Urban gardening has been much on my mind recently, since our new house has so much space around it. Skry is a vegetarian and loves pretty much all veggies, and I really enjoy salad vegetables/fruit such as onions, tomatoes, peppers, and of course potatoes. We plan to revive the much neglected vegetable garden at the side of the house, and start growing our own food.
As it's mid-winter here, it's a great time for us to plan and prepare what we are going to do with the space. I bought Skry a copy of How to Grow More Vegetables, by John Jeavons, and it has some very interesting and exciting ideas about growing a lot of produce in a small space. (It also has some very cool 70s-style ink drawings of bearded hippy types doing the digging and weeding, but that is beside the point.) This book suggests that spending a lot of time at the start preparing the soil, and then sowing particular plants very close together, will reduce the amount of weeding and give a better crop yield. How this works out in practice remains to be seen, but it certainly makes inspirational reading!
Anyway, I plan to take some photos of the garden as soon as we move in, and then regularly update about what we're doing with it. So, as the saying goes, watch this space!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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The secret of the book is not to grow good veggies but to make good soil, and the good veggies will naturally follow.
Apparently the earth's soil volume is falling much faster then it ever should, because plants are grown which take nutrients from the soil, and fertaliser is used to replenish the nutrients. However, often overlooked is the actual soil that is used by plants which is never replaced.
I intend to start a wee blog of my own when we get the house to document all the little small-holding stuff that we do. When I get it up and running I'll let people know.
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