EXCHANGE INTERFACE

sixbeforelunch asked: Gardening. How did you get started? What do you most enjoy growing? Any memorable successes or failures?

My mother was a gardener in her spare time; she pottered around, growing a variety of ornamental plants and flowers. Succulents and ferns were particular favourites of hers, but she was never into vegetable gardening.

I was *handwobble* about gardening until I hit about 20, and a friend loaned me a book by an Australian, Linda Woodrow's book Permaculture Home Garden in which she described herself as a hippie who wanted a way to stretch her household budget, a less energy-intense way of living, and food that hadn't been sterilised, poisoned, or otherwise meddled with to grow. It revolutionised the way I thought about food and gardening. From that point on, I wanted a garden like that.

It took some seventeen years before I had a place with any hope of such a garden. First, I was in rentals, then I had a unit which faced northwest but was heavily shaded. Then I was in the family home with a south-westerly facing slope covered with morning glory and weeds and surrounded by gum trees...



One of the reasons I wanted a house was because I wanted a yard with a garden. It's proving to be a bit more work than I anticipated, and the house maintenance is a bit heavier than I like. I think if I can get the garden beds stable, then it'll be a fair bit easier, but that's still a fairly major job and my sister doesn't have the energy.

That's an obstacle to overcome, and something to consider in future.

My passion is to grow food; flowers are nice, but I don't feel like they're really valuable - at least, not on their own. I used to collect roses when I was about 21, but they never did very well.

Nowadays, I focus on fruits and vegetables - primarily annuals right now, but I'm hoping to move towards perennials in the coming year.

Successes and Failures?

Last year (2015) was quite a success - particularly with the zucchini, corn, and tomatoes in summer:



And the leeks, chard, and broccoli in winter.



This year, things are looking much the same - slightly better, in fact. I think the ground is somewhat better now that it's had time to develop with the compost and gardening and crop rotation.

This summer, again the zucchini, corn, and tomatoes have dominated the landscape, but to that we've added squash (little round pumpkins), some potatoes, and the eggplant and capsicum will probably do okay once we have a few days of sun.



That was 6 weeks ago.

Now:



Those corn are now at least 1.8m (6feet) tall.

The potatoes aren't doing too badly, and I've tossed down a bunch of old 'expired' seeds around to see if anything grows.



Most of these pictures are from mid November - after the heat/rain of December, the garden looks VERY different!



I need a better system for 2016, though - seed-raising, planting, and so-forth; also - more green vegies that don't promptly bolt and a rainwater harvesting system, because we've had mad downpour quite a few times in the last six months, but most of it ended up in the grass, going to the water table.

A big (current) failure is the front bed, in which I've planted fruit trees.

November 2014:


September 2015:


Only one is doing particularly well, the others are all a little hesitant, and there's this perennial weed called 'nut grass' which has basically spread through the entire bed, and I'm going to have to dig it up - every nut and root - to get rid of it. I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to be able to do that - it's going to be a job and a half - honestly, if I could 'hire' people to help me out for the space of, oh, half an hour per person, (payment in cake and food) then it would be so very much easier!

January 2016:


Mind you, the stuff you see growing crazily around the trees is a groundcover I planted to basically crowd out the nutgrass. It's doing really well, which is fine, because it shouldn't be competing too badly with the fruit trees. However, I really have to trim it down and toss it into a compost.

Things I need to do for the garden during January
1. make a planting plan - when to plant and where.
2. add more perennials - things that don't need planting every where - plant once, repeat harvest.
3. make some really good, rich compost - the banana and the avocados are going to need it
4. plant potatoes, garlic, and other bulbs for winter/early spring next year.