One of our greatest joys is going out the back door and being greeted by the herb garden. This vibrant herb garden was transformed from a drab ‘lawn’. This area also provides a great place to sit under the shade of the honeysuckle and share a drink on a hot afternoon.

We are keeping it well watered at present as our bushfire plan includes keeping the 3 sides of the house where the main fire risk comes from green by regular watering. This also has helped keep the house cool during the current heatwave .

The vegies are growing well but the hot weather has made it difficult for the seeds to germinate. Shade is needed to keep the area damp and increase the humidity to allow for germination. The strawberries are producing bumper crops but the asparagus has finished.

The rest of the house garden are also filled with plenty of colour, scents and life.

At least the hot weather allows me to get some sowing done as well as more basketry projects

IT ALL STARTS WITH A SEED

With its memory of the past
And it’s potential for the future

To celebrate Spring I have made this sculpture for the vegetable garden.



These seeds, when planted in humus rich soil will bring forth abundant food and sustainable lifestyle so long as you tread gently on our earth, seek to understand the earthly rhythms and your part in the cosmos.

Green manure crop

The green manure crop of oats and peas, planted in May has now been returned to the earth.

Rather than digging it in I prefer to cut it down. I use a brushcutter with a steel blade this gives a clean sharpe cut and leaves the grass long.

By cutting it down the roots are retained in the soil and breakdown very quickly while the tops form mulch which protects the soil, holds in the moisture all of which encourages the earthworms and micro organisms.

It is then treated with biodynamic barrel compost (also known as cow pat pit or ccp) This year I developed a home garden method of making this so all biodynamic home gardeners can have their own supply. To use this I took 20grams of the barrel compost and stirred it (using the usual biodynamic method) in 5 litres of warm water for 20 minutes in the afternoon when the earth is breathing in.

IN THE VEGIE GARDEN

There are still good harvests of cabbage, turnips, carrots, celery, kale , broccoli, mustard greens, lettuce, mache, miners lettuce ,chard/silverbeet, parsnips, swede, chicory, leeks, broad beans tops, endive, fennel,

beetroot, spring onions and arugula.

The garlic and onions are growing well

. Monthly planting occur all year round to ensure a continual harvest.

The herb garden is now well established and looks much better than the 'lawn' it replaced. .

The early seeds of tomatoes, capsicums, pumpkin and cucumbers planted with bottom heat 2 days before the full moon in August are up and doing well in the newly designed propagator in the tunnel house. Also in the tunnel are a couple of capsicums and an eggplant that have over wintered there. They all have new shoots and the eggplant is flowering.

Winter Harvests

The Winter garden can be quite a challenge here in the Adelaide Hills. The best results are achieved by good planning and this means back in January /February. All those seeds you planted are now providing delicious winter dishes. Here planting continues throughout the year , although the cool restricts the range and growth is slow.Favorites at this time are greens like green wave, a mustard green, miners lettuce, mache, The colours of the chicory are great (as well tasting great) and the purple cauliflowers attracted attention during recent farm tours. Winter also provides time to clean and sort the seeds produced in Autumn.
Click here to see more photos of the winter garden.

From the Autumn Garden

While being busy with orchard harvests and biodynamic preparations, both making and applying, I’ve also managed to do some maintenance on the perennial gardens raised beds. The main vegetable area has also had a makeover by removing the ‘wild area’ around the edge of the garden. This area had become seriously entangled with kikuyu, couch and comfrey so much so it was starting to invade parts of the garden. It was dug out removing as much of the invading weeds as possible but I know there will be missed bits to be removed for the next few years. I was going to plant a green manure crop but in the end planted onions there- a bit of a mistake and what you get for impatience as now the onions have been swamped by soursobs – oh well a little more weeding required. (It’s a good thing I enjoy weeding)



On the other side of this bed is the pumpkins patch a 10x 9 square metre garden also with kikuyu invading. I’ve now dug this area over removing as much as possible so it’s now ready for the green manure crop of field peas and oats to be sown.
Another project has also begun in an area that was my nursery. As it was used little and propagation can be accommodated in other areas I decided to revamp it as a compost garden as it adjoins the compost area and also where I grow my comfrey, safely fenced off from the geese. So now I will grow a range of plants to use in the compost as well as the biodynamic compost plants and barrel compost.



The vegie garden is providing good daily harvests thanks to regular monthly plantings. A quick wander around to see what’s growing will see beetroot, broccoli, chard, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips, lettuce, chicory, celery, miners lettuce, mache, kale, leeks, celeriac black salsify, telephone peas, broad beans, endive, fennel, arugula, cabbage, snow peas, onions, opps almost forgot, the garlic. As well there are some extra special things ‘growing’ in my garden at present. You will find the biodynamic preparations 502,503, 504 and 506 while 500 and 505 are developing down in the valley while in the compost garden you’ll find 3 different barrel composts (also known as ccp or manure concentrate) I’m experimenting with.

...and the harvest continues

So much yummy fresh food driect from our vegie garden.

TOMATOES

March here at Heathfield is the time our tomatoes finally reach their peak. It may be a long wait for some but its how our season goes. The seeds are planted with under heat in the polly house in August, transplanted into the garden in October, start to ripen mid January but reach their best by the end of February –beginning of March. This year has been a good season and the flavour is exceptional. Despite all the gardening advice ,I grow the tomatoes I raise from seed in the same bed every year – well for the last 5 in their current bed. They are watered via drip once a week. The bed is prepared each September when winter crop allocated to the bed is finished by digging in my biodynamic compost. The whole vegie garden receives applications of biodynamic 500, Firstly tomorrow as it has rained 36.5mm today so far (First since I can’t remember , maybe October last year.) then again in April, September and December. Over the early growing season it also receives some ccp & nettle spray I make.
Varieties I grew
San Marzano 2, Cuor di Bue- Franchi seed
Principe Borghese originally Franchi seed, now 2nd generation Nirvana saved.
Beefsteak- came up as a self-sown in 2000 has been saved each generation since then.
Franco’s- seeds from Franco’s family tomato brought from Italy many moons ago. Now 3rd generation saved here.
Joy's Dad's Yellow this was the only brought in seedling from Hills & Pains Seedsavers meeting it was grown in a separate bed.

The other major harvest that goes with the tomatoes at this time is the basil which means plenty of pesto using our own garlic and walnuts along with Franco’s Heathfield olive oil. You can’t get more local than that and the taste, just magic.