Everett Street Garden

Four friends from high school asked me to build them a garden in their backyard.  Adjacent to a large cemetery, I quickly found that the condition of the soil was going to be very easy to work with. Additionally, the spot we chose for the garden get's a serious 9-10 hours of sunlight daily (which can be too much for some plants) but is certainly a good amount of sun for a new vegetable garden.

Here's what the area looked like as I started to get the ground prepared.

After taking off the layer of grass and moving that aside to continue growing on the lawn, I forked the entire area to get some air and light into the ground.  Although I planned to build a no dig garden, I did want the bottom of the garden to be as arid as possible.

Next, it was time to start building up.  First, a few layers of leaves and newspaper.

Here's what the area looked like after a few layers of all that organic matter.  The inks from the paper might not be the best for the garden, but the paper will break down naturally over time and help condition the soil by keeping in additional moisture.

Finally, I built up small areas of soil where I planted the initial bunch of veggies; I filled in the other areas with leaves, knowing that I would be adding more soil, compost, manure, etc. to the garden in due time.

This is still a work in progress, but here's what the garden looks like most recently; currently growing in the garden: tomatoes (three varieties), capsicums (three varieties), green beans, snap peas, eggplant, parsley, cucumber, zucchini, watermelon, radishes, lettuce, arugula...

Edible Weed Walk

The Byron Bay Herb Nursery sells a huge assortment of quality herbs, vegetables, and other plants.  What they don't offer; potted weeds (only an equally large variety of weeds growing in random spots in the garden, as weeds do).  The Herb Nursery was kind enough to let CO-OP Kulcha share their space for an Edible Weed Walk to teach the community about the benefits and modern uses of the weeds we often find around this land.

As we know, a weed is a plant out of place, growing where it is not wanted.  As such, the varying names (depending on region of the world) can be hard to keep track of, and rather we focused on the look, smell, and taste of these plants to identify them properly.  The first weed was easily recognizable for the assortment of flowers dangling from the top like a chandelier.  In the sun, with the right focus, they shine yellow, pink/red, and purple.

The leaf pattern is alternate, spiralling up towards the chandelier, with delicious dark green leaves.  It was one of my favorites (that bite on the top was the first of many), the taste was perfect for adding to a basic salad of greens and herbs.

This (below) was another one of my favorites...one of the worst to deal with around Main Arm (for me at least) but one with many uses as I've recently discovered.  Any guesses?

Bidens Pilosa, with a whole heap of different common names; including farmers friend and cobbler's pegs.  No need to document what the little devil's needles look like; instead take a look at the opposite leaf pattern of this delicious leafy green that's perfect for a healthy salad, or tea, smoothie...you decide.

From here I got a bit lost amongst a sensory based garden; there was a smell section, a touch section, and a taste section.  I was munching away on the tasty options while sniffing some others and only half understanding what our guide was telling us about nettle, another very useful medicine.

The taste section was full of french sorrel and water spinach, amongst others.

Smell had different mints, basil, lemongrass, lemon balm, so many smells.

Below is one of the touch options I stayed away from...

The sign is slightly indicative of the different nature of this garden; I guess rubbing your hands along spiky plants is enjoyable for some...?

Shortly thereafter I suffered the consequences of some karmic circumstance, and learned how painful centipede bites are to deal with.  The rest has turned into the past two weeks of herbal teas that I've joined forces with en route to a caffeine free diet.

Room For More

There's a lot of open space on this property, and a good amount of it is north-facing.  I've been taking the opportunity (and most of the open space) to transform this land into a food-production haven.  Recently I've been feeling like no day is complete if I haven't planted something new beneath the earth's surface. My goal is to continue this progress for as long as possible, no matter where I am (this might change as soon as I get on my next flight).  All you need to get started:

Empty pots or containers...check

Seeds...green beans and paprika pepper

Soil mixture...compost, horse manure, 5IN1 fertiliser

I filled the small square containers 80% with the soil mixture, dropped a seed around the middle of the container, and then filled another 10% of the container, so there's room to put mulch or more compost when the seedlings sprout.

The paprika peppers went into 6-in-1 containers, which are usually more ideal for lettuces or chards.  I'm a pretty keen observer of the development of my seedlings, I'll make sure whatever sprouts up doesn't outgrow it's container.  Below, you can't tell there are six individual slots for seedlings, but everything is covered with the soil mixture.

Now it's time to find a sunny spot to let the seedlings rest and start growing.  If you can tell from the background of the image (below) you'll see this is a really steep hill (a good 50 degree slope in some spots).  Ive made a terrace recently, and two new 'raised' vegetable beds for cucumbers and onions. Those seeds went in two days ago, so we're still waiting on them to come alive as well.

Here's a view of the second new veggie bed, with three other new seedling (bean and paprika) containers below.

I gave these guys a quick drink so they wouldn't dry out completely in the hot afternoon summer sun...but I'll be back tonight to water the whole area...and then tomorrow, and the next day, it never ends.

And from above...two new vegetable beds with green beans and paprika pepper ready to sprout below.

I feel like I've certainly accomplished my mission of planting something new today...what have you planted recently?

This Hill Has Eyes

So I have to admit I've never seen the film that inspired me for this post's title.  When I was adding more green to this north-facing hill recently, I couldn't help but think of the movie as I was planting Carpobrotus Glaucescens, commonly known as 'Pig Face'.  Okay, faces, not eyes, and only one hill, not hills...leave us crazy gardeners alone.

Pig Face is a native creeper with green foliage and bright pink/purple flowers.  What's better; in February the plant produces red, 'sour' strawberries...edible of course.  Perusing the plants at Eden at Byron last week, I noticed native plants on sale; 4 for $20...couldn't resist.  Two of the plants chosen were Pig Face, an excellent addition to this abandoned hill.

Snow peas (below) are meant to be sown in autumn or midwinter at the latest.  These plants went in at the end of winter, I like to push the boundaries and limits of conventional gardening.  From my perspective (correct me if I'm wrong) these peas are alive and well, climbing nicely up this fence I've erected for them.

Zucchini; a plant that never seems to grow well here and always suffers from powdery mildew.  Try as I may to rid the plant of the infected leaves and the white fuzzy spots, the plants never seem to mature enough even to flower.  Behold, a flowering zucchini finally maturing well enough to start fruiting soon.

This is a variety of Cucurbiata maxima, Pumpkin - Baby Blue.  This blue variety comes from the Americas, but seems to like it here in the subtropics.

Cucumbers are another plant, like zucchini, that often have mixed outcomes.  Below are some seedlings finally sprouting up after I added in some 'Mary Sheehan' cucumber seeds last week.  My father will remember the roadside stand we bought these seeds from on our way to Crystal Castle.

And last but not least, Jap pumpkins basking on a sunny spring day...

All in all, there may not be any 'eyes' on this hill, but there are certainly 'faces', flowers, and fruits galore. The snow peas should start producing in the coming weeks, and the pumpkins are all waiting for gravity to take over so they begin climbing (or falling) along the hill.

Name That Vegetable

One of the beauties of composting is that you never know what seedlings and starts will perk up out of the soil on a daily basis.  Sometimes these volunteers are not so good for your veggie garden, like papaya or the rampant lemon grass (both better in the ground or lemon grass in a pot).  But sometimes you get surprised with wonderful veggies that addmoregreen.  Take this peculiar squash-like vegetable for example...

I added some of this greatness to the pizza I made tonight, the only issue is that I have no idea what the vegetable actually is.  When I initially let the volunteer take off, I thought the cotyledons resembled those of a cucumber...boy was I wrong!  So, I need some help on this one if anyone knows what vegetable this is...in any case it was delicious!