My Garden

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Current Garden Pictures	Vegetables	Fruit and Berries	Chooks

In our family, I am largely responsible for the back garden (which produces most of the fruit, berries and vegetables). Now that the boys have grown up (and in the case of Mark, moved away) and don't really need the rest of the back lawn, I'm progressively working through a plan to convert the back garden into more of a permaculture setup.

Most recent garden photos

The picture below will show soon (yes, I know I've been saying this for a while!) what the garden looks like at the moment. The images link to a 1024*768 higher-resolution version.

View down the back garden: December 2007	View across to the vegie patch: December 2007	View down on the vegie patch: December 2007

Vegetables

The vegetable garden is about 55 square metres, organised into 5 different areas for crop rotation (see below for details). In summer this produces most of the vegetables we need. I'm still working on getting the succession planting right for winter, and it gets a bit too cold in Melbourne for things to do well in the main winter months. In addition, the sun drops down behind trees to the north so about half of the garden bed (which runs East-West) is in shadow for much of the winter.

Each zone of the vegetable garden is used for compatible plants for a single year. This plant group is then moved to the next bed along for the following year. This both reduces pest buildup (as part of our commitment to organic gardening), and enables plants to be matched with the right nutrient levels (which change over time). The current rotation scheme follows the table below. The left-hand end of table is the East end of the garden, the right-hand end of the table is the West. This is the same orientation as the photos below.

Bed 1

Bed 2

Bed 3

Bed 4

Bed 5

This year

Early Spring: Dig in Green Manure

Late Spring: Tomatoes, Capsicums, Basil

Autumn: Add Lime, Mulch

Spring: Sweetcorn, Cucurbits (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins)

Autumn: Green manure

All year: Root Crops and Asian Vegetables

Spring: Plant Peas, Beans

Summer/Autumn: Plant Brassicas (Cauliflower, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts)

Spring: Alliums (Onions/Garlic/Leeks) and Brassicas (Cauliflower, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts)

Next year

Spring: Alliums (Onions/Garlic/Leeks) and Brassicas (Cauliflower, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts)

Early Spring: Dig in Green Manure

Late Spring: Tomatoes, Capsicums, Basil

Autumn: Add lime, Mulch

Spring: Sweetcorn, Cucurbits (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins)

Autumn: Green manure

All year: Root Crops and Asian Vegetables

Spring: Plant Peas, Beans

Summer/Autumn: Plant Brassicas (Cauliflower, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts)

Fruit and berries

The current inventory of fruit trees is as follows:

Apple (Triple graft - Jonathan/Golden Delicious/Granny Smith)
Apple (Gravenstein?, Granny Smith)
Apricot (Triple graft - Moorpark/Moorpark Early/Trevatt)
Fig (unknown variety)
Lemon (Eureka)
Lime
Mandarine (Imperial)
Nectarines (Goldmine, Arctic Ice)
Orange (Unknown, but probably Poor Man's)
Peach (Anzac)
Pear (Beurre Bosc)

The berry inventory is:

14 linear metres of raspberries
3 Chinese gooseberries (also incorrectly called kiwifruit)
5 blueberry bushes

Chooks

The family poultry collective currently consists of 7 hens (or 'chooks' in Australian English):

Angel (photo) and Mist (photo), the Araucanas (breed information)
Buffy (photo), the Buff Orpington (breed information)
Coriander (photo), the ISA Brown (cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White)
- she is the successor to the previous Spice Girls - Cardamom, Cinnamon and Nutmeg (RIP)
Ebony (photo), the Australorp/New Hampshire cross (breed information for Australorps)
Rosamund (photo), the Rhode Island Red (breed information)
Winona (photo), the Welsumer (breed information)
We also normally have a Barred Plymouth Rock (breed information), but we are waiting to introduce a number of new chooks in one go once the numbers drop a bit lower

Last modified:Thursday, 06-Dec-2007 18:57:07 MST