2013 in my permaculture garden

Hello 2013.

This year I had a break over the Christmas period for the first time since starting my business, ever. I feel truly refreshed and revived. Note to self; take more mini-breaks.

During my days off I did a lot of pondering and reflecting. The biggest realisation for me is to de-clutter. De-clutter my thoughts, my committments, my house, my garden, my life.

I revisited my previous posts -  very cool looking back at how much the garden has changed and the great recipes I found or created - and I came across this little gem:

Permaculture is about "...saving the planet and living to be a hundred, while throwing very impressive dinner parties and organising other creatures to do most of the work." (Linda Woodrow)

So, news years resolution; save the planet, live to be a hundred, throw very impressive dinner parties, organise other creatures to do most of the work. Sounds good.

Photos of the garden right now:

 

The whole side of the back yard has been turned into garden...

which was hard work. Obviously a cheese platter, cocktails and beers were well deserved.

 Our wedding wishing well now hangs from the tree next to our balcony. Love it.

 Rainbow chilli plants minus the leaves. Damn chooks.

 Speaking of chooks...

 we have two. They each provide one egg per day. Free range eggs with truffle salt is the best damn breakfast going. The neighbours also love the eggs and I love giving them away as it means true free range eggs for all (the chicken and egg industry is a real sore spot for me) so I'm going to get a couple more. The chooks used to roam free with the dogs... however we have since built a fenced in area for them. The sole reason being they shit everywhere! Bloody annoying.

 The orange tree. Maybe we'll get fruit off it one day...?

 A capsicum plant I'd left for dead. I found it recently COVERED in these little beauties. 

 YAY! My rhubarb is growing strong. 

 Remember this? The lemon grass has exploded and is now massive (at least 2 meter diameter). 

 Rosemary hedge still coming along. Geeze it's a slow grower. 

 We had a little visitor the other day. This (harmless) snake uses our fence line as a path for travel. It doesn't bother the chooks (or hasn't found them yet). I am not a massive fan of snakes but I leave them be.

June in the garden

 As far as gardening in June goes, I didn't do any...

   

 We were away for the whole month. I was really surprise at how well the garden held up while we were sipping cocktails and sunning ourselves on a tropical island! 

The bell pepper bush has exploded with gorgeous red bite-size gems. I love collecting them from the garden by using my shirt as a holder... it reminds me of adventures in the garden with my sister, Clare, when we were kids. I have preserved one batch with garlic and thyme, and am poaching and stuffing another batch with goats cheese, parmesan and parsley today. Yummy!

 

The parsley is lucious and gorgeous green. I will be taking some to my next girls dinner to give to the girls. Nothing better than sharing your produce with loved ones!

 This lovely plant is adding some much needed colour to the garden, now all the marigolds have died back and gone to seed. The edible flowers and leaves are a great addition to a winter salad. I got this plant from my Grandma's garden, so it makes me smile every time I see it.

 My "weeds"... corriander. I have not planted corriander for YEARS. It just pops up all over the place. This bed was left empty before I went away, and when I came back it was full of delicious corriander. It's even in the lawn, smells great when mowing!

 

"Laura's Strawberries" all the way from the Atherton Tablelands. Laura is my little sister, and she sent me some strawberry plants in the mail as little babies. They are growing well and starting to flower! 

 

Before and after...  the lemon grass is taking off.

 A shot for Mum...the 3 beds along the side fence.

 Dad came to visit a while ago, and he can never bloody sit still! So I gave him a job to do... "prune" the mock oranges. These used to be about 2 meters high. I must say, they loved the prune and so did the rest of the garden.

As a result of the garden having more sunlight, the rosemary hedge finally stands a chance!

I love succulents, and I'm experienting with making different patterns out of the various varieties. I'm thinking a stripe pattern like this will work well out the front around our mail box.

An old milo tin, covered in fabric and planted with succulents.

 
Succulents in an olive oil tin.


More ovely succulents...

This plant was a gift from the birds.

An old tree stump turned pot plant. I just dumped a head of potting mix into the centre and planted some crawling plants in. A old eye sore is now a beautiful feature.


The pot came from a flower arrangement I was given, and I got the climber as a cutting from a neighbour (they may or may not know about that part!)

Blogs and Websites I love

There are so many blogs that I love and visit all the time, and there are so many blogs that I love ... and forget what they were called! Here's my 'to-remember' list. You should check them out too! Please let me know of any you think I I should add to my visit-list.

http://mynewroots.blogspot.com.au/ - Sarah is a holistic nutritionist and vegetarian chef. In her award winning blog you will find one-of-a-kind recipes, amazing nutritional information and mouth-watering photography.

http://www.missfoodieaus.blogspot.com.au/ - Kirsten is Miss Foodie! You will find her blog filled with beautiful photography, delicious recipes and restaurant critiques.

http://sensiblespice.blogspot.com.au/ - Amy is an inspiration. In her blog she shares her thoughts on parenting, food, some great recipes and other things that come her way.

http://www.sarahwilson.com.au/ Sarah is an Australian beauty - we need more personalities like her! She is a blogger, journalist, TV personality and social commentator. Her views on food, life and health are inspiring.

http://www.karenmartini.com/ Melbourne chef, restaurateur and food writer Karen Martini has been cooking professionally for more than 20 years. Great recipes and truly wonderful videos!

http://crafterholic.blogspot.com.au/ So many things to add to my 'to-do' list on this blog! 

January Garden Photos

I thought I'd share a few photos of my January Garden.

 

Our Jasmine Star Christmas Tree. It flowers in abundance at Christmas time, gives a lovely smell and we don't have to throw it out at the end of December!

 My olive oil tin planters. Perfect for growing succulents. Just drill a few holes in the bottom for drainage if you want to do the same.

 Out the front. The neighbourhood cats kept coming into the front garden. Mum suggested planting Rosemary as a way of deterring them as the smell could be too strong for them. Rosemary is a natural insect repellent and it seems to work on cats too! I've also planted some of the native grass I bought back from Mum's garden on the Atherton Tablelands.

 Succulents are one of my favourite things to grow in pots.

 Another plant from Mum's garden. It survived the 1800km drive!

 More from Mum's garden.

 This funny little spot under the stairs has always been an ugly patch of dirt. The only thing I have managed to grow here is Mondo Grass partly because of the poor growing conditions, but mainly because of the dogs laying and digging in there. Now Sunny can lay in the cool grass and it survives!

 Native violet or Viola hederacea. One of the plants we got from the Free Native Plant Program run by the Brisbane City Council.

 My Passion Fruit vine is finally producing fruit! It was here when we first moved in but never really did much. I have been giving it some TLC over the last couple of years and now the fruit is divine!

Lemongrass. YUM! A must have in every garden. It's so easy to grow and it's zesty lemon flavour is beautiful in Thai cooking. It is also said to have a number of health benefits, especially when used in combination with other Thai spices such as garlic, fresh chillies, and coriander! Again, YUM!

Herb Robert or Geranium robertianum. It's a medicinal herb but I'm still not sure how to use it! Apparently it is as a remedy for toothaches and nosebleeds, I've also read it act as an insect repellent and there are even stories about it helping people beat Cancer.

 I saved this Marjoram plant from the markets... hopefully it will start looking a bit healthier soon! Some people say Marjoram can ward of bad luck so they put it in their homes and businesses. It is very similar to Oregano and can be used in many savoury dishes.

 A photo of Zone One of my permaculture garden. Hopefully by February this will be out of control with Basil, Parsley, Lettuce, Spinach, Coriander and what ever else I planted in there!

 I'm experimenting with propagating Basil from cuttings. Seems to be working so far... will let you know!

.

My ginger is growing! The rhizomes came all the way from Cairns, from my Aunty Arja's garden. Apart from being delicious, Ginger can help with nausea and research at the University of Sydney has found it may also reduce pain and inflammation.

As you can see a lot of my plants have been given to me from other gardeners as cuttings, bulbs or rhizomes. This is fantastic as it cuts down on cost for me, but it also tells a little story in my garden and I think of my Mum and Aunty (and sometimes the neighbours - hehe!) every time I see their plants.

I once read, when you become a gardener you become a thief! I like to think of it as sharing...

Keeping dogs out of the garden

I was sooo sick of working hard on my garden and then having my two diggingest-dogs dig it all up and eat all my plants, some of which travelled 1000km's in the car with me to get to my garden!

I have tried everything to keep them out, but nothing works on these little MacGyver's. So I bought an electric fence. Installing it was very easy and it looks neat and tidy. And no digging! The only problem is I feel horrible and mean doing that to the dogs. But I figure, they will only go there once, right.

We were sitting outside when Peppa attempted to get into the garden, and... my heart broke to watch her get zapped. BUT... she has never been back! I'm not sure if Sunny has had a go yet, but I'm assuming she has as my vegies are all untouched!

Peppa and Sunny sitting in front of the new 'don't go there' fence! See, dogs and garden can co-exist!

Day 1 - permaculture garden begins

Yesterday we started our permaculture garden. I was going to do the trench thing mentioned in this article - www.permaculture.org.au

But when we started digging we realised that it took on a very similar shape to our existing timber boxes, so we used those as the garden borders instead. Here's what I did:

1. mowed all the grass and weeds in the area
2. turned the soil over (it's actually not as bad as I thought it was) 
3. tipped a bag of horse poo and  sort of spread it around the garden bed
4. topped with newspaper and then a really thick layer of mulch. 

The reason I put the cardboard on top of the poo is that it could contain grass and weed seeds that I don't want in my garden.

 I'm going to let these beds sit and do their thing for a few weeks until the cardboard and poo start to decompose.

In the bed I actually wanted to plant (in zone 3) I did steps 1- 3 but instead of topping it with mulch I added all the lovely rich compost soil from my compose heap. I was actually surprised by how quickly the leaves and food scraps had turned into lovely soil.

In zone three I planted corn and cucumber, then topped with mulch. Once the corn establishes a bit more I will plant something around the base of it. I also want to plant beetroot and garlic in here, but will wait to see how much room the cucumber and corn take up.

Starting my permaculture garden

My goal is to live a happy, healthy, stress-free and self sustainable life. I realise that in our Westernised culture that we can never be fully self sufficient. And I am not willing to give up many of the luxuries to which I have become accustomed, but I would like to minimise my impact on the Earth and maximise my family's health. I love gardening, cooking, sewing, entertaining and travelling.

After changing and moving my vegie garden more times than I care to mention, today, I am going to start a permaculture garden. I've found this website useful http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/ in giving me a general over view on Permacuture and I quite like this description of Permaculture:

Permaculture is about "...saving the planet and living to be a hundred, while throwing very impressive dinner parties and organising other creatures to do most of the work." (Linda Woodrow)

I have just been to the local nursery with four soil samples where they tested the pH for me and they are all pH neutral. Good news. I also bought 3 bags of horse poo and an extra zappy electric fence. Look out Sunny! No more diggy in my garden for you!


I am going to start with zone one and get that right, then develop more. I don't want to go too hard, too early and give up after the entire thing gets over grown with weeds! I am going to put chives, parsley, basil, mint and other every day herbs right at the door step so I actually start using them in my cooking.

Photos to come...