Edible Urbanscapes

Starting my garden website  October 2, 2013

 

OK...so making notes in a notebook becomes very untidy and confusing. The answer, as always for me, is to create a website. Using a website to collate my notes, thoughts and links is the best way for me to learn what I'm doing, as I'm doing it. There's no repetition; word processing means I can erase and re-write anything; I can add video links and hyperlinks to other peoples websites...after all....no point reinventing the wheel! I do believe in piggybacking on what others have learned before me, it makes for a fast track method of learning. Also, you can have input and help me learn stuff faster. Just email me.

 

So I have a million books in front of me; a desire to learn everything, FAST; and google!  What else does a person need? Thank God for technology...it's like having a million tutors at your fingertips!  So, you may by now start to realise that I love learning, and teaching!  Yes, I am a High School Teacher in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. My background is science, but I also teach senior Psychology and Food Technology, for the fun of it!  My new added adventure is Permaculture. Let me tell you how this got started.

 

I have always wanted to learn more about plants. They are vital to our existence and are all around us. In the past people knew about farming and how to grow and process their own food. I don't know. I think I should know. In fact, I think we all should know (the teacher in me coming out). I also didn't know anything about food, full stop! I had no interest in cooking because food just made me sick (I am borderline celiac - gluten intolerant, and fructose intolerant). I also have a very slow metabolism due to having hypothyroidism. So after spending a fortune on organic vegetables and fruit to try to combat all my health issues and having to fend for myself by creating gluten free meals, I decided that maybe God was trying to tell me that it's about time I learned to cook. Hence my interest in Food Technology. My friends who know me well still can't believe I'm now teaching this stuff. Anyway, I learned everything I needed to teach at senior level and have loved it. I know how to make my own cheese, preserves, ice-cream, bread, pasta, pastry, etc, etc.  I also make my own soap and body creams, toothpaste, washing powders and medicine using essential oils. Now I am learning all about urban gardening.

 

I recently helped our school obtain a very large grant to start a Permaculture school and to build an industrial kitchen to teach hospitality. It is a very exciting project and one which has propelled me miles ahead in my quest for education. Ten  months ago I embarked in my own Permaculture garden with the help of professional permaculturalist from VEG. I love my garden. It has brought me so much peace and pleasure and I am learning daily new things. Just last week I discovered a cauliflower in a bush of green stuff. I forgot what I had planted and was waiting to see what it would turn out to be. To my surprise, a huge mature cauli was looking back at me. Such fun! (Miranda Hart enthusiasts!)

 

This week I am learning how to set up a worm farm after finding a perfectly good worm farm on the side of the street that someone didn't want. I bought 1200 of the little guys and am googling madly to know what to do. As I learn, I'll post on this site. Currently I am posting informtion from other sites which I am using to learn from. As I go, I will modify and simplify the site to the basics, so everyone can easily understand what to do. That is my talent...making complicated things simple to understand.

 

Why am I so passionate about this stuff?  Many reasons: one is out of need. My body does not tolerate processed food. The more natural and basic, the better. From my science background, I know that plants need light, water and a nutrient medium to grow in, be it soil or water. All these things are free. So why am I buying food????? There....simple. I can grow the stuff I need to eat. Now, just to figure out the HOW to do it. Secondly, knowing the HOW is a powerful thing. Having the skills to do this is of value to all generations. I want to be so skilled in the HOW of growing food in a city scape, with little space and not even a North facing backyard, so that I can teach others to do the same. Organic fruit and vegetables are not comparable to the bought stuff, full of pesticide and lack of flavour due to early picking, spraying and transporting. Don't even go there with me...my science background gets infuriated with the raping of our food supply in the last 40 years. Learn more here: www.mercola.com 
 

OK, so you see, I am passionate about good food, good nutrition and back to basic living. I have four children who are growing up in a world where food looks like food, smells like food, tastes like food, but it is NOT food!  I teach teenagers who live on softdrink, chocolate bars and chip for lunch. I had one parent drop off a kids lunch last year - chips, coke and a mars bar. I could have hit the woman! I teach kids who cannot concentrate in school, whose skin are so bad they have to wear huge amounts of foundation to cover it up, and who cannot think straight. This is all due to what they are putting into their bodies! However, kids will only learn by looking at what you do, not listening to what you say. So, I must do it myself to be able to teach it. So I am doing it! Harvesting my own organic fruit and vegetables, making my own cheese and bread and pasta and cooking healthy meals with organic eggs, organic meat and chicken, mercury free salmon, etc. (as much as possible, anyway). Skin products are poisonous too as the skin is your biggest organ. So I have taught my students to make the best organic body creams on earth, at a fraction of the cost. They can also make organic soap and toothpaste that is fluoride free. (Ahhh, don't get me talking about fluoride!). Anyway, so this is my intro. Email me if you want any recipes, but I'll probably put up a page with these soon anyway.

Hopefully, the next blog entries will be all about the garden...what I'm learning to do, new skills obtained, etc. Tchau.

 

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Finished planting for the Spring!!!  Three days of 10 hrs per day garden design. Working out companion planting; which plants will go to bed with which plant which ones are racist, etc. Learned a lot about the fact that YOU NEED TO DESIGN your garden BEFORE you plant stuff in it.  The reason being that some plants hate each other.  I planted parsley with my lettuce and the lettuce bolted to seed from stress. Found out that Cabbage loves oregano but hardly any plant likes sage, except for rosemary and thyme. Anyway, after studying a myriad of conflicting comapnion planting charts from various books and internet sites, I hope I got it right...reducing my chances for error anyway. You can check out my Spring 2013 beds on this page - Plant Beds.

 

Also learned that hybrid plants cannot be used to save seed as their seeds will not germinate. When you buy seeds, choose open-pollinated varieties. Go here for more info.

 

I will take photos of my garden tomorrow and post them. I collected a lot of junk people threw out and made use of it....for example, an old ladder for my climbing cucumbers, and old bathtubs for extra garden beds and an excellent worm compost cafe. Also, I am trialling a soil combination that has been aclaimed to be excellent.  1/3 compost (from various organic sources like mushroom, menures, worms); 1/3 vermicullite; 1/3 humus.  Let's see how it compares in my pots. 

 

So here is the list of all the stuff I am growing in my small urban space! Granny Smith green apples,  Royal Gala red apples, peachers, nectarines, plums, avocado (Hass and Bacon), figs, bananas, passionfruit, kiwi fruit, mandarin, oranges, grapefruit, kumquat (2 types), lemon, Kaffir lime, feijoa, watermelon, rockmelon, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, snow peas, beans (climbing and bush varieties), pumpkin, corn, sunflowers, various types of tomatoes, potato, kale, various lettuce types, cucumber (climbing and non-climbing), zucchini, aspargus, beetroot, dill, carrots, rosemary, thyme, basil, sage, oregano, spring onion, coriander, spinach, strawberries, mint, capsisum, chillies, rhubarb, garlic, choko, silverbeet, parsley, celery, curry plant, grapes, borage, petunias, marigolds, jasmin, cosmos, (other beneficial flowers), lavender (for the scent), pyrethrum (insect repellant for back door), garlic chives, ....