BOGI Day Out

Not only are we in the process of building a dam and putting the finishing touches on the chook coop (yes, I need to do another post on this), we also had an open garden for Brisbane Organic Growers Inc (BOGI).

Today turned out to be a nice sunny day. I was not sure if the weather would hold as we had just under 10 mm of rain overnight and early in the morning. However the sun came out well before the event.

The tour started at the rose garden with its pineapple border and edible hibiscus. The edible hibiscus was a hit, with many people requesting a cutting. We continued on to the citrus grove which is located over the sub-surface irrigation for the treated effluent coming from our Aqua Nova system. Just below the irrigated area are bananas, sweet potatoes, raspberries, pumpkins, Jerusalem artichoke, and a persimmon tree.

We continued over to the forest of asparagus, past the passionfruit, and on to the main event, the vegie garden. I showed them how the grass paths broke down over time creating a lovely rich soil and explained how the majority of the garden beds is basically compost. I also touched on some learning experiences relating to a bit too much deco in the garden beds (which seems to cause the beds to dry out faster).

I also explained how the banana pit was made, including the amount of on-the-spot composting it required. The new chook shed was also presented including its inhabitants.

Finally we finished off with an afternoon tea. There is nothing like spending an afternoon chatting about gardening with a great bunch of people and enjoying some tasty treats!

Hot, hot, hot

Well today was a scorcher with temperatures in the mid-30s. The sun was intense and the winds were hot and dry; nothing like a nice winter's day. And, of course, I had a trailer load of manure to spread around the banana pit. As I needed some grass, or dust as it would be, to help the manure break down, I also had to do some mowing.

So there I was outside throughout the day guzzling down litres of water. As this should be the last bulking up of the banana pit soil, it was definitely worth it. Soon I will also have Yacon, ginger, and galangal growing amongst the bananas as well.

I have now pulled out all the invasive sweet potato as it was not forming tubers in that area. I do plan to leave some slower running sweet potato around the enlarged front edge of the banana pit as it has produced some good food without smothering all the other plants.

Frost damage

At little under two weeks ago we got hit with a frost. It was a medium severity frost impacting some of the plantings on the lower section of the property the most. This included four sections of sweet potato plants, watermelon plants, a Kent pumpkin plant, and butternut squash plants. I had expected the squash and watermelon to be spirits of plantings past; amazingly all seem to be recovering now.

Up at the top end of things (near the shed), three zucchini plants coped it along with some sweet yellow peppers. I am hoping that the youngest zucchini plant will be able to yield at least one fruit before the stem turns to mush. I will still be able to get some sweet yellow pepper plants growing as not all of them tangoed with Jack Frost. Other plants like the button squash, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, snow peas, silver beet, Hong Kong broccoli, bok choy, carrots, onions, leeks, and garlic all weathered the cold without any dramas.

The banana pit was probably the warmest spot of all. This is no doubt due to the water in the middle of the pit which I maintain for irrigation of the bananas. None of the sweet potato in this area has any visible signs of frost damage. Go micro climate.

So I will need to start being a bit more vigilant with the more sensitive plants when we get forecast temperatures in the mid single digits or lower. Its almost like gardening in Canada again. ;)

Getting tanked

In a previous blog entry, I made reference wanting to get additional water storage capacity. Well last week a new 5000 gallon Nylex tank was delivered. We had to hold off on the delivery by about one week as the recent rain had made the ground soft. Even with the delay the truck still caused significant impressions in the lawn.

As I do not like to waste anything, I moved all the good top soil from where the tank was to be located. The soil has been relocated throughout the food gardens. This included the creation of two new beds in the main vegetable garden section, bringing the total to 14 beds in the area.

I was also able to use the deco underneath the water tank, which had previously been mined from the banana pit. So nothing was wasted (as it should be). We have also been using rocks from the soil on the property around the water tanks to suppress weeds.

Until the dam is built, all water collected in the tanks will be utilised inside the shed as well as for irrigating the food gardens. Now that we are entering the dry period for the year it is vital to collect every bit of water. So now all that is needed, is to some rain to fill the new vessel.

Harvesting sweet potatoes

The time had come to dig up some sweet potatoes. We had waited well over 3 months since planting. Our first planting location was around the edge of the banana pit. This is a classic permaculture type of set up. The idea being that the sweet potatoes will help stop invasion of unwanted plants such as grass. From my experience this works well.

That said, I would not use a highly invasive sweet potato in this area again. I have three types of sweet potato growing on property. The first one is a small leaved plant which produces white tubers with a white skin. I have been very pleased with this plant as it is not very invasive; which is what you want when you have a banana pit or don't want the plant to take over.

The second sweet potato is a more of your classic looking plant with medium sized leaves. The plant produces white tubers with a purple skin. This plant almost over took my banana pit. Not to mention about the same space again to the right of the pit (where some grass was).

The third sweet potato is again a classic looking plant. The tubers produced have an orange flesh with the same coloured skin. It has similar rampid tendencies.

As the sweet potato vine had intermingled with the banana, it was a bit challenging to remove the tubers without significantly impacting the banana roots. The main part of the banana pit was compost created at the site, basically heaps of horse manure with grass and a bit of deco. This has turned into a beautiful rich soil. The raised edge around the pit comprised of clay and deco, a rather poor soil (or so I thought).

Upon harvesting the sweet potato from within the banana pit as well as along the edge of the pit (with the so called poor soil), I was extremely surprised to find that the harvest was far greater from the clay/deco mix as opposed to the rich compost. The harvest ratio was about 10 times greater for equivalent space. In the picture, the pile on the left is from a space about the same as the area which the pile takes. The pile on the right is from about 7 times the area of the first pile.

It should be noted that sweet potatoes have significantly better nutritional value than "normal" potatoes. Not only that, for the home gardener, they have the benefit of being able to store the tubers in the soil and harvest when needed. Thus they make a fantastic survival food with a significant enough planting area. Just make sure to harvest the tubers within two years, otherwise the tuber quality can significantly deteriorate.

As for a recipe suggestion, try using them in a pumpkin soup. Basically replace about half the pumpkin quantity with sweet potato. We prefer to roast the pumpkin, sweet potato, onion, and garlic for our soup. Sweet potato is also exceptional eaten baked with half a tsp of fenugreek and some olive oil. Yum! :)