organicjohn

The Revolution is only a Lettuce Leaf away

2008-10-27T10:04:00.006+11:00

This photo was taken at the spectacular Echo Point in Katoomba, famous for the ‘Three Sisters’ rock formation of Aboriginal dreamtime and associated 700m cliff faces, which tourists from all over the world come to see. In posting it I realise that I risk starting a ‘soft toy in the worlds famous places’ type fad, only with salad planter boxes - but I will continue undaunted. Epic is the place, and epic is the task to save the world with home grown organic food! (Vive le Iron Chef!)

The scene is set with the recycled recycling crate. With the recent shift to wheelie-bins for domestic kerbside recycling, there are about 20,000 unemployed black-box recycling crates floating around the mountains, and what better way to re-purpose them than to use them to grow your own fresh vegetables? For the first time (or first time for a long time) gardener, planter boxes make it possible to shrink all the problems of the garden down to a small and maneagable unit. No need to tame the entire yard to get started saving the planet - one lettuce leaf at a time.

Four varieties of heirloom lettuce provide the core of this epic statement of self-sufficiency. Brown Romaine, Freckles, Green Oakleaf, Australian Yellow Leaf (and a stowaway Perpetual Spinach) are the few varieties which have been selected from the many to demonstrate what our heritage is capable of providing us. These varieties can be harvested one leaf at a time, leaving the plant growing more for next time. And as the leaves mature, they become more dimpled - providing more spaces for that piquant home made salad dressing to linger. The varying colours, textures and shapes delight and amaze our senses.

And when the time comes, as all good things must, for these plants to complete their lifecycle and go to seed, the simplicity of this beginners box garden becomes even more apparent. Lettuces are self-fertile - that is the flowers fertilise themselves and don’t rely on other plants of the same variety to produce true-to-type seed. Just wait until the plant dies, cut off the seed head and walk around your garden shaking it into likely growing places. In the fullness of time, these seeds will resprout and provide you with the opportunity to start your planter box once again.

Our gardening traditions go back to the beginning of recorded history and beyond. Today, we are custodians of an immensly rich and varied culinary and agricultural heritage from around the globe. The recipes, the gardening knowledge and the seeds and plant varieties themselves are the bequest of generations of gardeners and farmers, who have passed on the results of their creative hard work. As their descendants, this heritage of ‘agri-culture’ belongs to us all, to honour, share, and
pass on again.

Whether you are concerned with peak-oil, climate change, healthy diets, community resilience, food prices, genetic modification or just getting to know your neighbour, kitchen gardening is an irresistable symbol of practical fun and radical change. By staying at home to grow lettuce with home made compost, we not only avoid spending more carbon through travel, but actually take carbon out of the atmosphere in the organic material we put back into the soil. And as a result we eat fresher and more healthy food, and have more time to spend sharing our produce with our neighbours. And lettuce is only the start!

Cittaslow Katoomba Blue Mountains (www.cittaslow.org.au) has initiated this project “A Kitchen Garden in Every Blue Mountains Home”, which is supported by local business and government, local NGOs and the community. The project has the ambitious objective of making the Blue Mountains self sufficient in leafy greens by 2011!

Fresh Green Leaf Soup

2008-06-17T07:10:00.005+10:00

We don't have to wait for the 'big harvest' moment to be able to eat well from our gardens. And even if many of our crops have failed, there still may be plenty around to add fresh and nutritious ingredients to our diets. When eating locally - think small, be creative - you may be surprised by the results.

The raw ingredients for this recipe are basically any fresh green seasonal leaves that you can find in your garden! It is my fall-back standard lunchtime meal if I need something very quickly so that I can get back to the garden as soon as possible. And it is so satisfying that if I have eaten this at lunchtime, I usually don't feel hungry again till early evening. I have used all or some of the following - dandelion, spinach, chives (or the green top of any Alium), sorrel, kale, fennel, beetroot, warragul spinach, parsley, purslane, basil, celery, nettle, mint, lemon balm, lemongrass, etc etc.

It is actually more of a noodle soup that is both filling and satisfying not only in the gastronomic sense, but also in the sense that you are 'eating widely' - that is getting the nutritional profile from plants from several different species, genera and families. Another advantage is that you can get away with only a couple of leaves of each, and create a large pile of greens when you don't have much of any single ingredient. And, of course, if you practice organic growing methods like me, you will have the confidence inknowing that anything you wash off the leaves is natural!

The basic idea of this recipe can be found in many of the cooking traditions of Southeast Asia and is a good way of using what is available. Experiment with what you have available, and add any particular favourites.

Ingredients

collect, wash and finely chop enough leaf mixture as above - enough for a couple of handfuls (this is a good monent to pause and smell the 'green-ness' - you can almost feel your immune system sighing!)
dried egg noodles (2 minute noodles are good but you could also use pasta noodles, or if you are really ambitious make your own fresh pasta! At our local organic food coop I have been able to find dried Udon noodles which are great as well)
a splash of sesame oil
stock (either stock that you already have or make it from a vege stock cube, miso etc)
1/4 tsp of freshly ground chilli or paprika powder (have you experienced the difference of making your own paprika and chilli powder from your own freshly dried chillies!?)

Method
add noodles, oil and chilli to stock and cook until noodles are almost ready. At last minute add chopped greens and allow to cook for about 1 minute or so. Serve and eat hot.

Variants
I usually now go and dig up something crunchy to add to this also. Yakon is really terrific and well suited to this recipe. Carrots (this is a good way to use the thinnings) or water chestnuts are good as well, and it is a good way of using up potato chats. Slice thinly and boil in the stock for a couple of minutes before adding the other ingredients.

So this is about eating well, using your garden and being resilient. This also indicates another desirable element in the design of food gardens - make sure there is space for the un-glamorous, non headline crop - the ones that self-seed and largley look after themselves.

Bon Appetit

Meditations on an out-of-date sunflower

2008-06-08T10:57:00.014+10:00

This is a photgraph of a sunflower, taken today in my garden. It is of the Golden Sunset variety that has multiple red and orange flowerheads. I strongly recommend it - it is truly spectacular. (I don't even remember planting it, so it may be a volunteer from last year) However the really remarkable thing about it is that 'today' is only two weeks away from the winter solstice! - what is a sunflower doing thriving in the middle of winter? And I mean thriving - not just hanging on and slowly dying like the once mighty tomato plant next to it - it really is a strong and healthy plant, heading fast towards flowering. What is going on?

This post is not so much about climate change, as climate variability, and how plants (and gardeners) respond to it.

What I would like to do is to respond to the weather as it turns out. My interest is not so much in predicting the weather, although that is a noble and immensely useful cause. No - what I am interested in understanding the variability in temperature , rainfall, wind, humidity etc in my local area and having gardening strategies ready to respond no matter whow it turns out. In the last few years I have tried to optimise my gardening techniques to drought, but was caught out this year when it turned out to be much cooler and wetter than expected.

Fortunately we have an excellant resource in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (www.bom.gov.au). It is a truly great site with a huge amounts of data, explanations and learning opportunities. I am particularly interested in the historical weather data for my closest weather station (Katoomba). Although Katoomba is about 200m higher up than where I live, it gives my approximate situation. The following graph shows what minimum daily temperatures are like in the months January to June.

What this shows is the steady gradual decline of minimum (overnight) temperatures as the seasons progress from Autumn to Winter. Note that they do vary quite a bit from day to day and from year to year - overall 2007 was quite a bit warmer than 2008. The deciles can be read as follows : if all the temperatures for the same day of the year, over 100 years were listed, then 90 of them would be above the 'decile 1' temperature and 90 would be below the decile 9 value. In other words, on any given day you have a 1 in 10 chance of the temperature going below decile 1 or above decile 9. Its all still very approximate, and dependant on what is going on with the weather at the time (I found the descriptions of ElNino and La Nina on the BOM site very useful). Interestingly, the same graph for the other half of the year shows a much greater variability - but thats another story

So what does this mean for the plants? It seems clear that despite my previous feelings that sunflowers and tomatoes were both 'summer' plants, in actual fact sunflowers can thrive in quite low temperatures, provided there is no heavy frost. This year they have benefitted from the increased rainfall and will keep going probably for another couple of weeks. Tomato plants on the other hand go into terminal decline when the minimum temperatures stay under about 10C for more than a few days - even though maximum daily temperatures can be above 15C. They need warmth!

So what matters is choosing the plant types - and the varieties within those types, to suit our local conditions. For several years now we have been researching which tomato varieties do best in our relatively short and variable growing season. At our market stall in Spring we sell over 15 varieties but emphasise prolific growth habits and small fruit which can ripen more quickly.

Beyond that - enhancing early season growth and late season survival for vulnerable types with such techniques as microclimates, cloches and emergency frost protection. I am currently re-discovering greenhouse technology - its not as easy as I thought though - but that's another story. Examining local climate data can be a useful way to know when you might need to start deploying these various tactics, and what your limits are. You may be able to stop frost, but not temperatures reaching zero degrees - but then that is all many plants need.

We already have weather that varies greatly - between days, weeks, seasons and years. Predictions are that this will increase with the effects of climate change - so we had better get used to dealing with the variability of temperature, rainfall, heat and wind extremes if we want to 'eat local'. We need to share local experience - weather memories, data, plant types, gardening techniques, tips, sucesses and failures.

I will post a photo of the sunflower if it ever makes it!

Aussi earthworm - Didymogaster sylvaticus

2008-05-01T07:45:00.016+10:00

Every fortnight at Marlene's place, for a couple of years now, I have been sharing some special time with a very unusual group of individuals.

But you know how it is - you get talking, you get involved, time passes, and before you know it, you realise that you haven't introduced yourselves properly - in fact, you don't even know each others names!

Well, next time I visit Marlene's I can formally apologise for this neglect, and say G'day properly. Thanks to the kind and helpful people at the Australian Museum, I now know that I have been hanging out with Didymogaster sylvaticus, a most unusual earthworm.

Just going back a little bit, I owe a debt of gratitude to Marlene for getting us (me and the earthworm that is) together. Marlene is a wonderful, generous and tenacious lady whom I am very glad to have met as a result of my gardening activities. She brought me in to clear a small part of her garden which was completely over-run by well established layers of Jasmine (Jasminium polyanthum) and Trad (Tradescantia fluminensis). That job is a story in itself, to be told another time (for more information on these and other weeds in our area go here), but the important thing is that in the process of that clearing I made my discovery. There, under the thick and damp layers of Trad I started to come across these earthworms that I had never seen before.

The first distinguishing feature is their size - or rather their thickness, which is about that of an adult finger - about 1.5cm. When fully elongated they seem to stretch up to about 15cm or more. Another feature is their colour which can vary from deep red to purple. They are very slow moving and when disturbed do a couple of things. Firstly they contract down to about half their normal length and remain motionless. If the disturbance actually involved a contact with their skin, they contract so quickly that they emit several fine jets of liquid that rise easily up to 20cm in the air, and in the direction of the disturbance. For most of the period of my aquaintance with them, they have been fairly regular in size. However, for the first time, and when I took these photographs in April, I noticed several small ones and they all had a rather purple tinge to them..

Kelly from the Australian Museum was able to add the following information.

“They are Didymogaster sylvaticus, commonly known as ‘frankfurter’ or ‘squirter’ earthworms because of ther size appearance and behaviour. These worms range from bright red to deep purple in colour and usually grow to a length of 15 - 25cm - although some have been recorded up to 46cm in length. These worms are relatively common throughout coastal New South Wales, displaying some unusual behaviour when scared or disturbed - hence their ‘squirter’ earthworm name. Their body will contract, and as the pressure increases from this motion, fluid is emitted at a very fast rate from pores along their back.”

She was also able to direct me towards the following information link at Channel 9 programme Burke’s Backyard

The worm was first described scientifically and named in 1886 by J.J Fletcher. This date sits between the publication of Charles Darwins book on earthworms five years earlier, and Henry Parkes famous 'Tenterfield Oration' in 1889. Parkes' estate in the Blue Mountains includes what is now Marlene's garden, and it is tempting to think that he once walked over the ancestors of these photographed individuals as he pondered the future Federation and Constitution of Australia. Aboriginal people have, of course, lived in this area for at least 25,000 years and probably knew it as well, but by another name, perhaps lost now.

The Australian Faunal Directory advises that D.sylvaticus occurs in the coastal fringe of NSW, and that it is relatively common. However, in five years of working in Blue Mountains gardens between Glenbrook and Mt Victoria, I have never seen it anywhere else. I have only found it on these narrow sandstone rock shelves in one area of the Mountains. Curiously, these rock shelves have accumulated some very rich soil around them - quite unlike the poor, thin sandy soil immediately above and below them, and which is the norm for most of the Blue Mountains. Did the dark coloured, crumb structured soil arise from the years of dense weed cover, or from runoff from above, or from the constant water seepage through the cracks of the sandstone? Is Didymogaster sylvaticus involved somehow, either by cause or effect, or is it all just a coincidence? By clearing the cover of noxious introduced weeds, am I robbing this local native of a beneficial environment?

If you knew Marlene, you would have guessed by now that 'the small corner' in fact turned out to be the entire weed infested garden. Maybe she thought she would frighten me off if I knew what her grand plans were too early. Her success in transforming her once neglected wasteland into a beautiful terraced native garden has already persuaded (by example) one neighbour to start down the same path, while another is thinking about it. In parallel with the garden transformation, she is also busy going through local records, researching the history of the area with a view to having its similarly neglected national significance recognised.

How is it that, in different ways, both Marlene and her uncommon garden occupant are thriving on neglect? Next time we meet, and after the appropriate and belated introductions, I will delicately attempt to bring this questions into my conversation with the enigmatic earthworm.

I'll let you know how we get on.

Composting Path

2008-04-16T19:44:00.006+10:00

I don't know who said it first (maybeI am imagining it and nobody ever has!), but I believe it anyway - that composting is the beginining, middle and end of organic gardening. Of all the things that we are remembered by in this life, let one of them be that we improved a patch of soil!

I have tried many different forms of composting - bins, tumblers, sheet, dig-in, worm-farms, biodynamic - the latter two being my favourite. However... I am not above experimenting and my latest candidate that is showing promise is "The Composting Path".

Excuse me, but just go back a couple of steps. The principle underlying my garden design is permaculture - maximum efficiency with minimum input for maximum harvest (it just so happens that it suits gardeners like me who don't have 8 hours a day every day to put in). So I like compost heaps that fit in with the routines of my life - daily, weekly, seasonally. I deal with the shorter cycles with a compost bin cum worm farm which mixes kitchen scraps with straw or coir.

The biggest problem I have had is dealing with the large volumes of garden prunings that appear sporadically, whenever I manage to steal an afternoon tidying up in the garden. They don't fit in the regular compost and I loath stockpiling them until I can make a proper compost with them as this means finding a space to put them and inevitable involves double handling (a real AAAGGH! for the lazy gardener).

Paths are essential to avoid stepping on and compressing garden beds, yet they are often a 'single use' element of garden design that take up space but can't be used for anything else.
So why not combine the two - paths and composting? I have trialled this combination for the last couple of years and have found many benefits. Basically it works like this.

The access path between my raised beds is used for 'rough' garden waste like leaves, twigs, corn/canna/artichoke stems, pumpkin/tomato stems, large amounts of weeds, lawn clippings etc etc. I chop them roughly so that they lie flat in the space. Running weeds like Couch or Kikuyu are stacked off the ground so that they dry thoroughly before being composted (otherwise they will sprout again!). These access paths are not ones that I use every day, and are not the ones that visitors are likely to stroll around, so they don't mind being a little bit rough.

Within a few months the pile of material has broken down and is ready for the next layer. After a year or so, when I am renovating one of the adjacent garden beds, I dig out the compost path. Because it has been made from rougher material, the compost is usually richer, more 'humusy' and a better structure than the compost from my kitchen-scrap bins. I dig it out and spread it out onto the beds to improve the soil for the next and subequent crops.

So I have turned a single use element into a multi-use element, avoided a problem created a new option for increasing soil fertility.

Pests and predators

2007-10-31T10:32:00.000+11:00

I don't think the insect world really noticed the change of clocks, so I can discount the possibility that it is the extra hour of daylight that accounts for the explosion of insect life in my garden.

In a matter of days, unnoticed in a busy working week, tidal waves of little sap-sucking flying/hopping/crawling creatures are working their way across my garden.

The stink bugs on the citrus alas, I did resort to targeted pyrethrum after the bees had gone home. Alas, because it meant that it was an intervention on my part and that despite my best efforts there were likely to have been 'collateral damage' as they say in spinning circles. However after last years debacle where the stink-bugs literally wiped out an entire years growth on the tree (not to mention the loss of the entire crop of grapefruit), I thought it best to intervene early.

I do intentionally plant predator attracting plants, in the hope that nature will intervene on my behalf and keep my produce safe. But I can't help thinking sometimes that it is a bit hit and miss. The predators arrive in numbers just after they are needed, and the damage has been done. Is it possible to go the next step up and try to time natural predator intervention earlier?

But then I had a timely and wonderful revelation in the environs of some bolting Kale. The poor plant was literally covered in aphids sucking the life out of the poor creature. I didn't really mind because I had other plants that I was intending to keep seed from. However on closer inspection it appeared that there was indeed some order in the mayhem.

First I noticed one, then two, then half a dozen and more ladybirds, happily munching their way down the stems. Then as I stared, entranced, I perceived a hovering and buzzing cloud in the afternoon sun. After a while I established that these were in fact parasitic wasps clearly excited as I was over the unfolding drama in the Kale. I don't even begin to know how to identify these tiny predators as they went about their business of balancing nature - but was I glad to see them!. I have read that exponential growth must find natural boundaries, and I was seeing them in action here. I had to go and sit down.

After I had calmed down a bit I wondered. Perhaps I can grow some plants that I leave, nay even encourage, the aphids to grow on in early spring. An unfortunate, sacrifical brassica, grown only to be eaten by pests. Thereby, hopefully, providing an early feast for the ladybirds and wasps and allowing them to increase in timely proportion.

Well that is what I will try from now on. If only I could find something that would eat stinkbugs!

breathlessly excited PS
just when I thought I couldn't take any more excitement, I found I had a thriving population of Assasin Bugs. All I can say is that I am glad I am not small enough to have to worry about them!! They creep steathily around looking for prey, and when they attack they use this long proboscis about the same length as their body to stick into their hapless target which then gets dragged away to some unimaginably horrible end. Look - if I could, I would negotiate with the slaters. I would even go out of my way to set up 'slater resorts' - childcare facilities, spas the best food - if only they would leave my seedlings alone. However that is not natures way in this particular manifestation of its abundance. It is my garden and pests and predators in balance is a good for me.

My First Simple Grey Water System

2007-10-19T14:20:00.000+10:00

Since first publishing this article in the Blue Mountains Permaculture Newsletter 18months ago, and since actually starting the system over two years ago, I can confirm that it a) works well, and b) needs hardly any maintenance. More updates at the end.

My little grey-water system

OK, so its low technology, but it works and I’m proud of it! It re-uses up to 40litres of water a day, keeps a worm farm ticking over, grows mulch and waters a large vegetable bed. And it’s self regulating, low maintenance, and dare I say, reasonably presentable.

But it wasn;t always that way… I offer “The Short History Of My Grey Water System“ in the hope that it might be of use to someone, or even better, someone may be able to suggest an improvement!

My starting point was a dual-tub kitchen sink. Our kitchen habit is to use the larger sink for washing (hot soapy/greasy water) and the smaller tub for rinsing and washing vegetables (mostly clean, cold water). They had separate plug-holes but joined together underneath the sink to take the waste-water away to the sewer. For the first (and definitely not the last) time I thought “There must be a better way”.. I might also add that I had the benefit of having my kitchen above the level of my garden (thus permitting gravity to do the work of shifting the water to where it was needed), and easy underfloor access to change pipe-work around. I set myself the task of using this ready supply of relatively clean and cold water for the garden.

Grey-water system Mark 1 – I separated the drain-pipe of the small rinse sink from the main sink and let it empty into a bucket. A length of garden hose then carried the water to the garden bed where it dripped from holes periodically drilled into the hose. My reasoning was that this would allow any solids form the sink to fall to the bottom, preventing them from clogging up the hose-pipe. Unfortunately the residue in the water encouraged mould to form quickly in the bucket which clogged the hose-pipe. Added to that, emptying the residue from the bottom of the bucket was a fairly unpleasant task (to say the least). I said again “There has to be a better way”!

Grey-Water system Mark II. I modified Mark 1 by adding a garden sieve filled with gravel to sit on top of the bucket and catch any solids coming from the rinse-sink. This, I reasoned, would reduce the solids accumulating in the bucket and stop the mould growing. I also upgraded the drip pipe section of the system. Previously I had used old hose-pipe with holes drilled in it; this I now replaced with 19mm irrigation pipe, again with holes drilled (approx 5mm) into it. This I reasoned, would be less likely to clog. Unfortunately, Mark II lasted for a shorter time than Mark 1 – the gravel quickly became clogged with debris and turned out to be very difficult to clean. Added to this, the fact that the bucket was now enclosed meant that the anaerobic bacteria had an even better time with the nutrient laden water than before. The mould growing on the inside of the bucket now was something from the special effects department of a horror film! This was a grey-water system which could give grey-water systems a bad name!! I said again “There has to be a better way”

Grey-Water system Mark III. Going back to Permaculture basics I imagined Bill Mollison lecturing to me “the current problem manifesting as an excess of solid material in the waste water is actually caused by a shortage of worms”. This quickly led to the addition of a worm farm to remove the solids. The output pipe from the rinse sink now empties into a worm farm which uses pine bark granules as the base medium. The layers of slowly decaying bark catch any of the solids as the water passes through. The solids then become food for the aerobic composting bacteria which in turn become food for the worms. Hey-presto – the water draining from the bottom of the worm farm is now solid free – and I have a thriving worm farm fed by a constant supply of nutrients from the sink. This simple formula has been working now for three months and I havn’t yet had to clear out the worm farm. Excited by my success I said again, albeit in a slightly brighter tone, “There has to be a better way still”

Grey Water system Mark IV. Again I went back to permaculture basics, and the principle that every element in a design should have as many uses as possible. I reckoned I could clean the water even more, reduce the nutrient level even further, by passing the output of the worm farm through an intensive mulch growing bed. I currently have an old sink full of ginger lily (a terrifically drought, flood, heat and cold tolerant weed) fed by a constant supply of nutrient rich water. The ginger lily grows rampantly (within the confines of the sink!!) and the lush green growth will periodically be harvested for the compost heap. The excess water, which is always clear and clean now, drains from the bottom of this bed and onto my lettuce and spinach as before.

I have now paused to admire my creation working prior to asking how I could improve it again. Any suggestions?

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Believe it or not, I just replaced the pine bark chips for the first time last week. They had actually long gone, and the coco peat that I was adding had poor drainage qualities, so it was getting waterlogged. I have the old mulch tray sitting above the new one in the hope that the worms will make their own way down as the old one dries up. Once that happens I can harvest the rich worm casts for a new summer lettuce planter box for the patio. I also replaced some of the ginger lilly with canna for more diversity of flowers - ok I am becoming a bit of a sap to ornament in my old age!

This was a good project to start out on because it avoided dealing with the more dangerous parts of water recycling - the foecal coliforms that are present in shower (or even washing machine) water and which can be problematic if not dealt with properly.
Now onto bigger and better things!

Handcrafted Heirloom Tomato Seedlings for Sale

2007-10-12T20:17:00.000+10:00

Our tomato seedlings will be ready for sale from Oct 13th onwards - 18 varieties, all heirloom, raised from seed in Lawson without chemicals, growing in our handmade paper pots (straight in the ground w/o transplant shock), in our own seedraising and potting mix.

$2.50ea or 5 for $10. We wil be at Lawson (Magpie) market 3rd Sunday or month or people can contact us direct for pickup
.

Varieties include (ordered by size of fruit)
Large -
Rouge de Marmande,
Orange Verna,
Roma,
Brandywine,
Medium - Tommy Toe, Black Russian, Tigerella, Golden Sunrise, Break of Day,Stupice
Small - cherry Roma,Yellow Pear,Sweetie,
unusual - Green Zebra (green colour confuses birds), Florida basket (for hanging baskets!), Yellow Gourmet Filler (fine flavour, but large and hollow and good for stuffing).

Also available for sale at the moment:
chives, lettuce, brocolli 'Romanescu', warragul spinach (edible native groundcover, delicious when young leaves are lightly steamed), yacon, water chestnuts, loganberries, gooseberries

coming soon:
basil (sweet, lemon, cinnamon), mustard 'giant red', beans - many vars

Snake Proof Netting

2007-10-11T08:52:00.000+10:00

I find that netting my plants is almost essential at some point or another. If its not the Bowerbird family feasting on my brocolli, or the currawongs in the tomatoes, its the chooks scratching up the seedlings, or the cabbage white butterflies reproducing on the cauliflowers.

Thus I have devised a number of structures which support bird netting to (more or less) keep these visitors away from where they are not wanted. I have found bird netting at local hardware stores which is 'woven' and thus elastic and less prone to catching. You can get it 4m wide and in black colour so that it is hardly visible in the garden. Very cheap and last for years.

One problem though - snakes. Fortunately I have only had a few in my garden, but up here in the mountains we regularly get red-bellied-black snakes, copperheads, and the deadly brown snakes. We are very fortunate to have a fantastic snake guy who will come round and collect any that hang around for a while. However, as he has advised on many occasions, garden netting can be a real problem for snakes. They can easily get caught up in netting at ground level which not only can kill them, but makes the job of rescuing them much more difficult and dangerous. Lets face it - they were here long before us and are a vital part of the ecosystem, so for their sake as well as ours we should try to avoid gardening practices which harm the local wildlife.

So, here is my Mk1 snake proof garden bed netting system. It uses plastic gutter-guard (which is used to stop leaves getting into house gutters causing flooding and bush-fire problems) as a low 'wall' around the bed. The snakes can go around or under it without getting caught in it due to its ridgitiy. the regular netting then attaches to it as showin the these photos. The gutter-guard a few dollars for a 10m roll and is an outdoor product so it is UV stabilised and should last a while.

You could also use galvanised steel mesh. Actually, you could even use a low fence made out of woven prunings (see photo) which looks better and is more sustainable.

All comments welcome!

seed raising and potting mix recipes

2007-09-29T12:53:00.000+10:00

Ingredients
Sand – I get mine from Thomas’ landscapers in Lawson because they sell most of their landscaping materials in smaller bags as well as by the tonne! I get a large bag of sand for $6 which lasts me for a while unless I am doing a lot of large pots (having said that I have also just seen a garden nursery sell bags of this stuff too). The type of sand you get is critical. The stuff that I use is called ‘washed river sand’ (aka concrete sand) – it is course (large grained) and pH neutral. DO NOT use ‘brickies sand’ or ‘fat sand’ used for making cement, as these are fine beach sands with a pH of around 10 (far too alkaline) !!!. The sand is present in the seedraising/potting mixes to provide airation. I am not sure where the ‘washed river sand’ comes from and what the environmental impact of the mining process is. If anyone knows of a non-mined alternative to sand, I would appreciate if you could let me know

Coir peat. This replaces traditional peat which is unsustainably mined in places like Canada, Ireland and Denmark. It is present in the seedraising/potting mix to hold water (I also prefer it to the composted wooodchips that are often added to commercial seedraising/potting mixes for the same reason). Also known as coco-peat it is a valuable by-product of the coconut industry and has only really been commercialised in the last 10 years or so. It is sold compressed into ‘bricks’ of various sizes and dimensions. You can get these in most garden centres or hardware stores, sometimes sold alongside ‘worm farm’ products, the smallest ones being around $3 or so. The idea is that you add the compressed ‘brick’ to water and it expands to give you up to 9litres of fine coco peat which you can then mix as desired. Beware of ‘value added’ products that helpfully contain slow release chemical fertilisers!!. You can also get a much rougher product with chunks of husk still present – useful for potting mixes for larger plants.

Compost. If your own compost is up to the job then all the better, otherwise I have found a BFA certified organic input made by Kreidmans. It is composted vegetable scraps and is sold by the 30litre bag. The produce store in north Katoomba stocks this product. The job of compost in the potting mix is to hold nutrient. The humus in the compost has the capacity to hold nutrients in store until they are needed by plants. (by ‘up to the job’ I mean the produce of a good hot composting process that kills plant pathogens – young seedlings are extremely vulnerable to fungal rot)

Nutrition. Used in larger quantities in potting mix and in smaller quantities in seedraising mix since the germinating seeds don’t need (and in fact can be damaged by) by too much nutrition. The compost will provide some nutrition, but I also like to add some more reliable source of NPK plus trace elements so as to err on the side of lush growth while the plant is in the pot (as opposed to the garden soil which is a different story). I have found the best source of this to be granular (not pelleted) products such as Dynamic Lifter or Organic Life which are based on composted chicken manure. Worm castings can be used for potting mixes, but not seed raising mixes because of the likely presence of pathogens which can cause ‘damping off’ or other fungal disease problems in seedlings.

Seed rasing mix
3 parts washed river sand, 3 parts coir-peat, 1 part compost. If the seedlings are likely to stay in the mix for a while, you can add half a part of nutrition, or make sure that you feed with liquid fertiliser (eg the product Charlie Carp which is made from boiled down carp which is a pest in the Murray river) regularly from 4 leaf stage.

Potting Mix
3 parts washed river sand, 3 parts coir peat, 2 parts compost, 1 part nutrition. For larger plants I would consider using the rough coco-peat as it allows more space for larger root development.

Loganberries and other berry vines

2007-09-22T13:44:00.000+10:00

This is how I manage my berry vines so that

they grow the best berries

the birds don't take them all

the vines don't escape and take root all over the garden

I have loganberies but I think these methods apply to all similar vines.

These vines are bi-annual - which means they grow long (up to 5m) vines in the first year. They lose their leaves in during the winter and when spring arrives in their second year they produce flowers which in turn produce the fruit. The vines continue to live after the fruit has finished but die off in autumn of the second year. As the second year progresses new vines are growing ready to produce fruit in following year.

The photo shows a bamboo structure supported in the ground with metal posts. The structure serves to support the vines, which I coil into hoops so that they stay within the allotted space. The structure also supports the bird netting which I deploy from about mid-spring till the last of the fruit has gone in mid summer. The netting is kept off the ground to stop snakes getting caught up in it - not that we get many snakes, but better to be safe. The netting must also permit bees to get in and out to fertilise the flowers. I string all of one years growth to one side of the structure and the new growth is trained on the other - making harvesting and pruning easier.

Remember to keep checking for side shoots which can escape the structure. As soon as these touch the soil, they produce roots and before you know it you have a tangle of new plants charging off around your garden (or you neighbours, or the bush).

Feed the soil around the base of the plant in autumn with manure. If you are getting problems with black spot or other fungal diseases, spray the vines in winter with Bordeaux or similar mixture.

Sir Henry Parkes Peaches?

2007-09-06T17:15:00.001+10:00

One of my gardening clients lives in Faulconbridge in a house that was once part of the estate of Sir Henry Parkes.

There are several old peach trees growing in her back yard, and local neighbours, now in their eighties, clearly remember in their childhood (perhaps in the 1920s or 1930s) going to pick peaches and pears from the same place. Early photographs (c?) of the site show the area planted extensively as a market garden.

Seedlings from these trees grow rapidly in the the soil on the rock ledges which today is thick, black and well structured in marked constrast to the poor sandy soil which is typical of the Blue Mountains.

Some of these seedlings (ungrafted) have been transplanted and are for sale for $10. All proceeds go to the campaign which my client is running to have the Parkes grave site and the Corridor of Oaks renovated and turned into a single monument of national significance.

Update 17 May 2008
According to further research conducted by staff at Springwood Library, there is another intriguing addition to this story. In 1868 Prince Alfred visited Australia at a time when Henry Parkes was Colonial Secretary of NSW, and was the victim of a notorious assasination attempt (more information here). Apparently there are records of Prince Alfred visiting Parkes' Blue Mountains home and planting a memorial tree - a peach tree!

Organic John the Gardener

2007-09-06T13:50:00.000+10:00

This is the blog spot for Organic John The Gardener.

I am based in the Blue Mountains, 75km west of Sydney, NSW, Australia

I am inspired by the notion of beautiful abundance. While I do manage traditional ornamental gardens, my passion is in creating self sustaining organic food gardens. Gardens that nourish the body with fresh and nutritious food, but also nourish the soul.

I belive that gardening is a natural form of creative expression and a tonic for everyone in the same way that we might use our voice, an instrument, a pen to write poetry or prose or our bodies in dance. It connects us with nature - where we have come from and where we are going. And in the process we get in touch with our cultural and culinary history, in the seeds that contain the generations of effort by our gardening and farming forebears from around the world, and in the plant lore and recipes that come with each harvest.

Sharing seeds and surplus with neighbours, while an enjoyable and enriching activity, is also a political act which puts us at the frontline of many contentious issues today. Health, education, international trade, consumerism, environmentalism. Just another good reason to get together as communities to help each other resist the grinding and dehumanising aspects of our global economy.

Most of the photos in this blog are from my own garden, but I start off with a couple from Gardens that have inspired me along the way. Villandry in France and Culross in Scotland. See a few more pictures of my work here

All photos and text are copyright John McNaull. Non-commercial use is permitted with acknowledgement. No commercial use without written approval