. Ther is no decision on permanent edging yet! But that is the beauty of this system we can get the beds established and be growing and eating crops while we mull over the edging issue too easy hey?

This time we have opted to hire an 8' x 5' box trailer so we can pick up the mushy compost ourselves even driving to Woodford and the hire costing $30 for the day the cost of 50 cents per bag (60 bags) will still give us a saving.

Here is the project as we finish it impreparation for planting. Have decided we will use the bed in a couple of weeks time and plant with: Tomatoes, Capsicums, Sweet Corn, Cucumbers & Zucchini.

&

The mushroom compost is all in now, including a layer of horse manure between the top and bottom rows of compost.

Next

finish date 11/01/07

The Sugar Cane Mulch is now in place, so the bed is finished.

Final washup goes something like this:
The bed is 6 meters long and 1 meter wide a good size for a garden.
It took 69 bags of mushroom compost
6 bags of horse manure
and sorry not sure here but about 6 large bales of S/C mulch.

With this amount of compost we are anticiapting that this bed won't need any topping up for around 2 years.

THIS PLANTING:28/01/07, just over 2 weeks after the bed was finished, we let it fallow so some of the heat would dissipate prior to planting.
4 Zucchini 'Blackjack' 2 plants in each bed
4 Tomatoes 'Ox Heart' 2 plants into each bed
4 Capsicum 'Sweet' (Sweet Chilli Peppers) 2 plants into each bed
6 Sweet Corn Plantings all together in the new bed

Taken 10/02/07 the corn is growing a treat as are the zucchini's, already producing fruit, also planted in this bed some more snake beans and the rest of our perennial leeks.

GARDEN UPDATE 28/02/07

Great results again so far:
Picked around 15 zucchinis so far, already given 5 away (if we ate one a night is about all we can get through)
The snake beans are back on the boil picked another dozen today, and heaps of flowers on so heaps more beans to come.
Remember that Red Pawpaw we planted at the end of December well it has a mass of flower buds today, and it is just over 1 meter high maybe 1.4m.<.br> All the corn is in flower and plenty of cobs developing.
Our pumpkin continues to grow rampantly giving female flowers every day but today the most by far with 8 or so to be hand pollinated, and guess what today was the day the male flowers where scarce!
The grape vines are growing rapidly at present hope this means good fruit whenever?
Got some more white cucumbers growing again as volunteers.

GARDEN UPDATE 13/03/07

On the 09/03 we planted seedlings:
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Silverbeet
For the brassicas this is an early planting, we are going to try the remedy that has been posted around the traps, about using molasses and a marine type liquid fertilser as a foliage spray to keep the Cabbage Moths at bay (recipe on our 'Remedies' page).
Getting more zucchini than we can eat, the snake beans are also producing ahead of our use rate, and have eaten our first cobs of corn, all I can say is delicious.

So far the above remedy is not working for us, getting quiet a few grubs and caterpillars on our young brassicas.

Today 26/04/2007 - picked our first Pumpkins today, 2 around 2.5 kilograms each they are about the smallest the rest will come off the vine soon, so more follow up to come. Next year we will grow our own saved seeds we have had very good results with, these are the one we bought with us from the property.

We cannot emphasize the importance of mulching (aside from feeding the soil), we have had some hot days again since our last period of rain last week, and the Zucchinis and Pumpkins have hardly wilted in the noon day sun.

Here is the Photobucket album for our winter 2007 pic's: Winter Garden

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