WHEN YOUR OWN BACK-YARD FAILS, EMBRACE THE COMMUNITY

It may be the weather, Billie tampering with our tiny seedlings, or it could be my lack of skills and experience. Either way, our little vegetable and herb garden is refusing to play ball.

Just when I thought I was going to have to give up gardening until the spring and plunge back into buying herbs, a wonderful new neighbour has arrived on the scene. The new Waverley Park Communal Garden has came along at just the right time.

Billie and I donned our new gumboots on the weekend and walked around the corner with the stroller basket full of gardening equipment, and freshly cooked food for the working bee shared lunch ( I made my Super Patties with Tofu, Brown Rice and Walnuts, which went down a treat).

Thanks to the group that petitioned Waverley Council for permission to build four large no-dig gardens at the edge of the park. The council even came to the party with generous donations of equipment and the commissioning of local artist Emma Anna to produce a fabulous sign (see pic above) to explain what these great big shiny rain tanks are doing plonked on the grass.

One of the four raised gardens, with it's own underground reservoir attached to pipe

Billie had a ball all morning playing with exciting toys she doesn't have at home - scooters, ride-on cars, and felt-tip pens. A family from across the road had brought it all over, and a couple of mothers even turned it into a mini-creche  -  allowing me to get into the gardening knowing Billie was happily collecting sticks and pine cones in a trolley. 

I learned much about how to make a very good raised garden. Tip number one: You need A LOT OF GOOD SOIL. These beds are actually the same width and length as the one we built at home. But about ten times deeper. 

We also built a rather complicated water reservoir system, which I was assured isn't that complex and is actually fairly essential in a warm country with water shortages. I guess being community gardens they need to be able to survive without daily watering in the summer holidays. 

Basically, we dug a shallow hole the exact size of the metal tank we were to place on top for the raised bed. 

We then lined it with plastic - like you would for a fish pond - and then placed a layer of gravel evenly over the hole.

Then a plastic pipe with holes drilled along its length was placed on top, with the pipe's end sticking out of the ground. Gravel was then used to completely cover the pipe (except the bit sticking out of the ground, which is where we will feed water and worm fertiliser into the mini reservoir under the garden).

Billie learns how to create a 'wicking' from gravel to separate the plants and the soil etc from the water reservoir

We next laid a plastic weed cloth, some hessian sack as it was lying around, and then a whole lot of nice organic dirt. 

Next we built up layers of straw and rich compost (they had a particularly nice one made of bio char). 

We finished with a layer of straw and a good water. Seedlings were about to be planted when Billie and I headed home for her sleep.

A fabulous, educational and inspiring morning. We'll be back for the monthly working bees and of course we'll poke our heads in on the way to the playground each week. Looking forward to grabbing a bit of parsley on our way past.

So what's wrong in my own back-yard? I can't even blame the soil - or lack of - as I have transplanted my silver beet seedlings into pots of potting mix, and sowed basil and parsley seeds straight into pots. But weeks later all we have are tiny seedlings, going nowhere, except into Billie's mitts. I have healthy leafy aubergine plants with no eggplants, and pepper plants producing tiny stunted capsicums. Oh well - the solution is just around the corner at Sustainability Street Bondi Junction, St Mary's Street.

While we get gardening on Sustainability Street, Billie picks up a four-wheeled bad habit

AUTUMN HARVEST

I've bragged about our backyard organic cherry tomato supply - now not looking so hot after a lot of rain, a drop in temperature, a lack of sun and perhaps under-nourished soil.

However, now that the tomato plants have calmed down, the aubergines and peppers are getting a chance.

I was amazed to return from a ten-day holiday to find a large aubergine/eggplant and several smaller neighbours, mostly on the same laden plant. One is looking very purple and ready for vegetarian moussaka.

Aubergine Feast

One Yellow Pepper

But only one pepper/capsicum has materialised from a handful of fairly large leafy pepper plants. Not sure what went wrong there - research required.

Overall though it's been very satisfying growing all this food from seed. Billie has been a fantastic little helper throughout.

I've been waiting patiently for this sole pepper to turn red, but today Billie and I noticed the garden fauna was not being quite so patient. An ant was nibbling away inside a hole presumably left by a worm.

So Billie did the honors and appeared to get great satisfaction from pulling the yellow capsicum off the plant.

I only wish she would show so much enthusiasm when it turns up on her dinner plate tonight.

Billie pretends to eat our freshly-harvested pepper

WELCOME BACK, TO A BUMPER CROP

 Happy New Year billie biters. Hope you had a relaxing break.

Jan 09 2011

We were very excited to return home, from camping on the NSW Far South Coast, to find a blooming vegetable garden.  The frequent rain showers sprinkled between hot sunshine in Sydney gave our little veggie patch a much-needed boost. Before we left I was stressing that gardening was all about the PROCESS, ya know. Watching those SEEDS sprout and mature and survive the great transplant. Well, now I can happily revise that. It's feeding us too - a little.




Our first garden feast featured spinach, lettuce and basil from the no-dig garden we created in late October. Gardening partners Emily and Henry Besser (Billie's best mate) brought bread and tomatoes, and the best sandwiches I have eaten all decade were had. And only a metre from where the seedlings grew.

First pickings, 9/1/11

Soon to come on the garden menu will be tomatoes, aubergine/eggplant and red pepper/capsicum followed by courgette/zucchini. Dill seedlings are thriving. I have also impressed my neighbor Lauren (who kept a close watch over the garden while we were camping) with some coriander seedlings. They did take a couple of attempts. Thanks also go to Miream for the lettuce and courgette seedlings, brought to life down the road in Randwick.






































When Emily, Miles and I built the no-dig garden in the spring, we simply followed some directions pulled off google - layering up with newspaper, straw, manure and a bit of dirt and compost. We omitted the hay because it was impossible to find in Sydney. We should have used cardboard because the weeds are very feisty.

Next we planted seeds in egg cartons, sat them in old plastic takeaway containers on my sunny kitchen windowsill, and delighted in their speedy growth. All was fine, except I left them too long and many dried out and died. A couple of the spinach and tomato survived and are now huge. But the next batch of seedlings I transplanted after just a week or so. Coriander can't seem to survive transplanting so I stuck the whole egg carton straight in the garden once big enough to cope outdoors. The dill seeds I planted in a plastic pot, after the first batch failed to transplant. 

First transplanting of seedlings, Nov 26

Billie and Henry water seedlings after first transplant 26/11/10

I learned from a little organic gardening workshop mid-way through that our seedlings were struggling for lack of fertiliser. So they have since benefited from a fortnightly does of a seaweed concentrate and another organic mix that contains nitrogen.

So it's been a learning journey, and we're still very much novices. But that doesn't stop us screaming from the roof-tops: WE ARE GROWING A BUMPER CROP IN OUR LITTLE VEGETABLE PATCH!

 Today I will make our first home-grown salad to take to lunch with Giles and Anna and Bruno at Giles' art studio. Of course I'll wait until we're about to leave before picking the spinach, lettuce and herbs so I can shout ONE HOUR OLD VEGETABLES  ON YOUR TABLE!

I've just been listening to a re-run of a great discussion on vegetarianism. ABC Radio National looks at the growth in popularity of vegetarianism, as more people question what they're eating and the environmental cost of producing it. The show debunks some nutritional myths about a meat-free diet with Dr Rosemary Stanton.  Check it out:  Vegetarianism on ABC Radio National's Life Matters