Kiwi Phil
Commander
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 2,182
Were back with Pete in his vegie patch and he explains the whole set-up.<br /><br />This is a completely organic garden. No poisons, no chemicals. And it looks massive, doesn't it? Well it's not, it's quite little. In fact each of these beds is only 4 metres long, and 2 metres wide. That means that the entire growing area is no more than 4 metres wide and 12 metres long. That's enough for the average small backyard. It's like a big room. The reason why it's so successful, more than anything else, is because it's organic, and I'm going to show you how to create your own
.and the secret is always in the soil. <br /><br />The burning question is, how is it possible to enrich even impoverished soil without using chemical fertiliser? And the answer - there are dozens of ways. Sheep manure, I'm not afraid of handling it. And why do you spread it over the surface and dig it in? I dig it in because if you left it on the surface over time, it would become harder and harder. You'd be playing marbles with the stuff in six months. But apart from sheep manure, which has got a low nitrogen content, there is also cow manure which has been pulverised. It's magnificent stuff and like sheep manure can be dug in. <br /><br />But my favourite, let's be honest, is blood and bone. It's a wonderful fertiliser because it contains bone meal that contains calcium and phosphorus, which are marvellous for plants. The meat meal and the blood meal, that's full of nitrogen and makes plants leafy, lovely and lush. But it lacks one thing, and it's this; it's potash, sulphate of potash in this case here. What does it do? It makes the leaves of plants lovely and firm and more resistant to disease and less attractive to pests. And it makes them flower early too. When you get potash and blood and bone together, you get the most perfect fertiliser. That sprinkled over the surface and then dug in, gives an amazing brew and the worms are jumping with joy as it's going in. <br /><br />This is happening at the moment during winter, but what happens if you didn't do anything to your soil? The soil itself goes sour and dead. In fact it even stinks and gets a kind of mossy stuff on the surface. Look, in winter, soil must be alive and there are ways of making it live. <br /><br />About a month ago you saw me sow a green manure crop. It's growing like mad, but not only that, the soil is pulsating with life. The crop contains a mixture of legumes and grasses, all annuals. And the roots are nice and long. They're also pumping nitrogen into the soil, but they're bringing up all the minerals that have leached deep down and bringing them up into the leaves. When the crop is dug in, as it will be, it will enrich the soil. <br /><br />But how can you control pests and diseases without using any poisons whatsoever? Well there are ways. One of these ways is to use what they call "crop rotation". There are six beds here, and that means it's a six year rotation system. Every year each bed grows different crops and this is how it works. If I made the mistake of planting onions and growing them every year in this bed, there would be a relentless build up of diseases and pests specific to onions. But moving them to another bed shatters that particular cycle. <br /><br />There is a magnificent crop of cabbages as well, but the trouble is cabbages are extremely greedy. They're sucking the nitrogen out of the soil, so as fast as they're harvested they're being replaced by a plant that actually pumps nitrogen into the soil, like legumes. In other words, a rotation system works absolutely magnificently and is perfect for organic growing. <br /><br />Of course the most important part of any organic garden is composting. This is why you recycle and reuse the so called organic waste. Remember that everything that was once alive can be recycled and live again in the compost and in the plants we eat. With compost bins, there are not just square bins like the one in the vegie patch - and each one of these will hold up to a tonne of compost - but there are smaller ones and quicker ones. For example a rotating bin system that you turn no more than five times a day gives marvellous compost in about three weeks. Kitchen scraps break down beautifully, and there is no waste. So the very essence of good organic growing is using the greatest of all fertilisers, compost, and you can make it yourself.<br /><br />If you eat the stuff that you've grown organically, I swear you'll live forever, it's as simple as that.<br /> <br />Hope these are simple to understand<br />Cheers<br />Phillip
