Easy Home Permaculture

No Money, No Muscle, No Worries

By

Gail Billing

AMAZON EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Gail Billing at Createspace

Easy Home Permaculture – No Money, No Muscle, No Worries

Copyright © 2013 by Gail Billing

Cover Image by www.picgifts.com/clipart/gardening

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Also by Gail Billing

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Amazon Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - The Most Important Input – YOU

Chapter_3 - Why You Should Grow Your Own Food

Chapter 4 - Design

Chapter 5 - Clearing a Patch

Chapter 6 - Soils

Chapter 7 - Plants and Their Needs

Chapter 8 - Propagation

Chapter 9 - Fertilisers

Chapter 10 - Pest & Disease Control

Chapter 11 - Weed control

Chapter 12 - Chickens

Chapter 1 Introduction

The beauty of Permaculture is that it can be as hard or as easy as you want. You can have your soil tested, garden designed, find out your micro-climate or just get on with it. No matter what country or climate you live in you will get results either way. I would like to share with you what I learned from living 'off-the-grid' for many years, and then living in the aftermath of a cyclone which shut down services and supplies for months afterwards.

The definition of Permaculture is 'Permanent Agriculture' as opposed to replanting each year, and the philosophy is working with – not against – nature to use what you have; not expensive tools and additives, and labour intensive methods. Although annuals are planted, a lot of the emphasis is on perennials or self-seeding crops, reducing the workload and ensuring a continuous supply.

It ties in well with organic methods although you may not be completely organic if you are utilising things not grown or produced organically, such as supermarket vegetable waste in your compost heap or for your chickens.

Of course the developing world has been using Permaculture methods since agriculture began, they just don't call it that.  It has only since the advent of the industrial revolution in the west that things started to change, and we are now seeing that most of those changes were not for the better with massive inputs of resources, chemical side effects and soil degradation.

It’s a relief for some of us to find we don’t have to have large, rowed and weed free garden beds dug to a spade depth and then do endless battle with weeds and pests.  I remember reading that these gardens are mimicking what was best for a ploughed field and tractors and were not the norm in most gardens until relatively recently.

Basically you can start with a small plot and although it might take a bit longer, you will end up with beautiful soil and plants and feed yourself at least some of your needs.  No matter how small your space you can start a garden with next to nothing and improve your finances and health.

I won’t attempt to tell you how to grow a certain plant or make a formal compost heap or make garden teas in any great detail, so if I mention something you are interested in knowing more about of course just Google it or consult one of the books written on it.  I have done a little more on seed saving because this type of basic information using developing world methods is a little harder to find.

One of the best solutions for people with physical challenges is raised garden beds, but you need to build them or get them built and then fill them with imported soil and maybe even drainage pipes.  You can use old tables and have a table top container garden if you can get the tables, but this may not be possible so I have suggested some more ideas in Chapter 2.

One of the guiding tenets of Permaculture practice is to have at least 3 uses for things, for example a worm farm would use food scraps, provide castings for fertiliser and provide liquid for garden tea, as well as being food for chickens.

Chickens would provide scrap disposal, eggs, manure and meat.  Permaculture is designed on natural principles and ideally is its own ecosystem where little comes in and little goes out.  Of course this is not always a hard and fast rule as you may sell or give away vegetables and bring in scraps for the compost from outside.

Very little is thrown away in Permaculture, as nearly everything organic can be recycled through your chickens, worms or compost heap.  Old containers can be recycled as pots and even old kitchen utensils used as garden tools.  Basically you use what you’ve got rather than spending a lot of money.

In Permaculture, plants are put where there is a suitable spot and annuals are rotated around the garden accordingly.  This hinders the spread of disease, keeps the pests suitably confused, and makes the best use of space.

It means you don’t have to go too far to get what you need for dinner and when it’s pouring rain or you are tired or in pain it matters.  If it is easy to grab some greens and herbs for dinner you are more likely to do it and improve your health at the same time.

The best design of course is to put the things you use the most, such as herbs and vegetables closest to the back door and spread out from there; then things you harvest less often such as potatoes a bit further out, and fruit trees on the perimeter.  Plant herbs on the pathway to your chicken run too so you benefit from the beautiful aroma and can just pluck some and throw in the egg basket when you do an egg or feeding run.

The exception is the chook pen or any other livestock being furthest away because of hygiene concerns.  I do think the best thing about Permaculture principles for the home gardener is it makes things easier to do and you are then more likely to do it.

MY BACKGROUND

I was born in South Australia where I did a horticulture course and coped with heavy clay soils, low rainfall, and horrendously hot and dry summers, considered a 'Mediterranean climate'.  I then moved to the Northern Territory to the ‘Top End’ as it is known (wet/dry Tropics).  I did a Tropical Horticulture course there and I had leached soils, long dry winters, and then torrential rains in summer and heat all year around.  As ‘Con the Fruiter' once said, ‘Darwin has two seasons – hot and boily hot’.  Still I persevered with a food garden of some sort even when I was told by most people not to bother and soon learned what will thrive and how to work in with the seasons.

Now I live in North Queensland in the Wet Tropics, where the climate is generally better apart from the odd flood and cyclone; but I am on old flood plain where the soil can change from heavy clay to sand within a few feet - interspersed with rocks and rubbish that had been dumped in the past.  My strength isn’t what it used to be so I have concentrated on finding the easy way to do everything and accept things may take a little longer.

Chapter 2 - THE MOST IMPORTANT INPUT – YOU

First off you must assess what you are physically able to do, how much time you have, how much room you have and how much interest you have.

Are you entering your 'golden years', or do you have physical challenges such as dis-ability; do you have to find time in a busy lifestyle?  Do you only want to grow the vegetables from the ‘dirty’ foods list to avoid some chemicals and buy in the rest; or do you want to get most of your vegetables from the plot, preserving the excess; or just grow a few fresh additions to your grocery list?  How much help can you expect from others?  Can you afford to buy soil, soil conditioners, insect sprays, and fertilisers?

If you have any of these things to consider, start small and aim for slower progress.  I had to accept that I couldn't achieve my dream all at once when I moved to a new place.  My current garden is still a work in progress and I am still enjoying its evolving design and growth.

Modifications

Garden spaces, tools and equipment can be modified or adapted to help reduce the physical stress associated with gardening. Suggestions include:

- Attach an extra length of broom handle to hoes and hand tools if they are too short.

- Attach hand tools to broom handles to make lightweight tools that are easier to handle.

- Use foam, tape and plastic tubing to modify existing tools.

- Use vertical planting to make garden beds accessible for planting and harvesting – try      using wall and trellis spaces.

- Put hanging baskets on pulleys.

- Use old wheelbarrows and containers on castors to make suitable movable and elevated garden beds.

- Don't have any garden bed wider than you can reach across from either side i.e. if one side of the bed is up against a wall, you only have one arm length of bed in width.

- Provide shade areas for working in summer months.

- Have stable chairs and tables to use for comfortable resting and for meditating.

Chapter 3 - WHY YOU SHOULD GROW YOUR OWN FOOD

Besides for fun and satisfaction and to save money?  You can grow most of your own vitamins and anti-oxidants packaged much more attractively and tastily than what will come in a bottle.  Some food and herbs are medicine as well as plate fillers and taste enhancers,  and you can even easily distil oils from herbs or orange blossoms for air fresheners and aromatherapy, gather petals for pot pourri or add herbs to oil to infuse their goodness and to make you feel like a gourmet.

Here are some other points to ponder:

Cost, Food Miles, Freshness, Chemicals, Genetic Modification and Pollution.

The cost of the food you buy in the supermarket is often excessive and more than the monetary value, especially if it’s out of season in your local area, has been trucked many miles and grown using environment depleting methods.

Sometimes it has even been flown in from overseas and drenched in toxic chemicals to pass our rigorous quarantine requirements.  If you can easily grow your own for next to nothing without spending money on fertilisers, plants and sprays why wouldn’t you?

Did you know apart from using fossil fuels to produce artificial fertilisers, some fertilisers are actually made out of fossil fuels?  Some imported foods such as garlic can be sprayed with methyl bromide, one of the deadliest chemicals known to man and implicated in many health problems.

Living in the tropics I have heard about produce grown here being sent long distances to distributors who then send it back to us for sale much staler and at a much higher price, where’s the sense in that?

Many fruits and vegetables are picked before they ripen and before the natural sugars, vitamins and minerals have a chance to optimise.  They can then be sprayed with anti-ripening chemicals and kept for many months before we get to buy them, then gassed to artificially ripen them, for example bananas.

The tastiest foods rarely make it to markets usually being the softest and most succulent.  Modern hybrid foods like tomatoes and strawberries are bred to be tough to survive the excessive handling, packing and transport that they undergo before storage and sale.  Optimum taste, texture, variety and nutrition get sacrificed to the making of an extra dollar.

Organic is a better choice when buying food but we are taking so much on trust, and processed and canned organic produce is still often bought in from overseas.  Organic doesn’t mean the best varieties or farming methods are used in large-scale production either, it’s simply meeting some standard which can be a very loose definition sometimes to get the label, especially again if its from overseas.

The same goes for free-range eggs.  I have heard there aren’t enough free-range hens in Australia to be providing the amount of eggs on the market labelled that way.  Again the definition of free-range is so open to interpretation that some of the poultry is living in conditions not that much better than cage and battery hens.

It is so much easier to go out to the garden and pick a fresh, nutrient rich ingredient than to buy it in or fish it out of the bottom of the veggie crisper where it has been languishing for a week and it wasn’t all that fresh when you bought it.  Add a few of your own eggs to the basket and you can have a complete meal.

Even bought ingredients and meals can be improved in taste, texture, and nutrients by the addition of fresh home-grown herbs.  It is so much better to grow your own and buy what you must from local markets.  Cooking with what is available doesn’t need to be hard, swapping ingredients in recipes for in-season ones still gives a good result and fresh food enhances even the simplest recipes.

What are the Dirty Foods?

In most westernised countries they are strawberries, celery, apples, wheat, pears, grapes, lettuce & greens, nectarines, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans.

These statistics are likely to vary a bit from country to country, state to state or even area within a state, but you get the general idea.  Much produce that makes it to market is never tested so the results may not illustrate the true level of insecticides, miticides, fungicides and soil sterilising agents that are on our bought food.

Most of these or substitutes are easily grown in the home garden organically, even flour can be made from other grains and tubers that you can grow at home if you have the time and inclination to do so.

Consider the area the produce is sourced from, leafy greens grown in the tropics may have more pesticides than those grown in an arid area.  For example I remember when I worked for the Department of Primary Industries in the Northern Territory and one of the scientists remarked to me how they were able to grow produce pesticide free in the desert (with bore water) because there just weren’t any pests there to start with (introduced or otherwise).

Apples, Pears, Stone Fruits and Citrus - If you have the climate definitely put these in, even if you have to put them in pots.  Puree, dry, and preserve any excess fruit for when it’s out of season, as you would for any other fruit and vegetable.

You don’t have to pay for expensive nursery trees - learn how to take a marcotte (cutting with roots) off a branch of someone else’s tree, and learn how to graft several varieties that fruit at different times on one rootstock to keep a longer supply.

Grapes – These are grown from cuttings so are easy to propagate yourself.  They are good grown up a wall or on a trellis for shade as well as the fruit.  Some varieties will even grow in the tropics where they tend to get 2 crops a year instead of one but they are more vulnerable to disease and need more careful watching.

Strawberries and Tomatoes – are fruit that can be grown in pots if space or pests and disease are a consideration.  There are specially designed pots or you can improvise your own.  They also do well in hanging baskets but be careful to keep them moist.  Keep the tomato seed from the tomatoes you buy at an organic farmers market and take healthy strawberry runners from someone else for your own garden.

Lettuce & Greens – we’re always being told to eat more leafy greens and luckily these are one of the easiest things to grow, even parsley and basil qualify as a leafy green to add to your salads or cooking.  Try rocket, kang kong, radicchio, young beetroot leaves, tender growing tips of bean and sweet potato leaves as well as the more traditional lettuces and spinaches.  If you don’t have much garden space, fill polystyrene boxes from the supermarket with soil and grow them in there and let some go to seed each season to keep a continuous supply.

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides – mmm sounds delicious doesn’t it?  We all know that these chemicals have been suspected in everything from the rise in ADHD, autism, cancer and Parkinson’s disease among others.  Buying organic food is a good idea but relies a lot on trust, has it really been grown as stated and the cost can add a lot to an already stretched budget.

Do you think fruit like bananas are protected from chemicals by their skin?  I was surprised to learn they inject insecticide into the flower (bell) which forms the developing fruit when they are commercially grown.

GM Foods

The research is starting to show the down side to these now including deformities in mice fed GM which could spell trouble for us.  Herbicide resistant plants like canola are self-seeding and spread beyond their paddock and pollinate non-GM crops, threatening non-GM and organic growers’ livelihoods.  Home grown food has been safety tested for generations, these foods haven’t.  Once they are introduced into a system there is no going back.  Do we really want to take the risk?

What Could We Grow or Cook Instead?

So a favourite vegetable is out of season?  First check your organic seed supplier, a lot of varieties are being bred to cope with conditions that they normally wouldn’t (avoid hybrids), extending their range and the length of the season.  If that isn’t possible, find out what can you use instead.  Some examples:

Cabbage & Greens - Asian cabbages, tatsoi, sweet potato leaves, bean leaves, beetroot leaves

Potatoes - Sweet potato, taro, daylily bulbs, pumpkin

Carrots - Sweet potato, long white (Daikon) radish, pumpkin

Green Beans & Peas - Winged Bean, snake beans

Chapter 4 - DESIGN AND CLEARING A PATCH

Design

Take a few moments to rough out on a piece of paper a basic design to work to.  Draw your garden and add features such as clothes line, rock outcrops, play areas etc. and then add the chook run out the back.  If you’re not ready to get chickens, still leave the space for it and plant up with sweet potato for ground cover or plants that chickens love ready for them to move in, or just mulch and leave.

Work out what plants you will use and pick the most commonly picked and place these nearest the door or along well used paths.  Apply the same principles to the front yard but you may need a screening hedge for privacy or to protect from wind/afternoon sun, but it can still be planted from edible plants.

If you prefer a beautiful garden there are some lovely designs out there like the French le potager en parterre, the range of coloured heritage vegetables is so extensive and some of the edible plants flowers so exquisite, you could still end up with the prettiest garden on the street.

Herbs - I believe the first things that should be planted are herbs because of their health benefits and these can be included in all meals.  Plant them around your door, along paths and in pots.  These really are ‘food as medicine’, not just enhancing flavour, texture, colour and nutrients in our food, but actually treating many of our ills.  Access the wide range of knowledge on this in books from your library or from the internet and consider growing herbs you haven’t tried before.

Flowers – This is a food source we may not often consider.  You can eat many of the flowers from your vegetables such as broccoli and onion flowers, but there are many edible flowers from your ornamentals such as hibiscus and nasturtium as well.

Flowers add their own unique beauty to the presentation of our food, turning a humble salad or dessert into something special and food for the eyes as well and justify their place in any Permaculture garden.

Before agriculture and food became big business, flowers also played a vital role in food production.  They fed and sheltered pest predators and pollinators like bees and butterflies, and helped deter pests and diseases.  We can also add biodiversity by planting with shrubs, annuals and perennials that will flower and work willingly in your garden.

Chapter 5 - CLEARING A PATCH

Chickens - You can clear ground and weeds the hard way with a lot of effort or the easy way with chickens.  Try your local dump or friends, family and neighbours and get some large pickets, chicken wire, and chickens.  Fence off the area you want to clear, add a box with perches and nests (old lawn mower catchers are good) add the chickens and let them do it for you.  It’s as easy as that.

You can even get your feathered friends to pre-mulch it for you once the ground is cleared.  Just add a few bales of hay a few weeks before reclaiming the area and they will happily scratch it out, eat pests and weed seeds and fertilise it for you.  Don’t you just love them?

To move the pen, I usually wait for rain to soften the soil and then pull the pickets out (don't bang them in too deep when you build the run) and re-assemble somewhere else.  You can buy or make chicken ‘tractors’ too if you only want the ‘girls’ on the area for a shorter time.  You also get eggs and manure, and can recycle food scraps through them.  Most suburban councils won’t allow you to keep roosters so check before you get one.

Compost heaps - I originally took half of my large back lawn in one big piece to avoid mowing, so another idea I did was to build compost heaps on top of areas I would want to garden in the future.  They don’t need to be done scientifically if you don't want to as your main aim at this stage is to shade out weeds and improve the soil underneath.  Compost is just a wonderful side benefit here.

Once you have reclaimed that area you just take all the rough unbroken down stuff and move it to a new site and start again.  Almost anything that once was alive goes in these areas, palm and banana fronds, small branches, lawn clippings, leaves, hay, paper, coir mats and rags.

Cardboard and newspaper - Another thing to try is to mow an area you plan on using in the future and cover with cardboard or wet newspaper (the supermarket or pub or newsagent will usually be happy for you to take it off their hands).  Dampen the ground before you put the cardboard or newspaper on and leave it for a couple of months and the worms and shade will do the work for you.  Any weed seeds will usually sprout and die leaving less competition for your precious plants.

Mulch - If you need an area more quickly you mow, add high nitrogen fertiliser such as composted chicken manure or pellets (to counteract the nitrogen draw-down from the green matter breaking down), add lime or dolomite, and then cover with mulch.  Poke holes in the mulch and add a small amount of soil (good to get it from the chicken run) mixed with compost and plant your seedlings in it.  As the mulch breaks down and the plants grow, the worms will be turning your raw material into rich soil ready for when the plants roots reach it.

Rocks – The beauty here is you don’t have to half kill yourself levering them out.  If it’s fairly flat put a pot on it with a tree like a citrus or frangipani or herbs and make it a feature.  I grow Vietnamese mint around a rock outcrop in my garden and fill pockets with soil and grow other herbs.  They are also sunning spots and habitat for lizards that help with pest control in your garden.

Wet areas - You needn’t drain these or fill with soil to bring the level up.  There are many plants that enjoy or tolerate wet soil and it’s just a matter of finding ones that suit your climate.  Some suggestions are mint, kang-kong, water chestnuts, and lotus lilies.  Around the edges fruit trees like mulberries, quince and mangoes don’t mind wet feet at times.

Ground covers - Newly cleared areas can be planted to sweet potato or pumpkin which is a great ground cover and you aerate the soil with sweet potato as you dig them out, preparing it for other crops which need a finer soil.  Pinch out the growing tips to make them bush up and pull out any suckering growth that springs up after you have harvested them.  They needn’t be harvested all at once, just take what you need then cover the ground with mulch.

Vertical Gardening – Like an elevator, going up!  If you have a wall you have a garden, if you have a post or a tree, the side of a chicken run or a dividing fence you have a garden.  If you have somewhere to hang baskets you have a garden - although these are more in the way of going down.

You can have climbers going up, you can affix pots to a solid wall, and there are even special tomato plant hangers on the market now that you can copy the design of.  You can even plant climbers so they use other taller plants for support such as beans and sweet corn. It is only limited by your imagination.

Companion Planting and Inter-Planting- (the planting side by side of plants beneficial to each other, either for growth or pest & disease control) often results in a more efficient use of space vertically and horizontally and displays a riot of colours, textures and perfumes.

A typical example is sweet corn with peas or beans planted in the same bed sharing the space and nutrients and the corn stalks providing support as the legumes grow and the legumes providing nitrogen for the greedy corn, or tomatoes inter-planted with basil to enhance growth and deter some pests.  Planting ground hugging plants around taller ones also provides a living mulch and weed suppression.

Espalier - many fruit trees and vines don’t mind being trained along a wall or fence, for example stone fruits and grape vines and you can look this up in a good reference book or on the net to see how.

Cuttings and Seeds – You needn’t pay for these, take secateurs and small containers with you when you go out and you are always ready to get the resources you need for starting new plants or grafting onto existing ones.  It’s amazing the variety of plants that will grow from cuttings, even tomatoes, capsicum, and eggplant will grow from cuttings and it can be fun trying it all out.

There is a bit of a thrill too from growing plants from your own seed and seeing the first little green shoots poking their head above ground or picking the first fruit.  You can graft branches from different varieties of the same fruit tree onto each other and even mix some up.  Honey is a good substitute for rooting/hormone powder, just dip the end that you want to root into the honey then into the soil.

Tools - Try garage/lawn sales and markets and buy second hand if you can.  They are cheaper and often better quality than you can afford new.  If you have a local dump shop that’s another source you can try as well as asking people if they have any they no longer need.

I garden with a basic kit of lawnmower, wheelbarrow, spade, fork, rake and cane knife for the bananas.  Old kitchen utensils from charity shops and soup tins to scoop soil and animal feed are other things to consider.

Water - A deep soaking a couple of times a week is more useful than a short daily spray.  Place spare containers next to plant pots to catch rainwater and catch run-off from the roof and scoop it onto the plants when they dry out saving water and effort.

Drip irrigation is more efficient than overhead sprinkling by up to 70% by only putting water where you need it.  It does take a bit of money and effort to get the irrigation pipes and drippers but they should last many years and save you the effort of moving hoses and sprinklers.  Don’t forget to invest in a timer to save even more.

Can you set up so grey-water runs onto your tougher parts of the garden like fruit trees and bananas?  This could be as simple as attaching irrigation pipe to your outlet pipe on your washing machine and running it out to the garden, moving it daily to different areas.  If you can strain the grey-water through some sort of reed growth or long grass first, it’s all the better.  Remember to keep the level of the washing machine pipe up off ground level though, as some machines will constantly run water if the pipe is ground level.

Crop Rotation – It's extremely important not to use the same garden bed or soil for the same crop year after year because of diseases which affect that particular plant may remain in the soil.  It's also not a good idea to plant from the same family for the same reason.  Planting crops with different needs after each other is also a good practice, for example beans fix nitrogen in the soil, so plant a crop that needs high nitrogen such as lettuce after it. Consult a gardening book or on the internet for more of this important information.

Chapter 6 - SOILS

This is the next place you start, the foundation of your garden.  Whether your soil is sandy, loamy or clay, the most important thing you can do is add as much organic matter as you can for nutrients and structure.  It is not recommended to truck in loads of soil because of the cost, the risk of importing soil borne disease, and because part of the philosophy of Permaculture is to improve what you’ve got.

Productive topsoil should be about 40% - 50% air spaces for water to penetrate and to facilitate the plant’s use of gases and nutrients.  Garden soils without air are usually sick and sterile, and apart from a few exceptions will only grow moulds, slime or weeds, but organic matter will fluff up your soil and increase worm activity.

As I mentioned earlier, I have sand and clay soils so an easy way of improving the structure is if I plant in the clay the soil taken out of the hole goes in the sandy bed and if I plant in the sandy soil I reverse the process.  I am slowly now getting the two mixed without too much extra effort.

A simple soil test is to compress damp soil and form it into a sausage shape.

Sandy soil – won't hold a shape

Loamy soil – will just hold together

Clay Soil – will form a nice bracelet

pH should be between 6.5 – 7 for most vegetables, though some tropical vegetables don’t mind a slightly acidic soil and some natives don’t mind alkaline soils.  Do your research on this if your plants are failing to thrive.  A low cost testing kit can be bought from garden centres or agriculture suppliers.

Remember nearly all soil problems can be fixed with the addition of organic matter but here are some quick tips to get you started:

Acid soils - Tropical soils tend to be acidic and deficient in magnesium, so a top dressing of Dolomite is always good as it adds magnesium as well as lime and isn’t too expensive.  Otherwise just use ordinary garden lime.

Alkaline soils – Top dress with sulphur or dilute and then water in.

Mineral rock (ground) for mineral deficient soils or heavily used soil – adds essential minerals for plant growth.  This is available from stock feed or agricultural suppliers, or see the recipe for home-made in the chapter on fertilisers.

Compost & Manures – enriches your soil and adds organic matter, builds structure, adds nutrients and feeds your worms and micro-organisms.

Mulch – retains moisture, adds nutrients, encourages worms, stops water repellence, looks tidier, stops mud splash on plants and deters weeds.  Even empty beds should be mulched or covered in cardboard until needed, to stop you having to start from scratch again.  It’s probably not a good idea to even clear weeds until you can plant up and mulch because bare soil is stressed soil.

Chapter 7 - PLANTS AND THEIR NEEDS

Consider what you are planting and what its needs would be.  If you don’t know look it up.  Is it a summer or winter veg, a native, tropical, arid zone or Mediterranean plant?  Does it need lots of sunlight or partial shade, little or lots of water or fertiliser?

This affects where you put it in the garden, for example a leafy green like lettuce would need extra water, nitrogen, and afternoon shade in a hot climate and protection from frost in a cold climate.  On the other hand a succulent would mainly need sun and good drainage as would many herbs like rosemary.

Always check on the internet or a good gardening book to research plant needs and avoid heart break, unless of course you like living dangerously.  I often think you don’t know until you try and have had both success and failure planting in unlikely spots, but I am never attached to the outcome.

For example if I need the produce, I plant some according to prevailing wisdom and experiment with the remaining seed or cuttings.  If you have extra seedlings or seed that won’t be viable for another year, why not try it?  You may be able to extend your growing season by planting in shadier spots as the weather heats up or sunnier spots as it cools down.

Pruning - Before starting to prune any trees it’s a good idea - no a really good idea - to learn how, either from a friend, book or the internet.  Although pruning isn’t that hard once you know how, mistakes made here can sometimes be pretty hard to rectify.

Always keep your secateurs handy to take cuttings for new plants and grafts, and trial as many varieties as you can until you find the best performer for your garden and micro-climate.

Chapter 8 - PROPAGATION

It’s always better to use open-pollinated (publicly owned non-hybrid plants, produced by parents of the same variety) and heritage varieties of vegetables, bred to be suitable to your area and season, rather than hybrid varieties.

Because hybrid plants are bred from two differing types of parents, seeds saved from hybrid plants don’t breed true to type or uniformly, and usually have no real advantage over heritage varieties, despite the advertising.  They are often bred so they can be copyrighted and money made from them or to breed commercial varieties that can be stored for longer and transported at the expense of taste and nutrition.

Hybridisation means you usually won’t get the same plant and fruit as the original when you use this seed for propagation because they are cross bred - and either may revert to an undesirable parent or produce undesirable fruit.  Who wants to spend a lot of time and effort on a dud?  It’s always worth buying seed from suppliers of open-pollinated seed first to start you off then start saving your own.

I tried a few times in my early days of gardening to propagate seed from bought vegetables and sometimes ended up with weird looking and inferior fruit, in many cases only good for the novelty value.  I did get an extremely hot chilli we called the ‘flying saucer’ because of its weird shape but I have lost the seed during one of my many house moves.

You can save seed from produce bought from an organic fruit and vegetable supplier, and there are a few other exceptions to the rule, like most pumpkins and some tomatoes, and it may be worth familiarising yourself with these.

To keep your own seed for propagating, identify your best producing and most disease resistant plants to gather seed from and tie a ribbon or some other identifier on or next to it, and gather seed from these exclusively.  Naturally, don’t save seed from poor producers or performers.  Follow the information on seed keeping and learn how to dry and store your seed.

You can collect your own seed from year to year or get it from friends, a gardening club or a seed company and as mentioned earlier, if it is open-pollinated it will be the same as the parent plant.  This means saving money and preserving varieties and if you save from the best plants, you will be growing plants that are best suited to your own garden.

Try to keep plant varieties that cross pollinate easily with each other separate, such as the different types of cucurbits (pumpkin, melons, and cucumbers), the cabbage family and eggplants if you want to collect seeds.

I once grew a pumpkin that although large was the shape of a cucumber, long and narrow, because of cross pollination.  I gave it away but asked for the seeds back in case it reproduced true to type as it was a great shape for slicing compared to a round pumpkin, but unfortunately he never did get around to giving them back to me.  There’s a lesson to be learned there.

You can find books and internet sites that tell you suggested distances to plant from each other, but this is not always perfect as your neighbours can have different varieties and the bees transfer the pollen from them.  Also the distances can be something like 500 metres, and backyard gardeners can’t achieve this.

A good tactic is to hand pollinate the flowers of the ones you want to collect seed from early in the morning, then close the petals around the stamen to stop bees from visiting.  Identify the male flowers with their long stems and pick one with a pollen laden stamen, then transfer the pollen from the stamen to the female flowers parts.

Females are easily identified in cucurbits by having a small immature fruit at the base. Squeeze the petals shut to stop bees and other pollinators from visiting and contaminating the seed and mark the plant for future reference.

Self-pollinating plants like tomatoes can have small fine mesh bags (old stockings will do) put over the flower bracts, similar as to what you would do for fruit fly as these plants are self-pollinating.

Saving Seed

When you buy seed, always keep the information that came with it, variety, preferred conditions, germination times and time until harvest, and keep the information in a safe and handy place for when you start saving your own.

When collecting your own seed, look for plants with the best vigour, disease resistance, and the best fruit then mark it so you know which one it was, so later you can collect the seed from it.  Collect the seed from completely ripe to overripe fruit in the driest part of the day after dew has burnt off, and be aware that the seed needs to be dried as soon as it is removed from the husk or pulp.

Once collected, clean the seed if necessary by soaking it in water to remove the pulp, then washing in a sieve.  Once the moisture has evaporated from the seed, dry in the sun. Remember to bring the seeds under cover each night to avoid them absorbing moisture from the night air and put them out again in the morning when the dew has dried off. Dry them on newspaper or old fly screens, and then place it in paper seed packets (make your own out of scrap paper if you like), dust with dry cinnamon powder or fine dry ash to deter fungus and store in old jars or zip lock bags.  This also helps keep the seed dry and free from insect attack.

Tomato seeds can be spread on paper towel, pulp and all and then air dried, stored and planted still on the paper.  As they don’t mind transplanting they will be happy to be divided from each other when transplanting into the ground.  Don’t forget tomatoes are one of the few plants that it's better to plant with a small amount of the stem below ground level so they develop a stronger root system.

A rough guide to seed drying is - small seed e.g. tomato and eggplant 2-3 days, medium such as pumpkin will be dry in one week, and large seed such as beans and corn may take 1-2 weeks.  If any seed has a high moisture content or has been in water, it is best to dry them in the shade first before putting them in the sun, as the sun causes them to dry too quickly.  Test by biting lightly, if they feel hard and dry they are ready for storage.

Keep the seed in a cool dry place or in the vegetable crisper of your fridge.  Remember to label the seed clearly with variety and date and growing advice.  If you want to test if the seed is still viable (alive and a good germination rate) after storage and before using, spread it on damp paper towel or even old newspaper, fold it in 3 and keep damp for several days or weeks according to sprouting time recommendations.  If it hasn’t sprouted within the recommended time for that type of seed, or if only a few sprout, discard the seed and look for a new supply.  High seed moisture at the time of storage is the major reason for lack of viability or rot.

Planting Out

When planting out it’s good to remember that much of our plant wisdom comes from European and northern hemisphere countries where they are constantly chasing the sun.  If you live in one of these climates, you will find that many of the traditional practices like digging and turning the ground and wide spacing of plants can still be changed in favour of Permaculture practices but may need to research your own growing conditions.

Where I live, the problem can often be too much sun and so I find that planting lettuces and other sensitive plants below taller plants and halving the recommended spaces between plants works better.  It maximises protection and shade for each plant and the ground, conserving water as well as better sharing of nutrients.

Photosynthesis, where the plant makes its own food in its leaves, can actually slow down or stop with too much sun, checking their growth and it can take a while to start up again, with plants closing their stomata (pores) to stop taking in carbon dioxide and transpiring water.

So in summer and very hot climates it's better to provide some shelter in the hottest part of the day for your more delicate seedlings and plants than it is to leave them in baking sun and wonder why they are wilting.  In really hot weather and sun, some plants can't take up enough water to replace what they are losing.

When planting young seedlings it’s a good idea to plant them late in the day in hot weather, and cover them with mulch or old plant pots or even shade cloth for a day or two in the heat of the day to let them acclimatise to their new home, and remember to keep the soil moist at all times.

Propagate your seeds in containers first as working soil to a fine tilth for seeds in a garden bed is not only labour intensive, but the soil is prone to wash away or compact in the first good rain.  A lot of the nutrients in the soil will also oxidise on contact with air and it will also affect micro-organisms and worms and soil structure.

Bandicoots, rats, birds and ants will happily dig up and eat your seeds in a seed bed, and the young seedlings will also be prone to cutworms, chewing insects and wilting from heat and lack of water.  Even sweetcorn can be started first in cardboard toilet roll holders as can beans. Top dressing with blood and bone deters many marauding pests except the neighbourhood dogs who will be attracted to it, so make sure they can't get at it.

Of course some vegetables such as carrots are hard to propagate in containers first, but avoid digging by having deep rich crumbly mulched beds to plant in and just covering the seeds with sieved soil and covering with damp hessian or newspaper until the seeds sprout.

No seed should be planted any deeper than twice their thickness because they will get exhausted and die after sprouting if they have too far to go to find the surface and the light.

To minimise thinning, mix fine seeds with sand to help sow it evenly, and when thinning cut the plants off rather than pull them out by the roots and disturb the ones left.  Don’t forget to eat the thinnings, they are nutritious baby vegetables and quite trendy and expensive now, and haven't had time to develop alkaloids that make some older leaves require cooking.  Some edible thinnings are baby beetroot and their leaves, baby carrot and baby spinach leaves but there are many more).

Remember to get plants out of the punnets and into the ground before they become too big for them and get root bound, which will check their growth.  Cut up old margarine or ice cream containers to make markers to label each punnet or container and keep the corners to make little scoops for pricking out the seedlings when they are transferred to larger pots or into the garden.

Make sure you water them in well with one of your diluted garden teas and pull the mulch right up to the stem but not touching it, as their immature roots systems are not yet ready to survive drying out.  If the mulch touches the stem they may be more prone to rot, so be careful here.

Frost

Nothing will kill your delicate seedling as quickly as frost.  Frost damage can be minimised by planting at the right time of year, but in case of unexpected frost and for perennials there are a few things to try.

Mulch can be pulled up to cover all low growing plants and taller plants can be covered in old blankets, rugs, or doubled up sheets and some people have success with enclosed grow tunnels as well.  These can be made by bending wire into half hoops over the garden bed and covering with plastic.

You can plant some seedlings under taller, more frost resistant plants as they will shelter the more delicate ones underneath.  Try getting up early and gently hosing off ice crystals before the sun hits the plants and does more damage.

Pots and punnets – instead of buying pots, use the things that supermarkets so generously provide us with like old milk cartons, jam & soup tins, polystyrene boxes and meat trays from supermarket meat for under the pots, or gather this stuff and used pots from friends.

Sponge cake covers make good small seedling hothouses and old tyres are good for growing potatoes vertically, just add a new tyre and soil each time the plants gets big enough.  Old egg containers make great individual seedling pots and can simply be broken apart then planted as is.  The moisture in the ground will keep the cardboard moist, and aid the plant roots to break through with no transplant shock, or just wet and break away the bottom of the carton gently before planting.

Cardboard toilet rolls are great to plant seeds into as well, just put them side by side in an old ice cream container and plant out cardboard and all when the seedlings are ready.  Both the egg cartons and toilet rolls are adding organic matter to your soil.

The list of things you can utilise is endless and again only limited by your imagination, though if re-using old pots, always remember to sterilise them with bleach and dry them in the sun before re-using to stop the spread of disease.

Potting Mix/Seedling Mix – save money and make your own potting mix from compost, river sand and soil, and seedling mix from fine sand, plus peat or shredded dried cow manure (run over the pats with a lawnmower) plus compost, at roughly about 1/3 of each.  With succulents you could bump the sand up to ½ to make it more free draining and because it needs fewer nutrients.  Remember seeds won’t need fertilising until the first transplanting as they have a food store to draw upon.

Chapter 9 - FERTILISERS

If you can’t afford commercial fertilisers, what do you do?  Here are some cheap or no cost ideas.

Compost and Mulch – many of the nutrients and minerals that were in the plants/organic matter before it became compost or mulch are basically still there, both macro and micro-nutrients.  A compost heap can be designed and built on scientific principles or just be a spot where you throw all the trimmings, prunings, lawn clippings, food scraps and other organic stuff.

Don’t forget cotton and linen rags, vacuum bag contents, cardboard and paper - it will still eventually compost down.  Dead animals, dairy and meat are not good in a casually built compost heap as it mightn’t get hot enough and they will attract flies and rats, so bury them instead or cycle through the chickens and dogs.

If you can’t afford to buy mulch grow it - legumes, lemongrass, ginger, peanuts (buy raw) oats and lucerne are some ideas to start you off, even bird seed.  Slash or mow it before it flowers and sets seed then just leave it on top of the bed to work its magic while the roots create channels and organic matter in the soil.

Animal & Bird Manure - It’s best to compost manures for a while before using in case they burn the plants.  Just leave it in a heap or add it to your compost pile or make a tea.  Some are more nutritious than others, e.g. chicken manure is very high in nitrogen, while other types like horse manure are good for organic matter.  Feeding your chickens lots of shell grit and cuttlefish will also help to balance the pH in your soil with the lime and calcium that they contain in their manure or scratch into the soil.

Green Manure & Cover Crops – A green manure crop is an annual plant that you dig in or slash/mow once, but cover crops are perennials that continually regrow like in an orchard situation.  If you grow nitrogen fixing plants like legumes you get double the value.  Slash or mow green manure and cover crops and leave them on the top of the bed to work their magic on the soil, while the roots still provide organic matter in the soil without disturbing the micro-organisms or worms.

Compost tea, Weed tea, Worm tea– these are a rich source of nutrients for your garden.  Basically soak weeds, seaweed or compost in water for a few weeks then dilute to the colour of weak tea and water plants with it.  Fish scraps from a local fisherman or fish shop are a good addition to the brew.  A worm farm has a tap or a drain hole at the bottom to catch run-off, again just dilute to the colour of weak tea and water around the plants with it.

Wood Ash – this is a rich source of potash.  Don’t use it if any plastics or other toxic materials have been burnt on the fire and sprinkle on the garden before mulching.  Passionfruit vines especially love this and grow and fruit prolifically.

Minerals- “Ulf” from the internet forum http://www.earthgarden.com suggests his "number one lucky good fortune special mineral mix".  I’m definitely going to give it a try.

‘I make this by layering chicken manure and white ash (from a wood fire) in a big drum.  Egg shells and ground bones (hit with a hammer) are added also.  Make sure it is only just damp.  The whole mix is left to cure over winter and it changes texture and scent.  It is a powerful mineral fertiliser made for a total cost of $0.  Suck on that Monsanto!’

Epsom salts – are a quick fix for a lack of magnesium in soils and particularly good for citrus trees and I also find it helps treat bacterial wilt in tomatoes.  Dilute a cup full in a bucket and water in around the roots of trees, and of course add it to your bath after gardening for a soothing soak for tired muscles.

Seaweed – If you are having a nice day at the beach, don’t forget to gather some seaweed for the garden if it’s allowed in your area.  Research has shown that eating cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts - which are such powerhouses for nutrients in other ways - reduce the absorption of iodine in our bodies but seaweed is rich in it plus a host of other minerals and puts it back.

It's fantastic added to your garden teas because of the minerals it contains as well, or even just rinsed then added to your mulch or compost.  If it is gathered from a pristine beach, mince it finely and add to chicken mash.

Urine – high nitrogen so consider re-introducing the old chamber pot.  Citrus trees love it and being a tree can take it straight, unlike more delicate plants which can only take it diluted.  It’s your choice if you use it on your leafy greens, but make sure it doesn’t splash on the leaves and wash well after picking.

Beware though, it can also be used as a herbicide if used undiluted so if you have tender plants growing under your trees you may still want to consider diluting it in water.  Ratio is about 2 cups to a standard bucket once or twice a week.

Humanure (human manure) - Not something I would consider using raw myself but if it was properly composted and the compost heap kept at the correct heat at all times, maybe it’s worth considering.  Of course there are proper composting toilets you can buy for much more money and that is perfectly ok to use the compost from these anywhere once it is broken down. It could also be put in the planting holes for trees.

I actually did this when living in the NT and we had no running water or septic system.  We had a simple composting toilet/bin to which we added mulch and lime and left it in the sun until it was broken down and then put it in the hole whenever we planted a tree.  You could also spread it under mulch in an orchard.

Dog Manure - If you have dogs you have dog poo, fact of life.  While some people would consider this as a problem and bag it up for the garbo, buy expensive composting devices or even fling it over their neighbour's fence, but did you ever consider it could be a resource?  This is a veritable gold mine of nutrients and organic matter and your little workers the earth worms will love it and thank you for it.

Firstly though, think twice before putting it on your vegetable garden for although the risk may be small if your dog is kept wormed, it still may have pathogens in it that may transfer to humans.  Compost it first if you want to use it this way.

Every time I dig a hole to plant a tree, the dog poo is all collected to go in the hole.  Run out of trees to plant?  Dig holes between trees and put it in there.  Put it in your ornamental garden beds, again digging a hole and burying it or just layer it on top then mulch over it.

Have the little dears dug a hole in your garden you don’t want?  If you can’t put a tree in the hole, fill it with their droppings and then cover it with a layer of soil.  I guarantee they won’t dig in this area again.  A good idea is to bury the bones they have finished with as well, as these provide calcium and minerals as users of Blood and Bone would be well aware of. You may find from not knowing what to do with it, you now never have enough.

This also makes the 3 plus uses required in Permaculture for my beloved dogs - companionship, safety from intruders, food scrap disposal and organic matter for my garden.

Chapter 10 - PEST & DISEASE CONTROL

The prevailing wisdom in Permaculture and organic gardening is to tolerate some level of pests as these are part of biodiversity and a healthy system, keeping predators around ready to deal with any population explosions of the pests.

If you don’t have pests you don’t have predators and any chemical spraying here will kill both and the pest populations will recover quicker.  If there are no predators there will be no front line of defence when the next wave of pests occurs and you end up in an endless round of spraying, squashing and drenching.

Pests are attracted to weak and sickly plants first so plant health is your first priority.  Make sure your soil is healthy and nutritious and holds moisture so it can nurture your plants properly.  Check your plants are not suffering any nutritional deficiencies; there are many good references available for you to look up symptoms.

Anything that is under constant attack probably needs pulling up and replanting elsewhere while you work on improving the soil or find a better variety or spot to grow it.  Check they are getting the optimal amount of sun and/or shade, water, nutrients and minerals especially by natural methods.

Plant more than you need so that losing some isn’t such a disaster and use plant guilds to spread the risk over a larger area.  You can always preserve or freeze any excess, feed to the chickens, use it in the compost heap and for mulch.  Passing some over to the neighbours also gathers brownie points for you.

Plant guilds are groupings of different plants with similar needs and if you have multiple guilds, it spreads the risk of losing any.  You can also put plants that are beneficial to each other together to minimise attack and disease like tomatoes and basil.  They are also part of the most attractive design for a potager garden.

The next best method of control of insects is to attract and nurture predators such as ladybirds, lizards, frogs, and birds by making the environment in your garden attractive.  Add flat rocks, hollow logs, and water for the lizards and the birds and maybe an owl or bat nesting box.

Water can be as simple as an old hubcap or kitchen bowl set into the ground for the lizards and frogs and a higher one for the birds, or as complex as building a pond.  If you choose a pond keep the water clean by the addition of aerating plants, add small native fish for mosquito control and check daily for cane toad eggs if your area has them.

The next most important thing I find is to use your home made fertiliser sprays.  Most insects get confused because the sprays mask the smell that they use to find the plant, and most leaf eating insects have no interest in eating the rotten fish and vegetation residue that your plants love.  You may have to respray often but that’s ok, you got it for nothing except a bit of effort.

White Oil – for sucking insects.  Add one cup of cheap cooking oil to one and a half cups of water and a teaspoon of pure soap such as Sunlight in a processor or blender.  Blend well.  Dilute at a rate of one part mixture to ten parts of water and saturate spray the offending bugs.

Glue spray – to control beetles and grasshoppers and the like.  Mix 1 cup of white flour with 10 cups of water.  Bring to the boil then simmer for 2 minutes while stirring.  Add enough cold water to make it liquid enough to spray on the pests.  Make sure to wash the sprayer thoroughly and immediately after using or it will dry hard and gunk up.

Fungus - The same goes for mildews on plants.  Your home made sprays will change the pH of the leaves and make conditions unfavourable for mildew growth.  You could also try milk 1:8 or a bicarb soda solution of a couple of dessertspoons to a couple of litres of water.

Sap-suckers – This includes aphids, mealy bugs and scales which are a major spreader of disease in the garden.  Aphids and some other insects can be blasted off plants with a hose, or spray with soapy water or combined chilli/garlic spray but remember this will affect predators as well.  If the infestation is small they can be scrubbed off with an old toothbrush.  Predators will usually clean them up off the ground or you can squash them.  Also see the white oil recipe above.

Fruit fly and moths - cut up old panty hose or very fine mesh net curtains to bag the fruit with.  Make the bags while you are watching TV or relaxing in a garden chair, and make draw strings out of salvaged string or twine.

Home-made baits - an old coke bottle and an attractant like yeast spread or rotten fruit pulp mixed with water, beer or sugar syrup hung from branches helps in finding out if have fruit fly.  Drill a few holes just big enough for the flies to get in, they will enter but not be able to get out.  They are attracted to yellow so some yellow sticky tape around the holes is a good idea. Good garden hygiene is important, pick up all fallen fruit and feed to the chickens or put it in black garbage bags in the sun for a couple of weeks before they go onto the compost heap.

Chewing Insects – such as caterpillars and grasshoppers.  Try squashing them or spraying tiny ones with a combined chilli/garlic spray or glue spray.  The chickens will love any you can hand pick for them, and get up early to squash bugs like pumpkin beetles while they are still slow and sluggish.

Bacterial Wilt – responds to building healthy soil and crop rotation.  I tried regularly watering tomatoes with diluted Epsom salts (a tip I got from a local) and kept the plants alive long enough to get a crop.  Tomatoes, capsicums (sweet peppers), and eggplant (aubergine) can also be grafted onto wild eggplant stock as this is more resistant.  If all else fails put your tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum in pots with bought soil as these are the most susceptible to the wilt.  Don't use soil from your garden in these pots.

Nematodes - Some people believe marigolds have a deterrent effect and others suggest companion planting with plants from the onion family.  I have never had to face them but have read up on them.  The best cure seems to be healthy soil, biodiversity, crop rotation, and lots of organic matter.

Possums, Rats & Bandicoots – They don’t seem to like the smell of blood and bone, I have much less problem with them when I have this under the mulch on garden beds but unfortunately it will attract dogs.  You can make covers out of scrap bird or chicken wire for fruits such as pineapples, pawpaws (papaya) and pumpkins and cut any overhanging branches that provide overhead pathways for them.

Spread old chicken wire over a patch of sweet potato after planting to stop them digging.  The smaller the mesh the better and the plants will grow right through it and simply pull it up before harvesting (you may need to cut the stems first).  Try putting old pots or others types of plastic around the trunks of trees collar style to stop them getting a grip to climb up.

Birds and Bats – netting and bagging is the best defence here.  You can throw horticulture or fine mesh fishing nets or old net curtains over fruit trees; build netted grow tunnels and bag the fruit as it grows on the tree.  Check every day as sometimes they can get caught in the netting as they try to feed, and wear gauntlet type gloves to avoid injury and disease when releasing them.

Cutworms – old fruit tins or cut down soft drink bottles set into the soil as ‘collars’ around the plants until they are past the seedling stage will usually solve this.  If seedlings are planted in toilet roll cardboard or bottomless milk cartons the containers will protect them through the seedling stage then you can remove the milk cartons.  This won’t be necessary with the toilet roll cardboards.

Damping Off – for damping off in pots, sprinkle cinnamon or fine ash over soil and emerging seedlings as they are a natural fungicide.

Slugs and Snails – spread wood ash, crushed egg shells, or sawdust around plants to stop them being able to lay a trail and to dehydrate them.  Stale beer set in old saucers around the garden at night will attract them as they get drunk and drown in it.  Leave old planks or large leaves around the garden as hiding places for them at night then collect them in the morning and squash them or feed to the chickens.

Chapter 11 - WEED CONTROL

Weeds need not be a problem.  You just need to change your way of thinking to viewing them from a nuisance to a valuable resource.  Besides weeds being raw material for your compost heap and weed tea, you’ll find the chickens will always appreciate a bunch to scratch through.

Weeds are mineral rich, often mining the deep down nutrients from further down in the soil that most vegetable garden plants can’t reach, so are a great addition to your garden.  Always slash or harvest weeds before they set seed to stop them getting out of control.

The usual way to dispose of weeds is by pulling, chipping, spraying and digging them out.  What do you do if you can’t or don’t want to do this?  Here are some ideas:-

Mulch - first line of defence is mulch , even if you only do fifteen minutes a day eventually you will have the garden mulched and any weeds that do poke through will be spindly and easily plucked out.  Mulch costs money so grow as much of your own as you can like bananas, lemongrass, ginger and turmeric, comfrey and arrowroot.

Lawn clippings are ok if sprinkled lightly and mixed with drier and coarser matter so they don’t form a dense waterproof mat.  When you prune trees and bushes leave the branches on the ground for a couple of weeks before moving them so that the leaves drop off to provide mulch back into the ground and nutrients and humus as they break down.

Cardboard – keep the cardboard from goods you buy or get it from family, friends, neighbours, the supermarket, or pub.  If you clear an area and will not be using it straight away cover it with cardboard.  Wet newspaper works as well, protecting the soil from the elements and weeds.  You may need to put rocks or other things on top to stop the wind from having its wicked way with it and plastering your garden and neighbourhood with it.  If weeds poke through a crack just pop another lot over them.

Groundcovers and cover crops – these are living mulch to deter weeds and protect your soil and in the case of ground cover, regenerates itself.  Try peanuts, sweet potato, pumpkins, pigeon pea and clovers.

Sawdust – use this if you can source it cheap or free.  Not only does it smother weeds, it causes nitrogen draw-down i.e. uses up all the nitrogen in the soil under it to break down.  This will discourage most weeds from trying to grow through it – great for paths but not so good for garden beds.  Again a few minutes a day will eventually have it done.

Urine – undiluted urine will kill a lot of soft weeds, even better straight from the body for under trees if you’ve no near neighbours to see.  Lemon trees have traditionally been the recipient of this in the old days and compost heaps are happy for a donation too.  Think of the big dead patches in lawns where female dogs wee and you'll see what I mean.

Boiling Water – use on cracks in paths and along borders.  To keep the energy costs down just do a little each time you have hot water left over in the kettle after making your well deserved pot of tea, or boil water when you have a BBQ or backyard campfire.

Plant guilds – these are grouping of trees or plants with similar needs.  Not only do they benefit from each other’s company, they also tend to shade out weeds better than orchards or vegetables planted in rows.

Chapter 12 - CARE OF CHICKENS

There is quite an industry built on providing for chickens needs but they need not be expensive.  Once they are supplied with the nourishment they need and protected from predators they are a fairly easy care option and are surprisingly endearing as pets.

Some people and chicken farms get rid of laying hens by about 2 years old, so if huge egg production isn’t your first priority try re-homing some of these.  You should be able to get them for free.

Some breeds are flighty and hard to manage and will fly over fences.  Find out what are the placid breeds in your area and try to get them if possible.  If not clip the feathers on one wing, this will unbalance them so they can't fly but be sure to get someone to show you how to do this so you don't get the blood vessels.

Feeding & Nutrition

Chickens must have fresh clean water EVERY day.

They need a fair amount of protein and calcium in their diet so that must be taken into account.  Bread, greens, insects, and fruit are fine but I add a Wild Bird Seed Mix to my chickens’ diet as I can’t always be sure of what goes into commercial feeds and it’s also cheaper to buy.  It also doesn’t dissolve in the rain and it sprouts when it gets wet providing the chickens with tasty and nutritious green sprouts.

Supermarkets will often let you take old greens and trimmings home and you may be able to source old bread and pies from bakeries.  After a trip to the beach, I add cuttlefish bones, shellgrit and seaweed to the chook pen for minerals and good digestion, and they take what they need.  Any meat or dairy scraps will be relished and provide extra protein for them.  If you have a worm farm the chickens will enjoy the extra worms and they are high in protein.

Pests

Check daily when you feed them for mites, lice and other parasites like worms.

Adding crushed garlic (1 clove per litre of water) and a tablespoon of cider vinegar per litre to their water once a fortnight deters most parasites.

If they get leg mites smear Vaseline on their legs to suffocate the mites and then scrub their legs the next day with a bristle brush and soapy water.

Lice can be treated by a light dusting of derris dust worked through the feathers and dusted around their nests and house.

Keep nest boxes, hen houses and perches clean and pest free by scrubbing with bleach and drying what you can in the sun.

Check if any get egg bound by feeling around their rear opening for swelling when a bird appears unwell.  If there appears to be a stuck egg, lubricate the vent with petroleum jelly and see if you can gently work the egg out without breaking it.  If it does break, try to gently remove all broken shell as this can cause an infection.

Be prepared to put chickens down humanely and quickly if you are using them for meat or if they are suffering in any way instead of their lingering through a painful and slow death.

Remember this philosophy for animal care no matter what their use is: 'a good life and a good death'.

ENJOYING THE RESULTS

By now you should be sitting on your porch enjoying a cup of tea or glass of wine with your family and friends, while your dinner of delicious just picked and home-grown food cooks on the stove .

The birds, lizards and frogs will drop in to say hello and have a meal with you too and clean up a few bugs while your willing workers, the hens, worms and microbes are busy doing your gardening chores for you.

There are so many books, magazines and web sites for you to browse and you can expand your knowledge as you go.

One day you will look up from admiring a beautiful flower and behold!  You have a healthy, productive and thriving Permaculture garden.

I will be revising and updating this book at times. If you want free updates when a new version if available please email me at ggailb4@hotmail.com and put “Free Updates” as the subject line.

Other books by this author:

Embrace Loneliness – There's Nothing Wrong With You

Embrace Failure – There's Nothing Wrong With It

It Hurts It Burns It Itches – Fix It Right Now

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OTHER SOURCES

The Digger’s Club, http://www.diggers.com.au

Friends of the Earth, http://www.melbourne,foe.org.au

The Earth Garden Path,  http://www.earthgarden.com.au

Companion Planting - http://www.sgaonline.org.au/?p=6986

Table of Contents

Copyright

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 - THE MOST IMPORTANT INPUT – YOU

Chapter 3 - WHY YOU SHOULD GROW YOUR OWN FOOD

Chapter 4 - DESIGN AND CLEARING A PATCH

Chapter 5 - CLEARING A PATCH

Chapter 6 - SOILS

Chapter 7 - PLANTS AND THEIR NEEDS

Chapter 8 - PROPAGATION

Chapter 9 - FERTILISERS

Chapter 10 - PEST & DISEASE CONTROL

Chapter 11 - WEED CONTROL

Chapter 12 - CARE OF CHICKENS

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