Anthropogenic Global Warming & the Garden!

Last year was pretty much a disaster, & this year has started in the same vein. The leaves of vegies burning in the sun, losing much of our fruit due to a warm winter, then the drought & running low on water & then the threat of bushfires. So, we have been making changes in the garden. We know that anthropogenic global warming is going to get worse, so we are preparing for the present & hopefully the future. Our grandchildren may not survive global warming, but hopefully we can help them survive teotwawki.

One of our galvo water tanks up at the cottage was leaking, so I cut it into three sections & made three raised garden beds. Whilst cleaning up the cottage garden area one of my sons decided to get rid of the old water tanks being used to store firewood, so that has produced another three raised garden beds. A small tank that I was thinking of repairing also got converted into two more smaller raised garden beds because we decided to install two more new 1000 gallon water tanks for the garden. We used to pump water from the big dam for the gardens at the cottage & the main house, but for the first time in 30 odd years, this dam became almost dry. We decided to preserve what was left for the local wildlife & for fire fighting if needs be. Fortunately though the fires were all around us & we were enveloped in heavy smoke for weeks, the fires never reached our forest.

Five tank raised garden beds & the sand pit for our grandchildren.

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The first raised garden bed I made from old roofing iron & four posts.

​My second design for a raised garden bed using pallets cut in half & old roofing iron.

​The latest raised garden bed additions, smaller but still useful. The advantages of these raised garden beds is that I think they will retain moisture better, they are easier to shade, easier to weed if needed, the bed is better secured & can not spread onto the paths, & it keeps the ducks out!!!

​Well it's a bird bath right? And I am a bird right?

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​One new water tank on the left installed, we are still waiting on the second one to arrive. Since the drought everyone has been ordering more water tanks.

Keith.

Making Our Own Mulch. Global Warming & Hotter Weather using too much water!

With the weather being much hotter here now we have had to use a lot of shade cloth & mulch. Purchasing mulch is expensive these days, the reason for that can probably be blamed on Global Warming too! So we decided to make our own mulch, we have been cutting the reeds down at Cattail Pond whilst the water level is low (!), & carting it up to the gardens to use as mulch. Some we use as is where we can, the rest we run through or mulcher. It works well & makes great mulch.

Our New garden Chook Tractor!

A roll of plastic road works mesh & some star pickets. Easy to erect, move around & fits any size or shape garden bed.

Food Supplies. Tomatoes, Picking & Preserving.

We have started harvesting our tomato crop & preserving them. We may dry some like last year, but for now we are bottling them.

We always put stakes in for our tomato plants, but sometimes they get away from us! One day they don't seem large enough to tie, & the next time we check they have gone beyond tying! I am never game to try tying them once they have got to a certain size, because invariably the stems break.

Then there are the volunteers from last years crop, we could pull them out, but we never do. We can always use more tomatoes. These volunteers grow madly all over the garden & the paths until the paths are impassable! Stakes do make the picking easier, but I find it no great hardship to pick from the sprawling plants on the ground.

12 jars so far, this is the product of 4 baskets as at the top of this page, & we still have a lot to pick, & the crop is still ripening.

Chicory.

Chicory.

Dandelion.

This year we are growing Chicory & Dandelions.

https://humanelivingnet.net/2013/04/09/foraging-for-chicory-greens/

Growing Your Own Food. New Garden Beds.

Growing your own food is a must for future survival, you can't trust foods from overseas, & Australia & the UK are producing less & less of our own foods! If it all hits the fan, there will be no foods to purchase, it will be a matter of grow or forage or starve.

Recently we put in a new berry patch for growing Boysenberries & Young berries, & we added another pumpkin patch ready for next spring.

We have a lot of regrowth tree saplings to get rid of for fire safety, so we spent some time cutting & mulching for the new berry patch.

The newly plowed & composted pumpkin patch.

Our New Three Sisters Garden. Hugelkultur.

This season we are trying a slightly new garden method, just to see if it works. This will be our three sisters garden, corn, beans & squash. This method of making a garden bed is known as Hugelkultur .

I will be making a video of this later when the crops are up, but right now this is as far as I have got. I dug a trench first & filled it with garden refuge, cut grass & weeds, heavier tree trimmings on top of that, some old garden edging logs that we have replaced, then the soil on top. I did add some chook manure before adding the soil to help break down the refuse.
When I started mounding the earth, I soon realised that I was not going to have enough soil to cover the highest logs. I did not want to bring more soil from elsewhere or use our compost that we needed for our other garden beds, so I removed two of the top logs.

The two pumpkins are volunteers from last year.

Natural Herbal Pain Killers.

http://naturalsociety.com/16-natures-best-natural-pain-killers/

Gardens. Boxing and Mulching.

When we want to use a bed that has overgrown with weeds, we cover the grass and weeds with cardboard and then mulch on top. The grass and weeds will rot down to compost under the cardboard.
 If we want to use the garden right away, then we can weed the garden, add some manure, box it (cover with cardboard), then add mulch. For planting we simply make holes in the mulch and cardboard and sow directly or plant into the ground.
 Before boxing we soak the ground if we intend to use it right away. The boxing and mulching keeps in the moisture and saves water.

A short piece of fencing of ring lock for the choko to climb on.

Queensland Blue pumpkin patch boxed, mulched and sown.

Another section of garden boxed over weeds and grass but not yet mulched.

A new garden bed I have just prepared where the old compost heap used to be. This bed for Golden Nugget pumpkins. I dug out the grass and weeds and added sheep manure before boxing. I will be adding mulch and sowing tonight when it gets cool.

This section was boxed and mulched during winter, and is now ready for planting.