My Back to Eden garden progress

[Tank-Girl]

Another very low cost vermin fencing is orchard/ bird netting.

I buy it in long lengths in white for high vis.
Black blends in too much and then you get animals tangled.
The mesh is fine enough to keep out rabbits and cats and it's very light and stretchy.
I have issues with strength and stamina and I can't raise my elbows over shoulder height
but I can put this netting up if I stand on a step ladder.
I use tent pegs to hold it down at the bottom.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@JamesY your soil is similar to ours and we have clay base as well. Just so you know it takes around 2 years or more to get your soil right and the gardens produce in the first year is usually less than the following years. We trench compost all of our vegetable scraps to add nutrients to the soil as we get them and also use a lot of composted grass clippings added to the soil as well. In our gardens we add around 4.5 cubic metres of (3 horse & 1.5 cow) to each 9 x 2mt garden bed each season and our soil literally eats it and we compost thickly with lucern hay.

The gardens are looking good I might add. We started our gardens from scratch here 3 years ago and haven't bought any vegetables for our family of 2 in 2.5 yrs and we supply lots of other families with our excess produce as well. It is well worth doing and saves a heap on the grocery bill. You need around 100 square metres of garden beds per person including fruit trees to support a family totally from your gardens and that is not growing every variety there is.

We blanch and freeze a lot of our produce and eat a lot fresh too so we have a year long supply and a bit more if we should loose our crops one season as well and it holds us in good stead for a constant supply of food. We make our own jams in our bread maker from our berries as well as eat them fresh.

 

[Dutchs]

@JamesY your soil is similar to ours and we have clay base as well. Just so you know it takes around 2 years or more to get your soil right and the gardens produce in the first year is usually less than the following years. We trench compost all of our vegetable scraps to add nutrients to the soil as we get them and also use a lot of composted grass clippings added to the soil as well. In our gardens we add around 4.5 cubic metres of (3 horse & 1.5 cow) to each 9 x 2mt garden bed each season and our soil literally eats it and we compost thickly with lucern hay.

The gardens are looking good I might add. We started our gardens from scratch here 3 years ago and haven't bought any vegetables for our family of 2 in 2.5 yrs and we supply lots of other families with our excess produce as well. It is well worth doing and saves a heap on the grocery bill. You need around 100 square metres of garden beds per person including fruit trees to support a family totally from your gardens and that is not growing every variety there is.

Not bad,.....40 People to an acre can be fed veggies and fruit. Actually very nice! I'll remember that stat.....

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Dutchs I went to a garden workshop seminar with one of the guys who features on Gardening Australia and that was his stats and we found them to be accurate with our family to keep us in food. It is also good to remember that 1 litre of grey water will water 1 square metre of ground if you have a dry spell as well. We use all of our grey water to water the lawns around our property to save on water charges here as we are on water restrictions. You can also use the grey water to water your vegetables if you use biodegradable washing products but only on vegetables that don't touch the ground and not on root vegetables and then you can alternate to flush the soil with fresh water if in drought conditions.

 

[Dutchs]

@Dutchs I went to a garden workshop seminar with one of the guys who features on Gardening Australia and that was his stats and we found them to be accurate with our family to keep us in food. It is also good to remember that 1 litre of grey water will water 1 square metre of ground if you have a dry spell as well. We use all of our grey water to water the lawns around our property to save on water charges here as we are on water restrictions. You can also use the grey water to water your vegetables if you use biodegradable washing products but only on vegetables that don't touch the ground or root vegetables and then you can alternate to flush the soil with fresh water if in drought conditions.

It's like you been reading my mind...weird....Very cool though and great info. I have a well so my only charge is running the pump. I am getting a New Camper next year..Big one I'm going to retire in. I have done homework on the greywater systems and have decided I am definitely going with one that has filters. I am going to hook it to my Fruit tree irrigation system and should be able to water them with drip irrigation all year round. So many things people can do if they just do a bit of research....Off subject but I am going with a compost toilet as well......

 

[Dani]

Your garden looks good! With all that nutrients added your garden will get better and produce more year after year. I love using free mulch in my garden too, but my soil is complete opposite. .. Pure black gumbo. Wood mulch helps break it up and then I also till in old cow manure and hay that has been composting for a couple years. Good job on the garden!

 

[JamesY]

Your garden looks good! With all that nutrients added your garden will get better and produce more year after year. I love using free mulch in my garden too, but my soil is complete opposite. .. Pure black gumbo. Wood mulch helps break it up and then I also till in old cow manure and hay that has been composting for a couple years. Good job on the garden!

Black gumbo is the worst! I hate that sticky, clumpy, stuff!

 

[JamesY]

@JamesY your soil is similar to ours and we have clay base as well. Just so you know it takes around 2 years or more to get your soil right and the gardens produce in the first year is usually less than the following years. We trench compost all of our vegetable scraps to add nutrients to the soil as we get them and also use a lot of composted grass clippings added to the soil as well. In our gardens we add around 4.5 cubic metres of (3 horse & 1.5 cow) to each 9 x 2mt garden bed each season and our soil literally eats it and we compost thickly with lucern hay.

The gardens are looking good I might add. We started our gardens from scratch here 3 years ago and haven't bought any vegetables for our family of 2 in 2.5 yrs and we supply lots of other families with our excess produce as well. It is well worth doing and saves a heap on the grocery bill. You need around 100 square metres of garden beds per person including fruit trees to support a family totally from your gardens and that is not growing every variety there is.

We blanch and freeze a lot of our produce and eat a lot fresh too so we have a year long supply and a bit more if we should loose our crops one season as well and it holds us in good stead for a constant supply of food. We make our own jams in our bread maker from our berries as well as eat them fresh.

That's awesome! We have a long way to go before we get to that level, but we expand more all the time and have learned better ways to make the most from our space.

I think sand is probably the easiest to fix. The top secret homemade fertilizer (video coming soon) did amazing, we just had to water a little more often. It's gonna be even better this year!!a

 

[JamesY]

We have started a little orchard. Back to Eden of coarse. So far we have planted 2 peaches and 2 plums. It's a start but we hope to end up with a quarter acre with about 15 trees or more

 

[JamesY]

Here's a little before and after soil comparison from bte. We are very pleased

 

[JamesY]

Got a little more done in the orchard. So many wood chips to move!

 

[backlash]

A garbage dump had lines strung across the whole pile.
Several acres of trash and the Gulls would be all over it.
After they put in the lines the gulls would not fly in.
The lines were about 20 feet apart but I guess gulls can't judge distance.

 

[Dani]

I did the layering on some of my raised beds last year. Worked out really well. Scraps of produce, manure, cardboard, then mulch. Just cut holes where I stuck in my transplants. Attracted the earthworms and watered way less. I hadn't even thought about doing this with transplanting trees, but I have one peach and one pear ready to get in the ground on my back porch right now in pots.

 

[JamesY]

I did the layering on some of my raised beds last year. Worked out really well. Scraps of produce, manure, cardboard, then mulch. Just cut holes where I stuck in my transplants. Attracted the earthworms and watered way less. I hadn't even thought about doing this with transplanting trees, but I have one peach and one pear ready to get in the ground on my back porch right now in pots.

It's supposed to be great for trees. Keeps the weeds down and slowly fertilized.

Our goal is to have about 1/4 acre sheet mulched with 20 trees or so. All in time

 

[Dani]

It's supposed to be great for trees. Keeps the weeds down and slowly fertilized.

Our goal is to have about 1/4 acre sheet mulched with 20 trees or so. All in time

When I did it for the garden it did keep the weeds gone for a good long while and for young saplings it just makes sense. Gives them enough time to get established and not worry about weeds. . . or hunny accidentally mowing over.

 

[JamesY]

Your garden is looking good! The first set of 5 pictures… at the very bottom of the last picture I believe I see a plant in the grass named “Plantago lanceolata”, a wonderful medicine. To most people it looks like grass.

I’ve used it heal a brown recluse spider bite, any kind of ant or wasp sting, best thing for a poison ivy rash. Google the latin name and click images. I need surgery for a cataract so I’m not 100% sure…

What's this? Looks like food

 

[Peanut]

It's medicine and food... high in vitamins A and C. A gold mine, has more nutritional value than anything you will grow in you garden or buy at the store.

Per 100 grams it has 2.6 grams of fiber and 2.4 grams of iron and contains high amounts of - folic acid, zinc, manganese and a dozen more. It's also tasty. You can eat it as a salad. I prefer it cooked in a stew or better yet boiled just like turnip greens with a little pepper sauce added on the plate.

This was the "go to" early spring green 100 years ago. My grandparents ate it along with millions of others in NAmerica.

Look up "Rumex ssp" or "Curly Dock". Better harvest it before it puts up a seed stalk. Or wait and harvest the seed and plant it next year.

The is another Dock called "bloody dock". You can never cook the bitter out of the plant, the stems and veins in the leaves appear reddish. Avoid bloody dock.

 

[Peanut]

Here is some curly dock by my elderberry bushes. 50ft away is bloody dock. You can see the red tint in the leaves. I see them growing close together often. I tried boiling bloody dock repeatedly, can’t get the terrible bitter taste out of it. I’ve also noticed that curly dock will be more bitter than usual when it grows close to bloody dock.

There is another very nutritious Rumex species you should see now or in the next week or so. It’s called Sheep Sorrel(Rumex acetosella). It looks like “red stems” sticking up from a pasture or field. It’s in the last two pics. When you see the red stems it’s too late to eat it. It’s little leaves (edible part) are hard to identify. The best way to learn it… if you see it’s red stem in a few weeks in an out of the way spot put a stake about an inch away. Next year watch for the leaves to appear. It’s how I learned it’s leaves.

 

[JamesY]

Got another video up. Still have a long way to go in the orchard butbwebare making progress