Organic Gardening Speech Notes for PAWA Event

Hi, my name is Charles Otway. I bought a house block in 2003, but didn't have the time or inclination to garden, until I became a home dad in 2007 and started to gardening for my sanity and enjoyment.
My presentation will be on my experiences in the sandy soils of Perth, and why organic, 'ecological' gardening was the sensible option. And basically that's urban Permaculture in action. I know why I like Permaculture as its key principles are close to my chemical engineering degree - problem solving and optimization, and measuring the in’s and out’s of a system to maximize its efficiency.

I have no training in horticulture, so what will be discussed comes from trial and error in my backyard and reading lots very helpful forums and websites in my evenings.
This stuff is all well within everyone’s budget and capability. It is time intensive at stages but much less time intensive than ongoing inefficient gardening techniques or going to the shop every 2nd day to buy fresh greens and herbs.

Why organic, and what is organic.

Nurturing your soil and feeding it using stuff that naturally exists and can be sourced in a sustainable and preferable local manner to grow your garden.

Soil Fertility - Feed the soil it grows the plants not you. Start with 1 small bed and improve it as much as you budget allows. Keep it moist, mulched and fed (manure, BnB and seaweed fertilisers). Setting up decent soil and decent garden beds takes time or money, if you are time rich do it the laborious slow way if you are time poor it will cost more and you will still have to improve the "Vegetable garden soil" you buy in.
Feed your soil manure, course manure like sheep/cow/horse, this has a high organic component that adds body to the soil without to much nitrogen. Chicken manure is a high nitrogen produce and should only be used to feed high nitrogen crops as they require it. Other soil improver, compost (the best but hard for a beginner to make, if you buy compost make sure it is good, i.e. not just sand/sawdust/coal fines.

Nutrient Recycling - What you remove/eat/take from the soil needs to be put back, the more you can compost/mulch/etc the less you will have to buy in. Also reduces carbon foot print, spread of disease and weeds.

Mulch - Perth's soils are rubbish, sandy soil either repels all water or lets it all leach through like a plug hole, all the fertilizers you put on will each away directly relate to how much and often you water. Organic gardening is SO important in Perth as it allows us to deal with the terrible soil. Mulching does many things, retains moisture/stops evaporation, creates a moist/dark/nutrient rich interface for fungi, soil bacteria and bugs (slatter/earwigs) to break down the leaf litter and softer/finer particles in the mulch. After a year you should have 10cm of compost like soil with no work on your part. Pull the remaining mulch aside harvest this black gold and mix it with your beds, screen and use as potting mix, etc. If you want to speed up the process add some blood and bone and manure under the thick layer of mulch, this will encourage many more bacteria and bugs to speed things up.

Alkalinity - Perth’s coastal sandy soils are also alkaline (high pH) and given garden veggies prefer a neutral to lower pH this can cause many mineral deficiencies and plant growth problems. This is another reason why we add lots of organic matter, other than mushroom compost (which is generally alkaline) organic material added to soil will push it slowly in the acidic direction.
If you get pH kit or take some soil samples and have them analysed as fine you have a pH of 8.5 like my garden sandy soil you might want to add some sulfur to try and get the pH down faster to start with. Powdered sulfur applied at the rates advised is one of the few options to quickly and strongly reduce you pH. Granulated and flaked sulphurs may work over time but can take years to break down so are not advised to correct an immediate issue.

Lazy farming and gardening (non-organic) in our sandy soil just doesn’t work as the sand is like glass and therefore will not hold/absorb/block water or nutrients as they drain past your plant roots deep into the soil. Water and fertiliser runs straight passed the plants roots into the ground water or becomes surface runoff.

Even if you dont think you will get around to the garden this year or maybe next, buy a bag of blood and bone, some bags of manure, order a load of free mulch (www.mulchnet.com) or contact your local tree pruning companies. Fertilise, mulch and water the mulch for a while until is saturated, then just leave it to its own devices. Add a bit of water occasionally and by the time you get around to it you will have a decent amount of soil life, microbes, worms, etc, to use in the beds you eventually create. Soil biology and life is hard to buy, due to the need for companies to sterilize everything before its sold, the goodies are in your soil you just need to attract and concentrate them and feed them up.
Mulch paths between beds, as above, and once every 6 months you add this to beds or use it as your potting mix, it saves money and is far better for potting bigger plants. Seedling might require finer more "sterilized" starter media.

Diversity and Balance, to manage a organic garden you should not be fighting the war your selves you have million of helpers to do that for you. If you are patent and create a nice place for your helpers to live/feed over time the plagues of pest will be managed by their predators, the predators have used your diverse and established toxin free garden as a home and the balance of nature is at work in your own backyard. If you rush this or use sprays, even organic sprays(oils/detergents/pyrethrum etc) the predators will be killed as well and the balance will take longer to restore. I have been gardening steadily in my backyard for 4 years and I will have whitefly plagues, Spider Mite infestations, Weevils Population explosions and other blights/wilts etc, there will always be something, hence you diversify what you plant and learn and adapt. If one plant is heavily damaged you crop from a similar but untouched variety the next year might be the opposite due to climate or other uncontrollable circumstances. Spraying and controlling will not win you the war, you are one backyard in millions.

Where to build your garden

When choosing the best location for you new garden bear in mind that vegetables need about six hours of sunlight a day to grow well, they will also need some protection from midday sun in summer, and strong winds in winter. Most plant adore morning sunshine, they will grow beautifully and stress free with 3 hours of full morning sun and semi shade after that. It is good to figure out which way North is in your garden or available space as the sun rises in east and sets west but will generally be shining from the North. Any large object that is North of your garden will throw a large shadow which will get longer the more winter develops.
Pumpkins and other plants run east west so bear that in mind when setting up beds. Trellised beans, peas and tall stands of corn will cast a large shadow so locate these at the southern end of your garden. Running beds North South or East West is less important than planning what will be planted where and what effect it will have on the other plants. You will also need to consider crop rotation, i.e. the corn can’t grow in the bed that wont shade anything forever.

Even in limited space with thought and effort it is possible to set up a layered garden, this allows you to plant 3 heights of edible plants and habits in one “pathway” of sun. Taller open canopy plants 5m tall are planted most North, the sun that shines under them hitting dwarf fruit trees and other plants 2-2.5m height plants and then you can have the ground level plants and vege garden getting the light that beams under those trees. This type of gardening requires much more planning but as you can see a very diverse ecosystem can be developed even in 3-4 meters of width/depth backyard.


Starting Out - Whats easy to grow easy to save -

Buy some seeds, but try to go with open pollinating and heirloom varieties. Plenty of online companies offering great/cheap seeds. These are as cheap as Bunnings so there in no real excuse. A packet of 50 seeds might cost $3.50, whereas a punnet of 6 seedlings will cost the same. Commonly eaten and popular vegetable seeds generally geminate in a few days and grow rapidly. They are popular for that reason they grow rapidly and create a food source and seeds each year then die. So if you bought the seeds you know can grow 10-20 plants for the next few years and save the seed on one of those occasions. You are obviously way ahead with seeds.

Its easier to grow seeds than you think, most germinate in a few days to a week. You can buy seedling trays, or just use ice-cream containers. Native seedling tubes allow the plant to grow a longer stronger root if you dont have time to get them in the ground. Don't buy seedlings unless you have to, Bunnings/Garden Center seedling might be months old, some of those plants have seeds and flowers this means they have already matured and are literally bonsai nearly dead plants, if you plant your seeds you know what you planted and how old they are. And when you plant open pollinated and heirloom varieties you know you can collect that seed and plant it again next year. Reducing your cost or letting you buy a new brand and experiment while you have free last years seed that you no know how to grow. Open pollinated and hierloom seeds can be purchased online at many places, diggers, cornocopia, eden seeds, green harvest, and all good tree nurseries and organics stores should sell a small range of basic veges.

So buy the seeds, buy a bag of organic compost, buy a block of coco husk (replacement for peat (non sustainable), some cow manure or sheep and a good quality organic soil improver i.e. Shades of Green (at Nurseries and City Farmers). This is good stuff as its a blend of also of goodies, humates (worm poo etc), trace elements, and organics sources of normal plant needs. Get a wheel barrow or just mix it on the ground, take out any lumps, fill the icecream containers (with pencil size holes in the bottom) 3/4 full poke in a finger to fingernail depth and drop in a seed this works for many seeds. Read the packet or look it up on the we as some seeds/plants like to be planted insitu (dont like being moved ever) and some need more or less space due to the size of the plant.



Seed saving is self sufficiency and the empowerment this gives you feels amazing, stick it to the man !!

Start with the easy seeds.
Bean, Lettuce, Pea, Pepper, Tomato.
These vegetables offer the beginning seed saver the best chance for successful seed saving. They produce seed the same season as planted and are mostly self-pollinating, minimizing the need to be mindful of preventing cross-pollination and other issues. Basically plant you peas or beans if they are climbers you need a trellis (something to climb, sticks, mesh etc) if they are bush variety you just need a spot to plant. Feed them up, collect you peas and beans and from the healthy looking plants let a few pods stay on the plant and get bigger and eventually go withered and look dead. Once they are dry you can pick them, put them somewhere to continue to dry and them put them in a zip lock bag, label them, and put them in a dark, cool, dry place (i.e. fridge). Sometimes you dont dry them properly and they can sweat and mold, to avoid this add some water adsorbent crystal or rice etc. Crystals, you know, in the shoe boxes etc, they say silica gel do not eat. Throw a little pack in your ziplock bag of seeds and you should be good till spring next year.
Seeds don’t last for ever if you use seeds in 2-3 years most should be fine. Tomatoes last for years, others last for 1 year.

Once you have managed the easy seeds you can move on to some harder ones.
Corn, Cucumber, Muskmelon, Radish, Spinach, Squash/Pumpkin.
The experienced seed saver's vegetables produce seed the season they are planted but require separation and or hand pollination to keep unwanted cross-pollination from taking place. Some plants like carrots, celery and others produce seed in there second season. So if you want some seed you might want to transplant these out of your rotating vege beds.
That said I dont really bother to much about a bit of crossing just plant more seedings closer together and if your plants dont grow well or produce just pull them out. This way you might invent something new, and that's always fun.

The Perennial Vegetables, Berries and Fruit Trees
Seed saving and planting and watching plants grow is great fun but it is hard continuous work so consider planting some longer term perennial plants. As discussed before annuals have been very popular for years as they provide a times, guaranteed yearly crop in a controlled laborious manner. Perennials generally don’t produce any rewards in the first year or two but after the set-up you get many years of produce.
These range from vegetables to fruit trees and produce food from 2-100 years. These plants need more planning and initial effort/time but produce a effortless return for years. If you have a rental or 1-2 raised beds only this is less of a focus but if you have enough space to grow strawberries and a fruit tree or two you are already into the perennials.
Perennial vegetables include, some Kale and collards, asparagus, globe and root artichokes, sweet potatoes, yams, arrowroot, potatoes, water chestnuts, rhubarb, garlic chives and many more. Also vegetables can be cropped in a manner that extends them greatly, lose leafed plants and much better than 1 off harvests, loose leaf lettuce vs iceberg lettuce, kale vs Cabbage, large single head broccoli vs Chinese multihead. You can also get perennial versions of herbs so that you are not needing to plant coriander and basil every few months. Spring onions or clumping onions need not be dug up only remove the green stalks 50% of them, and if you have 20 or so clumps these will continually expand and grow keeping you in shallots/green onion for ever. Garlic chives provide a similar service and are also excellent predator attractants when they set up their spectacular display of white flowers at the end of summer.
Diversity is the key, a great salad can be made out of any of the following “lettuce alternatives”, kale, watercress, Malabar spinach, Fat hen (Lambs Quarters), Beetroot and other beet leaves, parsley, garlic chives, nasturtium leaves and flowers and many more, these diverse “vegetables” are also much more nutrient/mineral/vitamin rich than lettuce and its common friends. So without over doing it grow a diverse range of vegetables, fruits and beneficial crops for your helpers.
Berry vines/bushes provide both a wonderful browsing food supply and frozen/fresh berries, in Perth we can comfortable grow, raspberries, strawberries, blue berries, Marion berries, Younger berries and many others so if you can find a place to isolate and manage these sometimes invasive plants it is highly recommended. Blueberries require protection from the Summer sun but are non invasive so you can pot them or put them in the ground and have a feed of berries in 2-3 years.
Fruit trees provide a wonderful alternative to bought fruit. Dwarf trees and cultivars specifically breed for Perth’s conditions are freely available now. Trees can be open planted to provide some wanted shade, dwarfed and potted or espaliered along a fence or wall to save space. If you are truly thinking green save the world thoughts you should replace all you non productive non native plants in the garden with food or habitat for you and your helpers.
The trick with fruit trees is to grow them at a height where you can reach the fruit with at most a step ladder and in a manner where the whole tree can be netted for both bird protection and fruit fly exclusion. Fruit fly is a terrible pest in Perth nad in not likely to change so all soft fruits need to be covered, plums, apricots, nectarines, guavas, etc. If you grow these plants small and thin the fruit appropriately you will get a few bags of healthy large fruit each year, which is generally more than you need away. Let the plant get to large and you can maintain it so any crop is generally lost anyway.


Crop rotation -


Pests/Beneficiary insects/host plants/predator Attraction -

Chooks - Willy wag tails.

Rabbits

Bees

Vegetables/Herbs/Helpful Plants. Getting the balance right. -

Native vegetation.


Permaculture principle development
Permaculture – Permanent Agriculture, creating human landscapes that copy and mimic nature. Some of the best permaculture designs/gardens evolve over time, and can become extremely complex mosaics of conventional and inventive cultural systems that produce a high density of food and materials with minimal input.
Elements of the garden/ecosystem are located and chosen to best suit the needs and requirements of the adjacent elements. For example chickens can easily be incorporated into a backyard in most suburbs, they require water, shade, space to scratch and food. If you plant bulk feeders and fodder crops or climbers alongside/inside the run you get the best out of the both plant and animal elements.
- Frog Ponds, Fruit trees, Bird baths, Chooks, Rabbits, Grey Water Reuse, recycling, reduction of carbon footprint.

Modern permaculture is a system design tool. It is a way of:
1. looking at a whole system or problem;
2. observing how the parts relate;
3. planning to mend sick systems by applying ideas learned from long-term sustainable working systems;
4. seeing connections between key parts.
In permaculture, practitioners learn from the working systems of nature to plan to fix the damaged landscapes of human agricultural and city systems. This thinking applies to the design of a kitchen tool as easily to the re-design of a farm.
Ethics, can be simply expressed as Earthcare, peoplecare and fairshare.






Easier Lower Maintenance Gardening Bed Techniques-
Wicking Beds –
A deign thought up by
I have moved on to wicking beds as the sandy soil cant hold either water or nutrients. So to save me wasting time and money washing both water and nutrient deep into the soil I have basically put a liner under the soil to make a damn. The rest of the technical stuff allows for drainage and nutrient management. While it is possible to convert the soil with huge amount of compost, Bentonite, coco peat, etc, this is a slow and expensive task and each time you water you are still washing those goodies away where you veges cant reach them.
A wicking bed is a garden bed where a reservoir of water is stored below the soil to be sucked “wicked” up by the soil as it looses moisture, either due to plant usage or evaporation.
A frame is built, generally above ground, from what you have available in much the same design as a raised bed. This is then lined with a plastic pond liner or heavy duty builders plastic to create a 10-20cm deep dam under the soil. This dam is first filled with a medium with lots of air space to store the water. The medium holds the soil out of direct contact with the water to allow the reservoir to empty when the water is used.
You need to add a pipe that runs water straight down into the reservoir/medium and a distribution pipe along the bottom of the bed to ensure even reservoir filling. A drain need to be added at the point of interface between medium and soil in the bed, and checked to keep clear from blocking. If the bed water level floods the roots plants will be lost and the ecosystem in the bed damaged.
A worm box is added to allow a easier mechanism of adding nutrients without digging, organically and it utilises the worm helpers to keep the soil aerated and the nutrients distributed. You can basically treat it like a small worm farm.
A cheap a clever design for the wicking beds uses shade-cloth and garden stakes. The bed is marked out for size and the soil leveled, stakes are then placed in the corners and every meter to a height you wish you raised/wicking bed to be. Please note 400mm is really the limit, due to the depth of reservoir and height water will wick upwards in soil. These more technical items are all described with photos and more detail on so web sites I can refer you to if you email me. So the shade cloth is placed over the pegs and pushed down inside them to form a mesh dam. This is then lined with black plastic at a lower height (100-200mm above bottom, and the above described filling processes completed. Apart from being cheap this has the major advantage of making the soil sides of the bed very free draining so there is never any risk of flooding if the reservoir fills or the drain blocks.
A modification I have from the normal designs is to keep the soil in the bed in physical contact with the the ground soil around the area. This feels more wholesome to me and less like hydroponics, as the natural soil microbes and bugs can migrate to and fro as desired. I have achieved this by making my beds mostly in ground beds, a sleeper height retainer/perimeter is used to ease access a little and provide some of the other benefits of raised beds gardens. The mulch/path between the wicking beds is then set at a level/height where the mulch path and the mulch on the top of the beds soil is directly in contact with each other. This will cause some moisture loss but in an area like Perth this is acceptable. In area in Africa where they rely on dew to water their wicking beds the issues a different so the allowances are modified.
We will now go through a demonstration and description of possible materials.
Materials Required:
Shade Cloth and Jarrah Pegs or Sleepers or Tin Bed or Plastic Molded Bed
Plastic liner
Filling and distribution piping - Ag Pipe or PVC.
Open soild water holding medium
Carpet or other soil submission material
Worm Bucket

No Dig Beds
The other option to avoid issues with the sand solid or the continuous battle to improve them is No Dig Beds. They use no soil so you crappy alkaline sandy soil is not fighting you every day. These a frequently covered in magazines nad media so I will just cover them briefly. If you need more info just email me and I can flick you the links.
Josh Burne has a great description of the technique of layering your material in a non dig bed to get great results. Basically add the following in layers until you have a bed you feel is the right height. Carpet/Cardboard/Newspaper, Dry leaves, grass and other soft pruning’s, straw, sheep manure, Lucerne, cow manure, Lucerne, compost, in any real order.
Basically get hold of anything organic and throw it in, if you want to plant straight away make sure any green waste and scraps is at the bottom away from you new plants roots until it has time to rot down. Then with all the pea straw or Lucerne hay at the top you make a hole and drop in so potting mix for the roots to stay moist and plant into the mix and straw.
The beds do need lots of water to rot down but you will end up with a small amount of great once its all rotted down which can be reused in layers in the an expansion of no dig beds, simply added on top of and used again.