An advanced warning… if you’re not interested in permaculture or growing food this blog update will bore the crap out of you, but for those of you who are, we hope you enjoy this tour.
Zones 2 and 3 are our main food production areas to date, currently the most intensively managed systems on the property. The area is protected by a rabbit, wallaby and possum proof “floppy” fence.
The site was chosen for several reasons; it receives the most sun throughout the year and is surrounded by a natural sun trap, it was already cleared and is relatively flat. The soil was heavy clay with minimal organic matter, so we began by spreading gypsum, dolomite, clean fill and hay last summer. The hay eventually grew grass, which we’ve been sheet mulching with cardboard as we construct each no dig bed. The grass dies back under the cardboard and adds to the organic matter, along with the other layers that we continuously add such as animal manure, compost and mulch. Earthworms also seem to love the air gaps in the cardboard, and it’s been wonderful to see them multiply and increase in size dramatically throughout the year.
This is our design concept for Zones 2 and 3:
The line through the middle of the diagram is a future internal fence, which will eventually separate the two zones. Zone 2 is on the left, closest to the house, which will contain most of the herbs and vegetables and continue to be quite heavily maintained. The poly tunnel would normally be inside Zone 2; however its designated location receives the most winter sun, which happens to be in Zone 3.
We planted herbs and vegetables in Zone 3 last year because we brought soil into this area for the fruit trees and wanted to plant useful species around them to prevent grass and weeds from growing, however once Zone 2 is developed, Zone 3 will evolve into a low maintenance food forest where chickens and ducks can free range without destroying our herbs and vegetables (hopefully by January 2012). Just some of the crops being planted in Zone 3 within the next few months, which will replace the herbs and vegetables that are transitioning into Zone 2, include Cape Gooseberry, Desert Raisin, Eldberberry, Aztec Sweet Herb, Marjoram, Lavender, Chamomile, Tarragon, Betony, Caraway, Catnip, Evening Primrose, Hyssop, Lovage, Lupin, Motherwort, Rosemary, Tansy, Wormwood and Gourd. These plants have been chosen to provide a multitude of products as well as food: mulch, poultry forage, medicine, flowers, pot pouri, skin care, household cleaning, nitrogen fixing and more, and our goal is for the area to eventually be completely self seeded.
We aim to create “layers” in Zone 3 such as those found in natural forests: ground covers, herbs, understorey, clumpers, climbers and the canopy layer (being the fruit and nut trees). This photo shows how Zone 3 is looking now.
Being only six months old, you can’t see the layers from this angle yet. However; they have been all planted at the same time and are evolving. Tagasaste, Chamaecytisus palmensis, and Crested Wattle, Albizia lophantha, have been inter-planted amongst the fruit trees throughout the orchard as support species. Tagasaste is a nitrogen fixing legume, fast growing and highly productive stock feed with excellent nutrition levels. The seeds are great for chickens, and we can eat the leaves in salads. They enjoy being cut back regularly, with the prunings thrown directly onto the nearest fruit tree as mulch.
The Wattle is also nitrogen fixing, and will provide shade and shelter from the wind for other crops, but they don’t enjoy the pruning so we are favouring the Tagasaste for mulch.
You can see the layers in the food forest starting to evolve from this profile view below; with an apple tree in the centre, baby Wattle on the left, the top of a Tagasaste emerging on the right, and other support species growing around it (as well as edible plants seen in the photo such as lettuce, silverbeet, celery, zucchini and nasturtium).
Clover and broad beans are everywhere throughout the orchard. The beans are not only edible, but nitrogen fixing and great mulch. We’ve been eating them fresh off the plants for the past few weeks, have a nice stock of them in the freezer, and are letting the larger pods dry out on the plant to save seed for next year. The clover is also nitrogen fixing, bee attracting, and displaces weeds and grass.
The following 15 fruit trees were chosen for Zone 3, which have all been named so we can nurture them into abundance. We chose early, mid and late season varieties to extend the harvest period, and were careful to check pollination requirements.
Akane Apple (Kane); pollinated by the Golden Delicious, early season
Gala Apple (Queeny); pollinated by the Pink Lady; early-mid season
Golden Delicious Apple (Goldie); pollinated by the Cox's Orange Pippin, mid season
Cox’s Orange Pippin (Cocky); pollinated by the Golden Delicious, mid season
Pink Lady Apple (Princess); pollinated by the Gala; late season
Maygrand Nectarine (Maggie); self fertile, early season
Goldmine Nectarine x 2 (Marymia and Ness); self fertile, late season
Peacharine (Muttly); self fertile, mid season
Elberta Peach (Burt); self fertile, mid-late season
Golden Queen Peach (Kathryn); self fertile, late season
Packham Pear (Hiccup); pollinated by the Winter Nellis, early season
Winter Nellis Pear (Nelly); pollinated by the Packham, late season
King Billy Plum (Billy); pollinated by the President, mid season
President Plum (Lincoln); pollinated by the King Billy, late season
Because of the heavy clay soil the fruit trees were planted on mounds of topsoil, mushroom compost and manure to provide adequate drainage and give them a kick start. They were mulched heavily with wheat straw, with an old pot placed in the centre to keep the mulch away from the trunks and avoid rot. They are all dormant and deciduous in winter, however during the growing season we spray the foliage with a Tasmanian seaweed solution fortnightly. They were one year old root stock when we planted them last winter, and whilst they will produce some fruit this year we intend to pick it off as soon as it starts forming so that the tree puts all its energy into growing strong and healthy. We’ve made the most of the soil in the mounds under the fruit trees. An example of that can be seen here, where you can hardly see the Gala Apple tree because it has carrot and onion going to seed underneath it.
Outside the fence to the north of Zone 3 is a hedge of over 40 native plants, including various varieties of Callistemon, Kunzea, Melaleuca, Banksia and Tea-tree shrubs. This hedge has several functions: bird attracting (we were careful not to choose too many nectar plants that attract large Honey Eaters who will bully the small birds away from the garden, as the small birds are best at damage free pest control); bee attracting (which will aid pollination of our fruits and vegetables); weed control (the shrubs will eventually shade out the grass to eliminate the need for weeding or mowing, and will stop grass entering the garden); and to redirect frost away from the garden (as long as frost is allowed to continue travelling down slope and is not “dammed”, it is possible to redirect it).
The shrubs vary in height from prostrate (low spreading ground covers) to 3m. Of course we don’t want to shade the garden with tall shrubs, so we chose varieties that will be happy to be kept short by pruning. We also chose a variety of different shrubs that will produce flowers all year for the bees. The area was mulched heavily with bark chips to prevent grass and weeds growing until the shrubs are mature, and wildlife proof bags were necessary until the shrubs are established because they are outside the fence.
As well as the fruit trees, Bed 10 has recently been planted with eggplant, lettuce, tomato, broad beans, basil, parsnip, beetroot, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, carrot, bergamot, nasturtium flowers (the petals of which are lovely in salads) and chilli, which has been planted in a rock circle to provide extra heat.
Scarlet runner beans have been planted along the fence line in Bed 10, which is a hardy perennial climing plant that produces bright scarlet flowers followed by thick succulent pods of beans. Being a legume it is also nitrogen fixing, will disguise the fence and act as a grass barrier. The apple and peach trees in Bed 10 each have a squash and edible pigface growing in their mounds of soil.
Bed 11 was the first bed planted and so is our most productive bed so far. It contains: crops going to seed such as onion and coriander;
Plus thyme and sage;
Magnificent sunflowers;
Silverbeet hidden amongst nasturtiums;
Zucchini;
Plus parsnip, beetroot, spring onion, rosemary, oregano, basil, eggplant, chilli, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, celery, tomato and chicory. Along the eastern footpath of Bed 11 is a row of runner strawberries that are producing their second harvest. Along the western path is a row of Alpine White strawberries, which will be ready to harvest soon.
We placed the strawberries along the paths for ease of mulching and picking, and to ensure that we get to them before the blue tongue lizard. Check out the size of this strawberry!
Garlic was also in Bed 11 until we harvested it recently. They’re not the biggest garlic in the valley because we didn’t have a bed to plant them in until July, when the best time here is late April or early May. Still, a lot of small garlic is much better than no garlic! Unlike crops such as lettuce, there’s no point planting garlic every few weeks, because no matter when you plant they are all ready for harvest at the same time.
We’ve drafted a “planting calendar” to keep track of what seeds we can sow each month in this climate, and then we sow just a few seeds of each plant every few weeks for succession. This way there are always crops ready to eat now, and some that will be ready when the current harvest is over. Even so, we recently had four surplus bags of lettuce, some sage and oregano that we traded for a tub of locally made organic ice-cream at the local food co-op, and we grew some sprouts to trade for a loaf of sourdough.
Here’s some of the food that was already available on week one of the co-op, where all the growers in the valley can come together to exchange their surplus, it’s just wonderful, and all organic. Bye bye supermarkets and their old food that has travelled miles, caused pollution and waste and is full of chemicals!
Back to the garden… Bed 12 contains rhubarb, beans, lemon balm, lettuce, spinach, parsley, peppermint, sunflowers, cabbage, broccoli, squash, zucchini, spring onion and radish. To improve soil health Beds 11 and 12 both have a worm tower, which is a large PVC pipe containing finger sized holes under the soil level. We feed the compost worms some of our food scraps, and they kindly donate loads of nutrient to the garden. We keep the tower heavily mulched with hay to retain moisture, and being white the heat and light is reflected onto surrounding plants rather than heating up the worms.
One of the most common methods for natural pest control is to inter-plant flowers, herbs and vegetables, so Beds 11 and 12 also contain a “Good Bud Mix” of perennial flowers such as Cosmos (pictured above); Marigold
Red Clover, Lucerne, Sweet Alice, Dill, Caraway, Coriander, Buckwheat, Baby’s Breath, and Queen Anne’s Lace. These flowers attract beneficial insects such as ladybeetles, hoverflies, lacewings, and tiny wasps that control aphids, scale, red spider mite, caterpillar and other pests. They also attract bees, which are great for pollination. And we’re not just talking ordinary bees; these Phacelia flowers are attracting dozens of massive bumble bees!
Another pest control method we’ve adopted is to let some brassicas such as broccoli and cabbage go to seed as traps. Pests such as the white cabbage moth tend to prefer laying their eggs on more mature plants, which keeps them away from the younger crops. Letting some other crops go to seed is also useful, not only to save the seed for future use, but because their flowers often also attract pest predators.
Bed 13 is predominantly a hedge of 10 hazelnut bushes, which will grow quite large, so has been placed north to south along the western fence so as to not shade out the garden from afternoon sun. We’ve planted comfrey along the fence line as a grass barrier, which is also edible, makes great chicken fodder and is brilliant for composting. Bee attracting pigface is planted along the foot path as an additional producer of edible fruit and a grass barrier.
We have chosen to build soil slowly rather than bring any more soil in from external sources, so half of Bed 14 contains four varieties of potatoes specifically to aerate and build soil, as well as eat of course.
Pumpkins have been planted in the other half, and the fruit trees in this bed each have squash growing in their soil mounds, all vine crops that will add organic matter and shade out the weeds and grass until the bed is more established. And we have baby pumpkins!
We raked up the ground after an old compost pile to make three very small mounds to plant more pumpkin, on extremely hard ground…
And are surprised at how well these pumpkins are growing.
The paths and borders around Beds 15 and 16 haven’t been created yet, and won’t be until the greenhouse is erected. In the meantime we’ve planted broad beans, clover and Albizia to fix nitrogen into the soil and shade out the grass. This photo of Bed 15 gives you an idea of what the entire fenced area looked like six months ago… after the excavator pulled out large tree stumps, Dean and I filled the holes with rocks then spread dolomite, gypsum, topsoil, sawdust and hay, and the hay grew grass.
We deliberately left one of the old tree stumps in Bed 16 as a reminder of the forest that was here many years ago, the fire that passed through, the destruction by man and his chainsaw, and nature’s ability to regenerate (the baby tree growing inside). This is also where we think the bandicoot lives. The little track leading into it, as well as evidence of bandicoot forage in the general vicinity, is pretty solid evidence.
The main footpaths in Zone 3 have been orientated north to south, which will enable us to build trellis over the paths to support vine crops and utilise verticle space, without shading out the garden. It will also create micro climates within the orchard, for example, fruits such as strawberries can be planted along the east of the trellis and be protected from the hot afternoon sun. It’s amazing what you can grow up a trellis, not only grapes, passionfruit, beans and peas, but even large pumpkins!
To apply the principle of multifunction to the fence between Zones 2 and 3, we’ve erected three bush poles along the fence to support banana passionfruit vines. It’s a tall evergreen vine so has been orientated north to south behind the existing native current bush so that it doesn’t shade out any other growing areas. We also intend to plant smaller fruit bushes such as raspberries, blueberries and currents along the fence between Zone 3 and Chicken Run # 3 this winter.
Now for Zone 2! The chook house has been located in the south east corner because it’s quite close to large gum trees, which shade the area plus take up a lot of nutrient and moisture. It wouldn’t have been a good place to grow food, so instead of removing the gums we’ve put a structure there that doesn’t compete with them. We also chop our firewood and make mulch in that corner, which makes it easy for us to move the mulch into the chicken run. The chooks are locked in their house at night to protect them from quolls, and have permanent access to Run # 1 around the chicken house during the day. This run contains a dust bath, shell grit, hard grit and chicken forage such as clover, native current, elderberry and tagasaste. It also provides an access door for the chickens to enter Zone 3 once it’s established as a hardy food forest. This entrance also provides us with easy access to move the manured hay from the chook house into the compost bins.
The chooks will be rotated between Runs # 2 and 3, which contain six more fruit trees that were kindly donated by our neighbours Ben and Magali:
Champion Quince (Freddy); self fertile, mid season
Smyrna Quince (Sammie); self fertile, mid season
Greengage Plum (Greenie); pollinated by any two other varieties, early season
Damson Plum (Damo); pollinated by any two other varieties, late season
Huonville Crab Apple (Hughie); pollinated by the Akane, Cox's Orange Pippin, Golden Delicious and Pink Lady, mid-late season
Calville Blanc D'Hiver Apple (Calvin); pollinated by varieties that we don’t have in the orchard (so this one may not fruit), late season
Comfrey has been planted along the fence lines for additional fodder, excellent compost and to act as a grass barrier. The chickens currently have access to Run # 2 to cultivate and manure, then we’ll lock them out in March and sow clover, lucerne, corn salad, lupin, wheat, cabbage, garlic, nasturtium, nettles, thyme and dandelion for them to forage during June to November, after which we’ll plant food crops.
In March we’ll open Run # 3 for cultivating and manuring, and in October we’ll sow cucumber and beans along the fence, plus buckwheat, lupin, silverbeet, cabbage, millet, clover, lucerne, linseed, turnip, parsley, potato, nasturtium, comfrey, sage, nettles, marjoram, thyme, mint and dandelion for them to forage during December to May.
As well as providing a food source, the nettles, thyme, dandelion, sage, marjoram and mint are all poultry conditioners and laying stimulants.
Run # 3 is pictured closest in the photo below, with Run # 2 in the background covered with bird netting to protect the chooks from hawks during the day. The tyres around the fruit trees will protect their roots from one of the chook’s favourite past times, scratching. The structure adjoining the chicken house is currently being built by Joan to store dry hay, which will also act as fantastic insulation for the chooks during winter.
To multifunction the northern section of chicken run fence we’ve incorporated four bush poles to support a shadehouse to protect seedlings, which will have a grape vine roof. Two of these posts and the corner fence post will support three kiwi vines (you need at least two females and a male for kiwi fruit production). Both grape and kiwi are deciduous, so whilst they will protect new seedlings from the sun in summer, the sun can still penetrate the chicken runs in winter. The remainder of this fence line is the back wall of a potting shed that’s under construction, which will provide a dry space to store tools and seeds, and somewhere with easy access to the shadehouse for sowing seeds, potting seedlings and natives etc.
All the wooden pegs seen in front of these structures mark out a future mandala garden consisting of a central herb spiral with eight surrounding raised beds (four of which are in place in the photo). The design incorporates eight beds because it’s a nice number for crop rotation, which breaks the cycle of pests and soil disease as well as certain crops creating the right conditions for the next crop. Joan is currently building the beds, all identical in size to enable a chicken tractor to be placed over them, so that after harvest a couple of chooks can spend two to three days cultivating and manuring the bed before we plant again. We’ve been hot composting like crazy to build soil for the beds, collecting grass, weeds, shredded paper, vacuum cleaner dust, chook manure, hay and our own urine from the property, plus lawn clippings donated by Loris and food scraps donated by a local café.
We remove the bark from bush poles before placing them in the ground to avoid insects burrowing beneath it and eating the timber, and it makes great mulch for foot paths, stops the paths from becoming boggy when wet, will suppress the grass and will eventually break down to create more organic matter.
To the east of the mandala garden is a temporary shadehouse for seedlings, which Al recently built for us, and to the east of that is a sloping patch of, well, rocks and grass, which will become terraced vegetable beds. That’s the vision anyway, and all we need to do is remember that Zone 3 also looked like this only six months ago, so anything is possible!
The frog pond being located between these terraces and the mandala garden should provide wonderful pest control. The pond is now covered with Azolla, which we’ve found will not only fix nitrogen, feed the ducks, help control the mozzies and provide compost and mulch, but is reducing the level of evaporation in the pond considerably. We’ve been transferring some from the pond to the dam every second day. The reeds are growing nicely around the pond too.
So that’s Zone 2 and 3 in January 2011, one year after arriving in Tassie Mania. December was our first month living on the property and we harvested about 3.5kg of goodies from the garden. We’re keeping track of how much we harvest, how much it costs to maintain the garden, and how much we spend in food each month. We look forward to seeing what the garden looks like when we take you on another guided tour this time next year, and whether we are managing to harvest more food than we buy.
These achievements just don’t happen on your own, so we are forever grateful for the wonderful community that we have become a part of. Our heart filled thanks goes to:
Nick from Milkwood Permaculture for teaching us our first Introduction to Permaculture course and Kirsten for making all the yummy food during the course;
Bill Mollison, Geoff Lawton & Greg Knibbs for guiding us through the Permaculture Design Certificate Course, and Greg for his ongoing support reviewing our design for this property;
Sue Brunskill for working hard to make Accredited Permaculture Training available through distance education and for all her encouragement and support while I completed Certificate IV last year;
Dean Armitt for his help preparing the ground of what is now a thriving garden, and for being such a great friend;
Marcus Hamilton for giving us a tour of his permaculture property when we arrived in Tasmania, for visiting our property and reviewing our design before we commenced implementing it, for the tagasaste and albizia seeds, all the pigface cuttings and the myriad of useful tips and advice;
Peter & Jules for helping us build the fence, chicken run, potting shed and other structures, for all the valuable knowledge that you share and your general outlook on life, which is contagious and very welcome;
Paul for the hazelnut trees and myriad of berry and vegetable seedlings, for constructing the chook house and jetty that we love so dearly, and your refreshing sense of humour;
The Conservation Volunteers for everything they did between June and November, which laid the foundations for the property to be a worthwhile demonstration site;
Loris for spending time with me in her garden on Wednesday mornings so I can draw from her many years experience organic gardening, and for the native shrubs, vegetable seedlings, grass clippings and scrumptious morning teas;
Tim for donating the hay in exchange for the free compost course we held, for the runner strawberries that we are now feasting on daily, and for pulling Karim out of the culvert with your tractor;
Celia, Ben and Daniel for laying all the sheet mulch, spreading the hay and manure and planting out the potato bed
Ben for also working on the potato bed, plus all the cardboard you’ve donated and helping us to finish rendering the frog pond;
Jill and Christina for their help thinning out the flowers and weeding the vegetable beds;
Al for the wonderful shadehouse and all your help hot composting, strimming grass, building the chicken fencing, planting pigface and everything else you helped with, as well as being great company;
Kylie for weeding the frog pond;
Joan for constructing a wonderful mandala garden and hay shed, the other things too many to mention, and most of all for making us laugh;
Future Wwoofers (in advance) for your help taking Zone 2 to the next level in 2011
