Market Gardens
There are a few ways to grow vegetables that I know of, and
we have tried them all over the last 50 years, starting with when I took over my mums backyard in Melbourne with a
pumpkin plant, which went on (and on) to bear several QLD Blues. I took a large
one on a weekend surfing trip and shared it with my friends raw, BBQ’d and stir
fired. No one else was enthused ( they preferred hot chips) but for me the growing obsession had begun.
And so it was with great interest that I attended a field
trip of the Organic Growers of W.A. last Saturday. The very fine Peter
Langlands welcomed us to his parent’s historic
Guilford property where he tends a small market garden on the banks of a creek.
Peter read “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery several years back and was
horrified by what humans are doing to the planet. Like when I read the book, he
had to skip over the terribly depressing middle to get to the end for (hopefully) solutions. He decided to take action and growing organic
veges was his act.
This delightful young man showed us 20 or more perfectly
straight rows of gorgeous vegetables of nearly as many types, most under row
covers, all meticulously weeded. He had a veritable arsenal of tools: broad
forks, stirrup hoes, a mini rotary hoe which was turned by a cordless drill, 3
types of seeder, etc etc. There was weed mat on the ground with holes burnt
into it at regular spacing for the plants. Micro greens were growing thickly in
other rows, which he cuts regularly with a tiny motorized cutting and catching
machine.
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| Photo by Organic Association WA |
Peter finds he is not big enough to consistently supply
restaurants and wholesaling to shops was tying up too many days of the week,
but he has landed on selling his gorgeous produce every Saturday on the verge
outside, for a set hour. Family, neighbors
and friends are flocking to his popup green grocery…. now supply and demand are
dovetailing nicely.
So this is method one, intensive growing in very good
soil enriched with compost, kept stirred and weeded by hand and/ or small
tillage machine. He has been disappointed that a certain certified organic
compost he has purchased has contained plastic and glass. He is also mindful
that the plastic- based row covers and weed mat will have to be disposed of
before breaking down .
Let me say now, on my soil I could not get away with method
one, and in most soils of the world the constant disturbance to the fungal
component would not work. Bare soil exposed to the sun after weeding on our
North west slopes leads to fungi death
and subsequent soil degradation. I am always telling Stewart never bare the
soil, put the weeds back where they came from. Once fungi is gone, tilth is
only achieved by heaps of work. However, in a shady place on a river flat, in a
humid climate and with a good supply of quality compost and fine mulch for top
dressing , Method 1 works, maybe for many
decades, and is extremely productive. Obviously many young people like Peter are
embracing this in their own locale and growing clean food for their community, cheers to them!
If you are not so blessed with rich compost- like soil built
up over years of “pasture and grazing” or forest cover, or alluvial soil… indeed if
you have been gardening like this and notice a decline in fertility leading to
ever- more weeds and pests, let me describe method 2: Full Mulch Cover. Sheet composting is another name, and
permaculture founder Bill Mollison espoused it. You can let the weeds go mad in
the rainy season. Preferably just before trouncing the lot with a heavy layer
of wet mulch, you will allow a flock of ducks to graze it down and rid the area
of molluscs and their eggs. Traditionally you start by layering 5 or so sheets
of damp newspaper or cardboard over the grass, and piling at least 4 inches of weed free
mulch over that. A mix of Leaves, straw, woodchips and a little poultry manure
would be perfect. Emulate the forest floor! Add all your detritus: vacuum
cleaner dust, dog fur, eggshells, small amounts of wood ash. To plant seedlings
you make a hole in the mulch and add a few handfuls of compost . After a year
the soil is transformed, and the garden tightly packed with a diversity of
plants.
There is no room for weeds.
In reality, with our
extremely long ( 10 month now) dry periods, the garden will need regular
watering, but nowhere near the amount needed by method 1 on the same soil. A
year on it will probably be needing more mulch where plants have failed and
there is a bare patch. Initially, plucking protruding kike could be laborious, but it will dwindle if starved of light so keep plucking or piling ( on the mulch) . In any case , whenever it is wet is the time
to mulch again, because microfauna are
always converting mulch to humus in damp
conditions. If they are kept fed on plant sugars and plant debris you won’t
have to bring in more mulch. You will find yourself growing more and more
perennials to save the work of gathering and spreading mulch. Again the ducks
will come in handy mid- winter when they could be let in for a few weeks on
snail detail.
Method 3 Raised
beds. Wicking beds? Well mulched paths leading around planter boxes. No bending
. Neat! Fill with quality compost, spread an inch of mulch, plant out. Great.
In the case of wicking beds ( please google search for my article on these in right
hand top corner) you may eventually have
to empty everything out and find the leak but happy days for many years after
the expense and hard work they are to build. A large deciduous tree or trees
that provides light shade (thornless honey locust?, Jacarandah?) over head
would be a blessing for any garden in summer and mulch provider in Autumn
Method 4, follow moving poultry cages…I ‘ll call this
“the Joel Salatin method”. We have made bamboo cages with tarp
or “Gilligans Island” thatch roofs which are hanging together so far and I am
never so happy as when seeding a freshly ploughed , de- bugged, fertilized and
mulched area where the chicken tractor has been for a day. I keep a lidded bucket full of
groovy perennial pasture mix, my Hoe Mi ,
a bucket of compost and a bag of mulch
for thin areas near the tractor. By this method the chooks and I have transformed kikuyu, cape weed and Guilford
grass infested dirt into chocolate soil
capable of growing deep rooted perennial prairie.
