Archive for the Garden to Table Permaculture Blog Category

A chef and a food grower…All About Permaculture Podcast

We had the pleasure of hosting Fouad Kassab who just happens to be a Whole Foods Chef and writer on his own food journey. He works with Jo Whiten, who wrote Quirky Cooking, an awesome cookbook full of healthy delicious recipes. Whilst staying at our Rammed Earth Studio, surrounded by Permaculture Gardens, Fouad recorded this conversation about growing food, health and Permaculture. We chat about the benefits and principles of Permaculture and how you can do simple things in your daily life to make a positive change in the world.

Spring is in the air and it’s time to plant! The most important task to do prior to planting is to prepare your patch.

How do I prepare my garden for planting?

Healthy soil = Healthy Plants

There are many options for improving your soil as most fruit & vegetables need nutrient rich soil. In an organic garden we do this by:

Adding compost – either homemade which is always better or purchased. If you are buying soil onto your property make sure you do the water test. Wet the soil, grab a handful and try and make a ball. If it crumbles then it’s no good. You want the soil to stay in a ball, this way you know it has good structure with a bit of clay so the soil sticks together. The soil should smell earthy and ask the garden supplier if it has been treated with chemicals, if this is the case look elsewhere.

Chook pen soil – if you have chickens then simply rake back the top layer of the soil in the staw yard and dig out the soil from underneath. The staw yard is the area where the food scraps are thrown out to the chooks and staw is occasionally added on top of the food scraps and soil. This will be rich in nutrients but also will most probably contain some weed seeds.

Soil for pots – the cheapest way to get soil for pots is to buy at least 1 cubic metre of well draining compost and store this in clean garbage bins with a lid. If you do buy potting mix, try and get soil that has the certified organic symbol or has no added Osmocote (chemical slow release fertiliser) or other chemicals additives.

Planting seeds in the ground or in pots?

If you are time poor, then direct sow your seeds into the vegetable garden. Some seeds like beetroot, carrots and beans benefit from being directly sown into your vegetable garden.

If you have time, you can sew seeds in pots and then transplant out into the garden. You can use old plastic pots or polystyrene boxes, which are readily available at the tip shop, and you will save them from going in to land fill.

Simply fill the container with potting mix/ well draining compost and sprinkle seeds, double the depth of the seed. For example if your seed is 1mm just cover with 2mm of soil. It doesn’t have to be exact but just a rough guide.

Spring planting guide for your vegetable garden

Click on the sow what when chart sub tropics this will give you a January – December herb and vegetable planting guide for the Sub Tropics.

I have been practicing permaculture for the last 12 years with my husband and two children. We have built a Rammed Earth House and Permaculture Gardens. As a qualified Horticulturalist, I always knew there was a better way to go about my daily life and Permaculture has complemented my skills and given me a framework to operate within. It gives you the overarching principles and you go on to learn the specific techniques as you go to guide you along your permaculture journey.

Join us for a Permaculture Design Course

For more information on our November 19 – December 1, 2016 upcoming course click here

Happy abundant living!

Megan Cooke

Permaculture Teacher & Chief Veggie Grower!

Garden to Table Permaculture

Pacific Palms, NSW, Australia

Did you know that conventionally grown Garlic is one of the most highly sprayed crops and even though it grows under the soil, the leaves of the plant still take in chemicals which are then stored in the bulb. Imported garlic which is often sold at supermarkets have been bleached with Chlorine to give it the flawless white colour that apparently modern day consumers want. All imported garlic is fumigated with Methyl Bromide to get rid of any bugs in accordance with Australian quarantine standards. This chemical is a major environmental hazard as it is an ozone depleting substance, and many other countries have banned it use. Just imagine what it is doing to our bodies!

It’s almost June and the mornings are starting to feel crisp as I wander outside to feed the chooks, so that means it’s time to plant Garlic! You can plant garlic from February to the end of June, as it needs at least 6 months in the ground to form cloves. It’s a crop that grows well with very little care along the way.

The essential tips for growing Garlic:

1. Like most crops, growing garlic is all about soil preparation. If we feed the soil and keep it healthy your plants will thrive.
2. Don’t over water as this may cause the cloves to rot.
3. Invest your time in good soil preparation and be rewarded with an awesome crop.

Soil preparation:

There are several methods for preparing the soil but we find NO DIG gardening the easiest way to create soil.

1. No dig style is the method we choose as we live on a rocky ridge with no top soil. To start with we lay newspaper or cardboard on top of grass or in our case rocks and clay.
2. We then add layers of carbon & nitrogen for example:
3. Nitrogen layers: green grass clippings, coffee grinds, garden clippings, animal manure (we use chicken manure)
4. Carbon layers: mulching hay, shredded newspaper, egg cartons, dry grass clippings, dry garden clippings.
5. After layering these materials we then put a layer of homemade compost about 20 cm deep.
6. After soaking the cloves in worm wee or water we then plant the cloves with the pointy side facing the sky.

Planting cloves of Garlic at Garden to Table Permaculture

What is garlic seed?

The garlic seed is simply each individual clove of garlic which is how the plant reproduces. Each clove will form a bulb of garlic by the end of the growing season. The cloves of garlic form in the last few months and if this doesn’t happen then it may mean the cloves haven’t been planted for long enough.

Where do I get the seed from?

The most important thing when selecting garlic seed is to make sure it is certified organic or from a chemical free farm or garden. If you have a local seedsavers group this would be a good place to start. Otherwise you can purchase Certified Organic seed from your local Farmers market or an Organic seed supplier. Just google Certified Organic Garlic seed. Once you started growing garlic like we have for the last few years, you can grow enough to eat and some to save for next year.

Bees are attracted to garlic flowers

How much garlic should I plant?

If you love eating garlic I’d say plant about 80 cloves, that way you’ll have enough for about 1 bulb per week and the rest you can save for seed.

How do I plant garlic?

You’ll notice there are two distinct ends to the garlic, the top end is pointed which is where it will shoot from and bottom end is where the roots will appear from.

After planting the cloves what can I mulch with?

Mulching Hay is usually available from your local produce shop or nursery. Ensure that the hay is from a chemical free farm, so just ask a few questions?

Does it come from a farm that use roundup or other chemicals?

Does the hay come from a farm that use artificial chemical fertilisers?

It’s best not to mulch with sugarcane mulch as this can form a mat over the ground and the water won’t be able to penetrate the mulch layer. That’s why using a larger size mulch is better, so the water can penetrate through to the soil.

Harvesting

On a small home garden scale, harvesting is done by hand. When about 2 or 3 leaves have died of and turned yellow this normally means it’s time to harvest your garlic. This can be done in rain or shine.

Storage

Once you have lifted the garlic you need to hang this up in a dry airy place like a shed but just ensure this is away from any chemicals.

Hang your garlic in a dry airy positon after harvesting

After giving a Garden Advisory to a couple of my clients on growing garlic, they made a video of themselves planting 2000 garlic seeds in Pacific Palms over a weekend , no dig style! That’s what I love about my job is passing on the information that I’ve learnt over the last 25 years and seeing people take it to new heights!

Click here to watch their story.

If you’d like to learn how to grow your own veggies using tried and tested methods that give you an abundance of produce, then visit our website www.gardentotable.com.au for our latest courses.

Until next time,

Happy Gardening,

Megan Cooke

Chief Garlic Planter at Garden to Table Permaculture

This picture was sent to Megan after she returned from Malawi. Whilst there she donated just AUS $15 to this village so they could fix their water pump, so they didn’t have to travel 1km by foot to the the next village for water. She has since donated part of her business proceeds to this village in Malawi.

At Garden to Table Permaculture we believe in Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. When Megan Cooke, the director of Garden to Table Permaculture, returned back from Malawi after completing her second Permaculture Design Course, she felt inspired by the Malawian people she had met on her travels. Since returning back home to Australia Megan decided to donate part of the proceeds of her business to Hardwell Kaniye and his family of 10 in a local village in Lilongwe, Malawi called Chitedze. Megan and hardwell keep in regular contact to give each other updates on their Permaculture journey.

Hardwell says:

Growing vegetables in an old bath at Garden to Table Permaculture, Pacific Palms, NSW

Growing Organic Vegetables at home can save you time, money and you know exactly what you are eating.  Conventionally grown produce that you buy at the supermarket is sprayed with numerous amounts of chemicals including pesticides and fungicides. In contrast when you grow or buy organic vegetables these are not sprayed with any nasty chemicals.

Q. What if I wash my fruit and vegetables that have been sprayed with chemicals before eating them?

A. Unfortunately most chemical sprays are systemic, which means it enters the plants system and no amount of washing will remove the chemical from the plant.

3 things you need to know about growing Organic Vegetables in a Permaculture Garden

1. Place salad greens and vegetables you need to access on a daily basis close to your kitchen or in your Zone 1 area close to the house. As you can see in the picture above a bath tub has been placed right near the front of the house which will be passed each day.
2. Make your own compost or if you have to buy soil make sure it is good quality.
3. You can either grow plants from seed or buy seedlings.
4. Plant companions outside of your vegetable patch, like cosmos to attract beneficial insects to your garden.

WHICH SEEDS SHOULD I LOOK FOR?

If you do want to start off with seed that is also organic it is best to check and see if the packet has a symbol like this. Non organic seeds are treated with a fungicide before they are packaged.

WHY IS SOIL SO IMPORTANT?

Healthy plants = Healthy soil

Spend some time preparing your soil. We do this a number of ways at Garden to Table Permaculture but our favourite method is NO DIG.

NO DIG soil preparation is good in hard ground or where there is no top soil.

Simply layer organic materials such as grass clippings, straw, manure, vegetable scraps and make sure you add a layer of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ materials or nitrogen and carbon.

Examples of Green or Nitrogen materials:

Grass clippings,

Coffee grinds

Fresh or aged animal manure (free of weed seed)

Examples of Brown or Carbon materials:

Straw

Newspaper

Shredded office paper

Once you have layered the different materials add a layer of about 30cm of compost and then you are ready to plant straight into your new soil! As the seedlings or seeds grow the layers of carbon and nitrogen materials you have added with form rich soil which feeds the plants as they grow.

If you would like to learn some hands on skills growing organic vegetables at home then join us for our next one day workshop on A – Z of Growing Veggies at home.

Click here for information on our upcoming workshops or call Megan Cooke on 0413 769 530.

Bees attracted to Pink Cosmos flowers growing near basil in the vegetable garden