44 Harley Ridge, Tasman, NZ : October 2014

Joyful Soil Property Visit 1^st June 2014

What we did and notes:

You gave me a good tour of your property and shared your overall vision – which is a great one!

We then mostly focused on your vegetable garden and fruit orchard and possibilities with those.

The size you are working with seems appropriate for you – enough to be able to start growing vegetables but not too much that it will get out of hand while you are not living there.

Better to start out with something manageable and then there is plenty of space to expand if you need to in future.

Vegetable Beds:

You had just freshly turned the soil for 3 vegetable rows – which surprisingly were lined up exactly North to South when you checked with your compass. This is good for maximum sun coverage of the plants you grow there.

We looked at your soil which seems to be quite good – the long term grass coverage has been good for it. There were plenty of earthworms and the texture seemed to be clay-silt, not too heavy or too light. However it will still need the addition of organic material to improve the structure and for your vegetables to thrive.

Included for your records is a photo showing that plant root depth reaches about half a hand length, and a garden fork can easily enter the soil to almost halfway – you can compare this in a couple of years and see if a fork enters further and plant roots are growing deeper.

Plan

In June you turned the top layer of the beds and now the grass that was turned would have broken down into the soil beneath and new grasses will have sprung up too. All of this would have caused more biological activity which is good.

When you next visit you could turn the top layer again and plant a green manure crop such as lupins, broad beans, mustards and oats. You can get green manure crop mixes from garden shops.

Grow this crop until Spring and chop it back and dig into the soil at least 2 weeks before you want to plant your next crop.

Then on your next visit after they are chopped in you can double dig the soil (like we did on the workshop) and then you could plant vegetables! If you have access to any compost, add this pre-planting.

Potatoes could be a good start to further improve the soil, or another root vegetable. You can grow leafy greens in amongst them if you want to.

If the timing of having to fit in a green manure crop does not work for you, you can actually skip it and go straight to potatoes. Then you can grow food over Spring and Summer and put in a green manure crop next Winter instead.

Once the root crops have been harvested leafy greens are a good crop to follow with as they are not heavy feeders. However you can try anything you desire – it’s always worth a try. Heavier feeding crops might not do as well early on when the soil is still improving, but then again they might! Especially if you have a chance to dig in some compost pre-planting.

Next keep doing what we talked about on the course:

Grow the crops you want to eat. You can double crop – planting two things in amongst each other, or companion flowers amongst your veges.

Weed by chopping weeds back, just before they start to overtake veges, and let them be a mulch on the soil.

In between each crop, remake the beds by raking up the sides to make them higher and incorporate any organic material that has accumulated in the trenches . Add a sprinkle of compost before each planting and very lightly mix it in to the top layer of soil.

Square garden areas:

We also discussed a few ideas for the square garden areas where you have laid wooden boards. When deciding what you will do with them, think about what time of year you will be on the land so that you can harvest what you grow. Also think about what crops you are likely to use, and how much work you are willing to put in. Do you want to just plant something that will mostly look after itself, and be there long term, or use the space more frequently and rotate what grows there. Remember that whatever you choose does not have to be there for ever – that’s that great thing about gardens – you can always change it later if your needs change!

Some ideas:

1: Herb gardens.

They could be herb gardens with taller herbs in the middle such as rosemary, lemon verbena, sage and pineapple sage, or even a little bay tree which you could keep pruned small. Around those could be smaller herbs such as thyme, oregano (could spill over the edges), parsley, chives.

One could be for the types of herbs above which are perennial and the other could be for annual herbs such as basil, rocket, coriander, and you could include leafy salad greens in here too.

But then this would be a large area for herbs – not sure if you would want that many! (They do look and smell nice).

2: These areas could be an extension of your vege garden.

Are you intending to fill them with soil so they are raised beds? If so they could become a good area to grow carrots, as they grow best in soil which doesn’t have large clumps to get in their way, they need space to grow down freely.

3: Mini hothouses:

You could put a plastic structure over them and turn them into mini hothouses where you can grow warmer climate crops such as capsicums, eggplant and chillies.

4: Perennial plant gardens.

Put in plants which will last a lot longer than your annual vegetables and won’t need as much tending.

-globe artichokes

-asparagus bed 9can last up to 10 years!)

- Perennial beans such as scarlet runners -have a tepee structure in the middle which they can grow up each year. Tepee could be used to grow edible peas or sweet pea flowers in autumn or spring when the beans are not growing.

5: Flower garden

You could grow companion flowers which are good for attracting bees and beneficial insects. Edible flowers.

Sunflowers. Wildflower garden. Swan plants to attract monarch butterflies. Tepee in the middle for sweet peas.

6: Try the ‘Three Sisters’ technique over summer.

Plant a large bunch of corn in the centre of a square, then plant climbing beans close enough to climb up the corn and plant pumpkin around the base to use up the remaining space and maybe ramble over the edges. If successful this can produce lots of food, yum!

7: Something else entirely?! Perhaps you gained some ideas in Europe.

Compost Plan:

You already have some materials on hand which can be used for composting.

-you can scythe grass and use it fresh as a nitrogen layer, or lay it out to dry and brown to be carbon layer.

-You could prune some of your bigger trees for woody material and leaves.

- Gorse (if you have some good gloves! And tools to chop it up a bit).

We spoke about the possibility of you growing crops which could be used for composting. Such as annuals like broad beans, lupins, mustards and oats. Or trees such as Lucerne (aka tagasaste), poplar, elder, willow.

Comfrey is also great for the compost, watch where you grow it though because it likes to spread. It can be chopped back frequently and will regrow. Comfrey is a good one to grow under fruit trees.

Orchard:

It would be a good idea to mulch around your trees sometime this Spring; before the dry season. You can use compost, straw, grass clippings and leaves. Anything you can get your hands on really. Even old carpet. Just be sure not to choke the tree – leave it a little bit of breathing space around the trunk.

There are a lot of plants which are nice to grow around fruit trees as companions, if that’s the look you like – it looks a bit more like a wild orchard, whereas mulch on its own is tidier looking.

Comfrey is a good companion plant around trees and has a lot of uses in the garden. It’s has a long taproot and so draws up nutrients from deeper down.

Almost all herbs are beneficial around fruit trees, they often repel unwanted insects.

Also plants with small flowers are good to attract bees and other pollinators. Things such as borage, chamomile, clovers.

There are too many companion plants to list really!

Water:

Have you considered an irrigation plan for your garden?

This could be tricky if you have plants that need watering when you are not on your property. It could get quite dry over Summer. If you are not putting in irrigation this season, consider planting crops that are more likely to manage with less water, and be sure to add compost around them and mulch well with straw, leaves, grass or similar.

Otherwise irrigation on some kind of timer could be a good idea. I’d love to offer some ideas, however I don’t know much about irrigation yet. I’ve only ever watered by hose and hand!

If you have any questions or other thoughts you’d like to get clarity on, feel free to email me.

I wish you all the best with your land. May your soil be healthy, your plants be happy and may it bring you joy.

Happy growing!

-Pania Robinson