Hi everyone! I haven't got a whole lot by way of photos, but I wanted to start this thread off anyway with a little announcement: I'm going to do a permaculture course! I'm so excited!!! Yesterday I went to the little market stall they hold over at Thurgoona TAFE. I bought a bunch of their lamb, pork, and eggs, and checked out a small part of their permaculture farm. It's got me SO hyped for my own projects. I'm also eating some of their organic lamb sausages with their fresh eggs, and they taste AMAZING. Like nothing I've bought before. I'm looking forward to having chickens of my own! ANYHOO, while I was at the market stall, I got to talking with the permies there, and now I've enrolled in the cert IV permaculture course. Unfortunately the course is done completely online, but I'm looking forward to volunteering at the local permaculture farms, now that I've met some awesome permie locals! So, I guess this thread won't just be me bumbling around my own suburban block, but also progress on my course and whatever other local permie projects I get involved in. Did I mention that I'm excited?
My garden is very much in the "before" stages, at the moment. I had some prettiness happening during summer when my little raised garden was overflowing with tomatoes, basil, and such, but everything's looking pretty sad, now. I have ONE garden bed that is producing nicely, because I built a small greenhouse/hoophouse over the bed. The other beds don't seem to get enough sun for even that to work very well, though. I have got some nice garlic growing! Wishing I'd ordered more- they seem to be liking the crummy weather! If it's not raining all day tomorrow, I'll endeavour to get some pictures taken! I own photoshop, too, so I might be able to do some nice overlays with my plans for spring. Fruit trees are arriving some time in the coming weeks. Now I just need to figure out how to make them flourish in heavy clay soil that bogs in winter and cracks dry in summer. Found this thread in my Google searches, though: https://permaculturenews.org/forums...-Preparing-clay-soil-for-planting-fruit-trees You guys are all over this gardening thing. ;D
Belinda is one I would describe as a unique individual who doesn't consider her location as a barrier in becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Miserably cold and overcast day today, but the rain stayed away long enough for me to snap some pictures! Like I said earlier, my land is very much in the "before" stage. While I had some nice growth in the raised beds during summer, I've either pulled that out or it's died back, now. Found some wood sorrel! I don't think this ground has had a chance to grow weeds like this before. The previous owners sprayed herbicide on any weeds that poked up in the lawn. I'd like to see if I can pull this plant up and grow it properly (where it's not at risk of getting mowed). Not just for me, but for my future chooks. I've also harvested dandelion seed and sow thistle. I particularly want to focus on a good dandelion crop, because dandelion tea is so expensive to buy in the shops. The previous owners had a wine barrel under the back patio that they had some kind of half-dead bush growing in. I still haven't got proper plans for this barrel, yet, so it's just got the various rejects from around the yard (seedlings thinned from my raised beds). Only a few of the lettuce are growing well, on account of the limited sun that reaches this pot during winter. The broad beans (aquadulce) are getting real leggy too- reaching for the light, I guess. I hate geraniums, but haven't found the courage yet to simply kill them off, so they're relocated here for now. Oh, and a couple thinnings of my daikon radishes are here, too. They seem healthy, but they haven't built up their root, yet. I think they're supposed to be slow-growing, so we'll see how it goes. Here's a shot of the backyard. I'm getting rid of those palm trees asap. I'm looking at building a timber arbour next to the fence, following where the white-pebble garden bed sits. I'd like to train grapes up over the arbour, and maybe espalier one or two fruit trees in front of the arbour. I'm in the process of shovelling up the pebbles (thus the wheelbarrow). The shed you can see will be where my chicken coop/greenhouse will go, if I can get permission. (As I mentioned in my introduction thread, this property actually belongs to family- I'm just a renter who gets a little more leeway than usual). The back corner will be where the compost piles go. Here's a rough sketch I drew up for my yard plan: The neighbour's house literally butts right up against the northern fence, so I'd like some privacy plantings, too. Possibly Lilly Pilly- I've seen folk make real nice jam from the berries, and the birds love those trees. This shot is moved over just a bit. The patio is on the right, which is surrounded by what seems to be some sort of gravel/french drain. The whole darn yard slopes towards the house, so I guess this was the previous owner's attempt to stop the water backing up there. While I'm not allowed to tear up the big expanse of lawn, I might be allowed to fix up that drainage issue. I would love to get rid of the bogginess of the backyard during winter. The heavy clay soil turns into a soppy mess this time of the year. Days after rain there is still water sitting on the lawn. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! You can also see where I've placed my raised veggie garden. That was essentially me getting my food in the door- convincing my family to let me put in a garden because it was formal and neat-looking. I've since realised how terrible that veggie garden is in summer. Those beds dry right out. These are the pots I've got against the patio fence. Lavender is only temporarily in the pot- I want to plant out lavender around the chicken coop and run. I'm surprised with the rhubarb. I ordered the plant from Diggers, and the darn thing nearly died. Then I realised that rhubarb is apparently supposed to die back and go dormant during the winter in this area. Imagine my surprise when the thing bounced back and started putting out these beautiful leaves! This whole corner garden sits on the northern side of the patio. It gets cooked in summer, and turns into a massive drainage ditch during winter. A good chunk of the yard slopes towards this section of the house, so I imagine there's more french drain stuff happening under those pebbles. These plants are all original- I haven't touched this area yet. I'm considering this area for sunflowers, but I'll have to see what I'm allowed, first. I think the family is pretty attached to that weeping bush and bird of paradise. Closer view of my raised veggie garden! This area is very much a DIY zone right now. That garden shed has to stay, and I believe the nook between the shed and the patio is going to be concreted (doesn't bother me that much, as the sun doesn't really hit there any time of the year). The plastic covers over my raised beds are the mini-greenhouses I built to keep the frost and excessive rain off my plants. The one in front (with the blue stripes) is finished, and working a treat. During the warmest part of the day (if you can call it warm), I unzip the long sides to let air flow through, and then zip them up again before the sun disappears. I saw a bloke on Youtube create something similar, and cobbled together the greenhouses from that. No plans, just the idea and some trial and error with measurements, based on the size of my raised beds. Here's the rough design: Sorry, horrible drawing (I'm not very mechanically minded). Hopefully it makes sense! Like I said, I didn't use a plan to build the mini-greenhouses. I just got a bunch of 15mm PVC pipe and a bunch of 15mm PVC joins, and put the thing together like lego, using a handsaw to adjust the length of pipes as necessary. The best thing I did was buy a bunch of adhesive "tarp zippers" to give me easy access into the beds (that's what the blue stripes are on the photo- the tarp zippers). I don't have to lift the whole thing off anymore. I just unzip the sides as necessary. This is a shot inside the finished mini-greenhouse, with the sides unzipped. I've already harvested a lot of purple radishes from this bed (there's just a couple left on the right side). Broad beans (aquadulce) up the back (one of the seeds didn't germinate), a short row of giant red mustard, and a row of sugar snap peas in the front (one seed didn't germinate). I anchored down the mini-greenhouse by hammering wooden stakes (cut pallet timber) into the clay soil beneath the beds, and tying the greenhouse to the stakes using aluminium wire (I had some left over from my sculpting days). The winter wind tries to carry the greenhouses away, otherwise. ;D This bed was planted out BEFORE the garden bed above, but it didn't have a mini-greenhouse over it until recently (I've yet to anchor it down and put zippers on it). Those are the sugar snap peas on the left. The big empty space USED to have radishes, but they failed miserably, except for a couple hanger-on daikons. The parsley are transplants, so they didn't do the bulk of their growing in this bed. There used to be dwarf green beans here too, but I guess they weren't a cold-hardy variety. They shriveled up and died the second the cold weather hit. As you can see, I'm also attempting to grow some Comfrey. I thought they'd grow like... ya know... weeds! But they've been really struggling to catch on. I've got some comfrey seeds coming that will hopefully do better than the root cuttings. Here's the front yard. The stacks of pavers used to be the driveway. The coloured concrete driveway is new. I want to put fruit trees in the front yard, as well as a bunch of perennials. Hopefully put a nice fenced-in courtyard in front of the patio, seeing as it's the sunniest part of the property in winter. That's everything I've got, for now! When I next visit the farms, I'll be sure to take photos. They're a lot more inspirational than my property.
Shed would make an excellent coop, good height for access. Chickens destroy everything so if you can't have ducks, increase your free range to include the arbour or work out how to rotate them through areas. You could grow something up and over the roof of the shed to insulate for Summer perhaps. How could you incorporate the heat from the chickens for the greenhouse? Surely there must be a way that isn't occurring to me. You could potentially span the gap between the two sheds, or use star pickets and poly arches attached to fence to enclose from the other way for exclusion or shade netting for the garden area. Careful with the comfrey, it can take over. The seed maybe even more so. Judging by the growth in that bed, something may be off so check pH, moisture or nutrients. Agreed on the palms, not so much on the northern hedge. Anything upright and deciduous you could pick for your area? Nice looking street trees out the front.
Absolutely! In my rough property diagram above, all the area marked with that flesh-tone colour will be the permanent chicken run. I want to fence it in properly so they don't have to worry about predators. Hopefully growing vines (first cucumbers or pumpkins, then grapes when they catch up) over the arbour will also help with shade during the summer. And they'll have the entire area down the side of the house and compost area as part of their run. If the front yard becomes chicken-friendly, I might extend the permanent run there, too. I also want to use a chicken tractor and let them free-range the rest of the yard for shorter periods of time. For little sunny sections of the run, I'd like to make a sort of "floating floor" out of mesh where I can grow cover crops and other edibles for the chooks to eat, without them being able to completely annihilate it. They'll also get loads of scraps from my kitchen, garden, and neighbour's garden (neighbour on the south side has a full-on veggie garden). I've also got a worm bin that I'd like to expand so I breed enough worms as a chook supplement. Did you see my chicken greenhouse thread? https://permaculturenews.org/forums/showthread.php?19206-Hunting-For-Chicken-Coop-Greenhouse-Info! I actually want to tear that shed down, potentially using the metal sheets elsewhere. It leaks both water and wind, the door is barely working, and the insulation value is zero. There are a lot of businesses in the area that give away loads of free heat-treated timber pallets, and I've found a potential source for hard greenhouse plastic. So I'm thinking about building my own coop/greenhouse on the existing concrete slab. The plastic on my mini-greenhouses are removable, so I'm thinking about making "summer covers" with shade cloth to replace the plastic during summer. I'd prefer to do something more like what you've described, but when I mentioned it to the property owners, they said that the strong winds wouldn't make a large shade cloth viable. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out! Does seem weird that things aren't perking up after I've put the greenhouse there (that's all it took for the front bed to get going). I just figured maybe the sun was weaker back there. The only deciduous trees I know of are fruit trees (such as if I fan espalier them or something), but I'm reluctant to grow fruit there, as the fence casts shadow there right through the summer (I don't know how well "normal" fruit trees would grow). I'm very much a newbie in this area. Thanks for chiming in! With any luck, things will look very different this time next year.
Updates! My wine barrel is looking a little overgrown, compared to the last pic... Beans still reaching for the light, but everything else seems to like it in there. I've been harvesting the lettuce semi-regularly. Daikon radishes are starting to bulk out their roots. My raised garden bed that has my mini-greenhouse structure is doing well. The mustard can scarcely fit, and the sugar snap peas in the front are starting to put out flowers! The broad beans (Aquadulce) in the back are doing well, but something is chewing on them. All I ever see are ants (the normal little black ones) crawling all over the beans, but I didn't think ants ate beans... The beans are still growing, so I've not done anything to try to hunt down the culprit chewing on them. Garlic, carrots, coriander, and rhubarb are also all doing well! Also germinated some more carrots and sugar snap peas (my kid nephew wanted to plant some stuff).
I was also hoping folk might help me identify some weeds? I've been doing zero weed control for a few months, now. I wanted to see what grew naturally in my yard. I'll be getting chooks some point soon, so I'm hoping the weeds might help supplement their diet? I want to make sure I don't feed them anything toxic (though I'm hoping they're smarter than my mutt, and won't eat stuff that's bad for them). This weed is pretty darn prolific- I'm finding it all over the yard. If I'm right in assuming these are all the same plant, I'm finding them in the rockeries, in old pots, in the lawn, and in soppy shaded areas: This looks like sowthistle to me (https://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&state=&s=&ibra=all&card=H73), but please let me know if I'm wrong! Here's some more photos of what I think are sowthistles: https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july2.jpg https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july.jpg https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july5.jpg https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july8.jpg And I found these ones growing in the lawn. They're thinner and more deeply loped, but I'm attributing this perhaps to the poorer growing conditions (more compacted, less water) than being a different species? https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july7.jpg There's also this monstrosity growing in a forgotten corner between the fence and garden shed: https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sow-thistle-july4.jpg
I've also got this pic, which looks like sowthistle in the back, and dandelion in the front? Dandelion in the pavers: https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-conten...lion-july1.jpg https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-conten...lion-july2.jpg Also got what LOOKS like dandelion and purslane?? https://newbiehomestead.com/wp-conten...lion-july3.jpg I'm actually curious about the above purslane (if it is indeed purslane). It's thinner than what I saw growing during summer (which were huge, and had thick purple stems, like this: https://www.worldcrops.org/images/con...ne_500_400.JPG). They've also got yellowish stems. The leaves are still smooth and thick, though. Is this weed edible?? This one here has the same general shape as above, but the leaves are thin, and the undersides of the leaves have sticky ultra-fine hairs. I'm guessing this is inedible and fairly useless as far as weeds go? I've got more pics of weeds I'm utterly clueless about, but it's getting late. I'll add those another time.
In the absence of any other replies - I can tell you the above three weeds are another milkweed, second one is NOT dandelion but I am told its edible. Sorry, no training here, but I eat dandelion enough to know that is not one. The bottom pic is a sticky "wait-a-while" type plant. I'd be getting rid of it before it flowers. cheers
