I was privileged to visit Kath Irvine’s open day at the Edible Backyard near Levin. She talks a lot of gardening sense, based on her experience and experiments. She demonstrates the wisdom of her words through a productive and beautiful garden. Here’s what I learned (or re-learned) that I’m going to do as a result.
- Plant for a constant supply of winter greens as the ‘backbone’ of the edible garden – silverbeet, parsley, celery, leeks and kale are productive and versatile
- If you haven’t sown brassicas in January / February, you’ll need to buy plants in late March / early April
- Use pots (and bigger pots) if you haven’t got space (yet) to plant out winter crops
- Use your broad fork to aerate your soil (I bought mine from the US many years ago but a beautifully crafted Forksta from the Crafty Gatherer as Kath recommends is more wieldy)
- Start a leaf mould pile (now’s the time) to make seed raising mix (1/3 sand, 1/3 leaf mould, 1/3 compost by volume)
- Plant salad around the edges of the brassica beds – easy access and captures nutrient run-off.
- Make a wool fadge compost heap (pile up compost ingredients in a 1 metre cube and cover with a wool fadge to keep it tidy / moist while it decomposes in situ). Somewhere between the compost technique Kay Baxter at Koanga uses and how I use compost bins.
- Use gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate) to add calcium, not dolomite (which adds magnesium as well and raises pH). I’m still working out the details on this one.
- Wood ash from non treated wood is a great addition to your broad beans. Burn bones from kitchen waste in your wood burner if you don’t have a pig.
- Use herbs for beauty and biomass (growing your soil) such as tansy, chamomile, dandelion, lemon balm, them, sage and oregano. Woody, wild and drought tolerant.