Visit Lian 21 September 2014

On Sunday 21 September 2014 we visited Lian's garden at Lauderdale
After a winter break this was our first food garden visit for the season and a nice crowd turned up, some local people Lian had not met before and some coming from a long way over the river.

Here Lian (with blue hat) welcomes us and explains about her garden

Last summer Lian decided she had had enough of the yearly plague of grasshoppers and she purchased three chooks to literally attack the problem. The experiment was a big success (grasshoppers, shield bugs and earwigs were decimated) and now she has taken the use of chooks a step further.

Following a permaculture idea she found on the internet (see here), Lian made six beds adjacent to the existing chook pen, with the chooks having access to a bed for a month before she sows things in it and gives them access to the next bed. It is an experiment in progress, and with carrots needing to be a lot longer in the ground before being harvested, Lian does not yet know how she will deal with that, but it is an interesting way of making an active positive use of chooks. I have invited Lian to stay in touch about this and let us know how her experiment progresses.

Clara, Floss and Dolly earning their keep

It never ceases to amaze me how every gardener has his/her own approaches and how therefore there are things to learn in every garden. Lian collects charcoal from her wood heater, puts it on her drive way and then over a period of a few days it is crushed by her car tyres. So simple, but I reckon it was a new idea. She then mixes the charcoal with seaweed concentrate and/or some other liquid manure and adds it to her soil or her compost heap.

Here is Lian's compost heap made out of recycled pallets

You may think there are a lot of weeds in the bed below. No, there are not! Around the food plants green manure has been sown that will be dug in or used on the compost heap.

Good use of an old wheelbarrow, especially as Lian's local soil is all sand

And here is her new raspberry patch:

People brought a wonderful array of give-aways for the produce table and great-tasting contributions for morning tea.

Many thanks to Lian for hosting this visit and to Chris and Deb for helping her. Everyone came away inspired and the social interaction was great.

This text was previously published on the Food Garden Group blog. It was written by Max Bee.