[MrFista]

Hello fellow veggie lovers.

It's Winter time here down South. Ive recently planted out some strawberry crowns, hybrid berries, garlic, and some peas, mesclun mix and brassicas are sprouting in the greenhouse.

I've also been busy outside tearing up wild blackberries, rambling roses, and jasmine covered fern mess in a corner of the yard.

My health has improved greatly since I started feeding myself from my greenhouse and so now I want to feed myself as much as possible from my yard to avoid two things - paying money to corporates, poisoning myself with all the sprays and preservatives.

I have a space cleared. I do not have ideal light here, only half a days light, but it's the best I can do and so do it I shall.

It's a triangle area approx 8 metres by 6 metres, and so the long side must be (OMG MATH HELLLLP!) 10 metres....

The 8 metre side is backed by a hedge, the 6 metre side is 3/4 backed by a hedge and will have beans in the gap this first year. The 10 metre side will have a passionfruit hedge built along it.

So I have a clay soil and need to break it down a bit. Today I start turning the sod. I am planning to add dolomite lime, yard compost, and gypsum, and then turn the soil with these amendments in place. I will not be adding lime where I'm planting legumes.

After turning I will innoculate everything with a compost tea including a good portion of kelp, then cover it all in sheets of newspaper and leaf mulch to settle in for a couple of months till spring arrives.

I plan to use companion plants and plant as much variety as I can without being too overcrowded. Veggies plus nasturtium geraniums chamomile calendula marigolds etc etc.

Any hot tips on ground prep, companion planting, or gardening (organically) in general much appreciated.

[ConceptOfSleep]

Hey there Mr. Fista... Sounds like you have a serious garden going! Ive got a little garden that I re-did this year and acually have a lot of stuff going... I cant wait till I start getting my firt tomatoes of the season.. Love em..

Well I have a garden about 3 feet deep and 15 feet long...
Right now I have:
Tomatoes-Roma, Rutgers, Spr Beefsteak, Sweet 100 Cherry, and Big Boy
Peppers - California Wonder, Serrano, Jalapeno, Habanero, Cayenne, Ancho
Mesclun Mix
Basil
Garlic
Cilantro
Rosemary
Thyme
Vidallia Onions (just an experiment)
Tenderpick Beans
Chives
and a whole bunch of other herbs etc, on pots on the back porch... Im really enjoying my garden this year, even with all the rain we have been getting. I dont have as much energy to get out and do all the necessary work, but I love walking around in the garden and making sure everything is healthy..

I also have lots of marigolds planted in between my tomatoes...I hadnt heard of using nasturtium as a companion plant...any idea what it helps with?

Anyway, sounds like you have a much more serious project, I would love to see and hear more results as it progresses!

Keep it green!

[MrFista]

Sounds like a neat collection of peppers. I have a few here and there but the pedigree?...

I just went down the garden centre to see if the stonefruit is in and got a lovely wee dwarf peach. It grows 1.5 metres wide and 1.8 metres tall! Neat huh!

I was sorely tempted by a dwarf pear as well but funds say that's for next week...

Nasturtiums - "Nasturtiums can have a tendency to grow abundantly, but are very easily controlled. They also possess many benefits for your Garden plants... They are good companions for Radish, Cabbage & Cucumber. Orange colored Nasturtiums will deter Aphids, Squash Bug & Striped Pumpkin Beetles, yellow ones tend to attract the beetles! So plant orange Nasturtium close to your garden to deter insects, & plant yellow Nasturtium far away from the garden to attract the insects. Nasturtium is excellent in the Orchard & will control the Woolly Aphid if left to wander. And they look lovely as a frame for your Garden"

I want to use the orange in the garden with the veg (dwarf varieties) and the yellow on the edge outside of the passionfruit, both colours by the plum and new wee peach tree too. Then I'll try get them to seed wild down in the shady bit of gulley I have with all the ferns, cleomes, calendula and other things I'm slowly identifying down there.

Mitch Hedburg fan huh - good taste. - "I was on acid and I saw these beams of light, and I heard these sounds, like car horns." ROFLMAO!

[Mrs.Babba]

you 2 have some great sounding gardens, lets see some pics? ....this is a great idea, love sharing all kinds of growing technices we all use, wonderful!!!

[MrFista]

Thanks for the heads up Mrs Babba. I love talking gardening with fellow smokers, they get it....

Well, yesterday I dug over approximately 24 square metres of garden. It was tiring but very rewarding to see finished.

Today modern technology meets mental old school gardener - I'm going to be out there with a paper shredder making mulch.

Learnt about passionfruit training yesterday. They only need 4 leaders each and go on wires approx 1/2 metre high and 1 metre high. Very simple. So I check my plants and both have 4 leaders 2 long 2 short - how did they know?!!

A while till I plant them but training correctly now I hope to save headaches.

I also put in a fungus bed yesterday. A big pit of woodchips/bark (80%) and compost mixed in (20%) dug to 10 inches depth in a shady spot. Then I just got some shitaakes and other woodloving mushrooms with some of the wood they grew on (wild collection) and blended (short bursts) them in dechlorinated water. This got poured all over the pit and several compost heaps and wood piles. I've been told this doesn't work before and proved my detractors wrong before as well.

I'll be innoculating some shitaake properly in a few weeks I'll show y'all how I do it then.

Today is a pleasure. I'll trim the edges nice and straight with some string, make lots of mulch, smoke weed and examine a few trees for a winter prune. I have some shelter trees need topping, so thought I may as well top them now and examine what mid winter sun looks like on my garden plot. Then the hedges can get a trim too, bit more compost for the heaps.

Suns up, fires burning in hearth making some good clean wood ash. Going to look into applying it and see if I want to use it or not. Depends if it is entirely useable in the soil - if the biology copes with it.

[ConceptOfSleep]

Thanks Mrs. Babba! This is a great idea for a subforum. I just got back from wandering through the garden and to my surprise I have a ripe Hugarian Wax pepper...Fairly early for it to be ready. I could let it go and ripen to red on the plant, but I prefer them taken when still yellow as they are a bit sweeter I think... Can't wait for my Cayennes to start blooming.

MrFista, thanks for the info on the nasturtium. That sounds like a good idea to have the oranges near the garden and the yellow in a seperate patch... The dwarf peach sounds very interesting. Your garden sounds like an experience

And yes, Im a big Mitch Hedberg fan...lol that Acid Joke is great...I think he goes on to talk about running into a bear when they tripped in the woods...he had a unique and hysterical view of the world.

Ill try to get some pics of my garden in the next few days.

You guy's are gonna make me start A garden I know it LOL . Man I can't wait to see this thread get biggggggggggg

[MrFista]

Originally Posted by ConceptOfSleep

Your garden sounds like an experience

Yeah, well, it's not so flash as it sounds.

I moved in 7 years ago to 2 inches of topsoil, only 1 type of grass (amazing looking, but not good) and crappy yellow clay under it. The gardens were extensive, they were also extensively chemically fertilised, and extensively sprayed with fungicides and pesticides.

The previous owner passed on and I got to see the shed of dreaded 'remedies'. Must have been over 50 bottles and a dozen bags and boxes of TOXIC CRAP in there.

So after 1 failed attempt to grow anything edible - every pest and disease you could think of arrived in the garden.... I decided to leave the section to go jungle for several years.

I put in a pond with good drainage so it got rain but no toxic runoff, and began to water in bacteria with rainy periods. I let the lawns grow out to 10cm plus and mowed them on the highest setting letting it all mulch back in. Done this for years. I got composting, slowly at first, lots of it lately. I add good things to the compost. Seaweed, alfalfa, dolomite lime. I let the 'weeds' grow back - dandelion, thyme, calendula, lupin, plantain and all manner of other things.

Now it's time to break ground, hence the thread title.

Breaking New Ground.

A concerted effort to save a toxic piece of crap land and turn it into a beautiful and abundant organic garden.

Yesterday I dug the garden in and it averaged 10 inches of topsoil. This is where I once had 2 inches and could grow nothing.

My peach tree needed a 18 inch hole. It had 16 inches of topsoil there!

I've added 3 wee citrus lately - lemons, limes, and lemonades - a blueberry, slowly putting more and more types of food about the place. Rosemary and sage are well established, some annual tarragon, parsley, greenhouse full of edible goodies (off season tomatoes, peppers, watercress, basil, parsley, thyme, sage, oregano, spinach, plus plus) and loads of seeds....

I'm a learner - but with the internet, when I'm smart enough to remember, I can research each plant before I try to grow it. I got quite a few things wrong in the garden over the years, but the learning is all good.

This section should be AMAZING in 5 years. More food than I can eat and things to eat everywhere I go. That's the plan.

From toxic to terrific. YUMMY.

[fortragni]

nasturtium is also entirely edible. the flowers and leaves being eaten raw in salads, the flowers can be candied or used in stir fry and as garnish. the un-ripe (green) seeds can be eaten or pickled.

[MrFista]

Nice one fortragni. Between the nasturtium, calendula, and dandelion I'm going to have some mighty colourful salads this year.

I BROKE THE SHREDDER! Hehe.

Got halfway through and it broke. Tried to fix it last night but it gets right down to circuit boards and electronic eyes - bit over my pay grade...

So today I'll lay out sheets and leaves on the other half - plan one - lets hear it for backup plan one!

Mesclum mix is crazy stuff huh - what's that? And.. What's that... And... WTF is that!

Hehehe. Another day in garden today, lovely.