Thursday, May 9, 2013
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Continued improvement and Establishment
Sunday, September 26, 2010
There Have Been Improvements
It's funny how you don't realise how far you've come until you go through some old photos and see the changes in pictures.
This is a photo of an area of the garden that I thought would never be useful for anything. Initially I thought we would just let the kyku grass that was already there (and totally out of control) continue to take over and maybe through mowing become a lawn right to the edge of the fence. You can't see it in the photo but near the concrete; the roots were so entangled and compacted that driving a pitch fork through them to turn the soil over was almost impossible. The layers of roots were about 1o cm thick. It took us a few days to get through the mess and pull out enough of it so that we could see the soil.
Scattered throughout this stip are new argum lilies trying to come up. Argum lilies once were the main feature here but over the past 5 years we've pulled more and more out reducing them to a few shoots. There is also evidence of Jasmine near the back. Funny thing here is that Jasmine is supposed to be one of those plants that 'takes over' but this little bugger just has a few shoots, stands at about 15 cms and hasn't grown more than 2 cm over the past year!
Here is a photo where we have dug up some of the grass and rubbish. Oh yes you should see how much 'human' rubbish we found in this little bit of garden, paddlocks, pens, glass, plastic, forks, knives, small plastic toys, door stoppers, a large hand saw, rusted nails, cans, endless pieces of plastic sheeting, a variety of packaging from food like chocolate bars etc. just to name a few.
This is a photo of an area of the garden that I thought would never be useful for anything. Initially I thought we would just let the kyku grass that was already there (and totally out of control) continue to take over and maybe through mowing become a lawn right to the edge of the fence. You can't see it in the photo but near the concrete; the roots were so entangled and compacted that driving a pitch fork through them to turn the soil over was almost impossible. The layers of roots were about 1o cm thick. It took us a few days to get through the mess and pull out enough of it so that we could see the soil.
Scattered throughout this stip are new argum lilies trying to come up. Argum lilies once were the main feature here but over the past 5 years we've pulled more and more out reducing them to a few shoots. There is also evidence of Jasmine near the back. Funny thing here is that Jasmine is supposed to be one of those plants that 'takes over' but this little bugger just has a few shoots, stands at about 15 cms and hasn't grown more than 2 cm over the past year!
Here is a photo where we have dug up some of the grass and rubbish. Oh yes you should see how much 'human' rubbish we found in this little bit of garden, paddlocks, pens, glass, plastic, forks, knives, small plastic toys, door stoppers, a large hand saw, rusted nails, cans, endless pieces of plastic sheeting, a variety of packaging from food like chocolate bars etc. just to name a few.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Know Thy Soil- Westvale Community Centre free workshop
Today I had the opportunity to attend a workshop at the Westvale Community Centre. The workshop was on getting to know your soil and was presented by Dan Palmer, director of VEG, very edible gardens and permaculture designer. It's the first workshop I've ever attended and I was happily surprised to see so many different people from different backgrounds and age. I have to say it was very informative and I only wish that we had more than 2 hours. I felt there was a lot of information that we needed to cover and it didn't leave much time to have a go at testing our soil samples which we were asked to bring.
This post will be a collection of written notes I made during the workshop.
Topics
Soil chemistry
Soil structure
What is soil made of?
rock, minerals- sand silt or clay- needs to be a combination of all three to be good soil
organic matter- decomposing plant material, compost, leaves, manure
air/gas
water (water and air make up for 50% of soil
life, microorganisms, worms etc.
Different layers of soil
top soil the dark stuff at the top usually a few centimetres deep, then there's a change in colour and then you get down to the clay and rocky stuff, the further down you go the older the soil, could be millions of years old and not very fertile. Top soil stuff is more fertile. Never dig deep and mix the bottom stuff with the top because you'll just be taking yourself a million years or so back!
Soil composition tests
Jar fraction test - add some soil to a jar fill it with water and shake non-stop for 5 minutes let it sit for 24 hours and it should separate with heavy clay stuff on bottom and sandy stuff and hummus on top. See how much of each you have.
Ribbon test
get some wet soil and make a sausage with it see how far you can push it past your fingers that are holding it without it breaking. Will let you know if it has a lot of clay. should stick out about 2 centimetres if its good. Very clayie 5 cm.
Halo test
make a small ball of dirt and put it in a jar with water. let it set over night and see how it changes. if it disolves, stays the same or if it kind of crumbles and makes a pile at the bottom of the jar. Will let you know what type of clay you have.
Test for compactness
coat hanger pushed into ground to see how hard it is to get it through, will let you know how hard your soil is and thus how hard its going to be for plants to grow their roots in the ground. You want it to be light and fluffy and not very hard to push the coat hanger in. Need to do this over the year because in summer and when there's not much rain its going to dry out and get harder. If your soil is hard its going to lead to water logging or have water run off it instead of penetrating.
Types of microbes are going to change when it is full of water and or totally compacted. they are going to be anaerobic not aerobic which you want. Usually this will mean you get bad smells, the smell being the vitamins and minerals going out into the air instead of staying in the ground where you want them. You can test this problem by pouring water over an area and watching what it does.
Soil Chemistry
Soil Biology
This post will be a collection of written notes I made during the workshop.
Topics
Soil chemistry
Soil structure
What is soil made of?
rock, minerals- sand silt or clay- needs to be a combination of all three to be good soil
organic matter- decomposing plant material, compost, leaves, manure
air/gas
water (water and air make up for 50% of soil
life, microorganisms, worms etc.
Different layers of soil
top soil the dark stuff at the top usually a few centimetres deep, then there's a change in colour and then you get down to the clay and rocky stuff, the further down you go the older the soil, could be millions of years old and not very fertile. Top soil stuff is more fertile. Never dig deep and mix the bottom stuff with the top because you'll just be taking yourself a million years or so back!
Soil composition tests
Jar fraction test - add some soil to a jar fill it with water and shake non-stop for 5 minutes let it sit for 24 hours and it should separate with heavy clay stuff on bottom and sandy stuff and hummus on top. See how much of each you have.
Ribbon test
get some wet soil and make a sausage with it see how far you can push it past your fingers that are holding it without it breaking. Will let you know if it has a lot of clay. should stick out about 2 centimetres if its good. Very clayie 5 cm.
Halo test
make a small ball of dirt and put it in a jar with water. let it set over night and see how it changes. if it disolves, stays the same or if it kind of crumbles and makes a pile at the bottom of the jar. Will let you know what type of clay you have.
Test for compactness
coat hanger pushed into ground to see how hard it is to get it through, will let you know how hard your soil is and thus how hard its going to be for plants to grow their roots in the ground. You want it to be light and fluffy and not very hard to push the coat hanger in. Need to do this over the year because in summer and when there's not much rain its going to dry out and get harder. If your soil is hard its going to lead to water logging or have water run off it instead of penetrating.
Types of microbes are going to change when it is full of water and or totally compacted. they are going to be anaerobic not aerobic which you want. Usually this will mean you get bad smells, the smell being the vitamins and minerals going out into the air instead of staying in the ground where you want them. You can test this problem by pouring water over an area and watching what it does.
Soil Chemistry
Soil Biology
Saturday, July 10, 2010
This is what I have to work with...
Unfortunately our whole suburb seems to be riddled with a range of noxious weeds. While I drive around our area I can't help but notice that most people's lawns comprise of this nasty onion like weed which in summer had cute little purple flowers and kikuyu grass. Our property is no exception! Just walking around the front and back yards today I am sure I spotted over 10-20 different weeds. There is no avoiding the kikuyu and oniony stuff. I started digging a patch of the front garden and pulling out that oniony stuff by hand, and while that hasn't really come back there seems to be a 'lovely' sprouting of other weeds. Where did these weeds come from? I don't know how we are going to turn this weed infested land into a garden, especially without the use of chemicals. Sometimes I feel like crying just because I cannot see an end to this infestation. No sooner than I pull things out I find twice as many sprouting in their place.
Here are some photos of what we are dealing with.
Arum Lily
Fat Hen- suspected
Common Sowthistle
As you can see if weeds were prized then I'd have an award winning garden! There's everything here but the kitchen sink, so to speak.
And it is EVERYWHERE... God help us! From what I've been reading online it will be at least 2-3 years before we start planting anything in this garden. F*$#
Here are some photos of what we are dealing with.
Oxalis
Some bulb weed that has purple flowers in spring/summer, can't seem to find a name for it
This is another that's popped up recently and for which I cannot find a name.
Kikuyu grass we also got couch grass
Small-flowered Mallow
There's also a lovely range of other weeds I've been able to identify as
Ground IvyArum Lily
Fat Hen- suspected
Common Sowthistle
As you can see if weeds were prized then I'd have an award winning garden! There's everything here but the kitchen sink, so to speak.
And it is EVERYWHERE... God help us! From what I've been reading online it will be at least 2-3 years before we start planting anything in this garden. F*$#
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
kidney beans, a folate suprise
I didn't know this but 177 grams of cooked kidney beans have got 58% of your daily folate requirements! I'm going to continue looking up folate rich foods and kick these folate tables I'm taking for pre-pregnancy. I am just hating the idea of being dependent on some manufactured pills that are supposed to help me produce a 'healthy baby'. In effect all it is doing is welcoming the baby to a world of pill popping instead of sensible and educated eating. Oh how I hate what's become of us at the hands of the pharmaceutical companies. It's all driven by fear this pregancny vitamin popping. Scared I don't get enough vitamins through my diet... well if we didn't farm all of them out of our fruit and veggies we wouldn't have a problem now would we?!
So what are Collards?
I've just finished doing a little research on collards and now have some idea of what they are. Yesterday was the first time I'd heard of them and since they were being herald as some super plant I thought I should take the time to get acquainted.
According to the Wikipedia entry Collars are ...'Widely considered to be healthy foods, collards are good sources of vitamin C (only when eaten raw, because heat destroys vitamin C) and soluble fiber and contain multiple nutrients with potent anti-cancer properties, such as diindolylmethane and sulforaphane. Roughly a quarter pound (approx. 100 g) of cooked collards contains 46 calories. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have recently discovered that 3,3'-Diindolylmethane in Brassica vegetables such as collard greens is a potent modulator of the innate immune response system with potent anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer activity.
Check out the figures on the right! What a super food!!!!
This all sounds pretty good to me and makes me think I should be eating a lot more raw food after reading that thing about vitamin C! So much for the veggies soup I made today... :-( I love eating veggies from the Brassica family, I'm a freak for brussles sprouts so these should also make my tastebuds happy.
As of today these are officially on my veggies-to-grow list! Here's a few links on Collards and Kale.
Website- Our Vegetable Travelers
According to the Wikipedia entry Collars are ...'Widely considered to be healthy foods, collards are good sources of vitamin C (only when eaten raw, because heat destroys vitamin C) and soluble fiber and contain multiple nutrients with potent anti-cancer properties, such as diindolylmethane and sulforaphane. Roughly a quarter pound (approx. 100 g) of cooked collards contains 46 calories. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have recently discovered that 3,3'-Diindolylmethane in Brassica vegetables such as collard greens is a potent modulator of the innate immune response system with potent anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer activity.
| Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz) | |
|---|---|
| Energy | 151 kJ (36 kcal) |
| Carbohydrates | 7.1 g |
| Fat | 0.4 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Vitamin A equiv. | 575 μg (64%) |
| Folate (Vit. B9) | 76 μg (19%) |
| Vitamin C | 26 mg (43%) |
| Vitamin K | 623 μg (593%) |
| Calcium | 210 mg (21%) |
| Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient database | |
This all sounds pretty good to me and makes me think I should be eating a lot more raw food after reading that thing about vitamin C! So much for the veggies soup I made today... :-( I love eating veggies from the Brassica family, I'm a freak for brussles sprouts so these should also make my tastebuds happy.
As of today these are officially on my veggies-to-grow list! Here's a few links on Collards and Kale.
Website- Our Vegetable Travelers
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