For those of you who missed the last meeting, here's a summary and tips from our speakers.
Prior
to the presentation, Catriona shared info on a weed from her garden - Galinsoga parviflora, that can
be used in Ajiaco soup (a Columbian soup). It was likely the weed came into her
garden with the lucerne. It is currently established in an area of bare earth
and lawn and Catriona sees that it could quickly become established, but at
present is easily removed.
ABC’s Gardening Australia segment - Graham Gartshore showed a segment from a recent TV episode about a couple on a Permaculture journey.
ABC’s Gardening Australia segment - Graham Gartshore showed a segment from a recent TV episode about a couple on a Permaculture journey.
It was a great and lively meeting
with Sharon and Graham Gartshore presenting on layered garden beds.
Making raised garden beds
Making raised garden beds
Graeme and Sharon both have a PDC
(Permaculture Design Certificate). They had a great Powerpoint presentation of
their own experiences. The reason that they decided to make a raised bed was because
they have an area of poor clay soil. It's worthwhile to go over some of the
areas that they touched upon including:
- What are the benefits of making a raised garden?
- How to select a site?
- What size should it be?
- How to fill it in - what 'layers' should you use?
The garden that Graeme and Sharon
created was, in effect, a new compost heap. They said however, you can plant in it
immediately (if you make holes and add the new plantings in already composted
soil). However, they decided to wait for a few weeks to allow their new raised
garden to finish composting before planting.
Practicalities: choose a garden
bed size that you can reach into the middle!
Materials:
Materials:
- corrugated iron raised garden bed from local supplier
- 1.5m x 400mm - cost $120
Layers/Process:
- level ground/de-grass
- establish a drainage layer in the "corrugated iron bed" - palm fronds, sugar cane mulch, crusher dust
- geo-textile material over top ($5/metre from landscaping place)
- grass clippings & weeds from three bay composting system
- water in molasses
- mulch over this
- mushroom compost & comfrey leaves & minerals (such as blood & bone, lime, dolomite, seaweed solution, chook pellets, mineral base from Nutri-Tech Solutions)
- lucerne, hay, compost
- heap all material into the ring until material is about 30cm above the rim
Estimated cost $170
The presentation created quite a
long Q&A session afterwards - especially about composting, worms and the
use of mushroom compost that contains salt!
We hope you'll join us for the next meeting on Tuesday, 3 July.
