A Wet Saturday
On a very damp Saturday 10 November at 0800 and we were at Studio Village Community Centre to install garden beds for the local Community Garden Group that has just been established. Loads of inputs had been transported to the site using our trusty van and driven by our trusty driver and bio-intensive gardener extraordinaire, Justin. This man loves this van! And does he make it work! It has been probably the best investment we at Gold Coast Permaculture have made for some time and we must thank the Gambling Community Benefit Fund for their kind grant that has enabled the purchase.
David and Bob on the Barrows
Gold Coast City Council
The Gold Coast City Council also contributed greatly by actually funding the project for the Community Garden Group, ably led by Bob. Council Officers from the Parks Section organised to have chip and aquatic weed dropped off at the site and Gold Coast Permaculture came up with the mushroom compost, animal manure, activated compost made by Justin and the troops at 270 Ferry Road and the composted blood and bone mix. Quantity Surveyor is a qualification we can add to Justin’s growing list of attributes as the list of inputs supplied were estimated precisely to almost the last chip. We did order extra mushroom compost for the group so that they might have a supply for the future. You can never have enough of that stuff! These inputs were then topped off by Greg Plevey from Wormtec, who provided the micro-biology that are so necessary to ensuring the soil makes all the nutrients provided in the lasagne garden are available to the plants.
Jack and Sebastian Sowing the Green Manure Crop
We were met on-site by a small but dedicated group of people from the group and also, so we found out later, by the local Councillor, Owen Jones.
Cr Jones and the Troops on the First Layer
Owen laboured away with the other volunteers doing some seriously heavy work while we were completely unaware of whom he was. Owen is a great supporter of the community garden concept that is ably managed by some truly conscientious Council Officers with whom we are proud to be associated and has it in mind to expand this to some of the local schools in the area as well. We thank Cr Jones for his wonderful support of this and for providing much in the way of financial resources for the install. Teaching our community about how to grow food and food security is surely one of the most beneficial ways of ensuring that the community’s social as well as gastronomic needs are met. We are also very sorry that we did not get to “officially” meet you Owen. You were obviously working far too hard to talk too much.
Lasagne Garden Showing the Different Layers
Bio-intensive Gardening
The garden built on Saturday is what we refer to as a bio-intensive lasagne garden. It and is designed to provide the Community Garden Group with the ability to grow vegetables organically without depending upon the chemical fertilisers and spray inputs that are used by many gardeners in the City and out there in “industrial farming land”. No extra nutrients are required for this garden apart from the vegetative and compost inputs that were placed in the layers. This is a Gold Coast Permaculture recipe and we have now installed a number of gardens across the Gold Coast for private individuals, schools and community groups. It is a part of what we do.
Layering the Aquatic Weed
Input Waste
Did you know that up to 80% of all the phosphorus that is applied to soils in Australia (this is just agricultural land) is bound up and unavailable to plants. This is a total of over $1 billion of inputs into Australian agriculture that is just totally wasted. Just think of having that amount available for more productive purposes. Much of this agricultural land and our own gardens are subject to poisons and compaction (that is what happens when we walk all over our gardens) and the soil is then starved of microbial activity. Microbes are absolutely critical for healthy soil and to enable plants to take up available nutrients.
The Soil Cycle
Micro-organisms
What we at Gold Coast Permaculture do is build lasagne garden beds that contain all the food requirements for the micro-organisms that will live in the garden beds. We then request Greg from Wormtec to spray the beds with his magical mix of micro-biology that then go to work in the garden converting all that nutrient into food available to the plants. These organisms thrive in the mix of inputs that make up the lasagne garden. This mix also encourages the build up of beneficial nematodes that, along with the other micro-organisms, not only assist in the making of nutrient available to plant life but also eliminate pathogens in the soil. Nematodes have long been seen as a problem but only a minority are. It is a bit like insect pests.
The Soil Food Web
Beneficial Insects
The more beneficial insects you encourage into your garden, the less likely you are to have insect attack problems and so it goes for soil microbiology. Importantly, when you do have some small infestation and the plants are attacked, it actually makes the plants more beneficial to you as a human. The plants produce chemicals that are not available in otherwise “perfect” plants that are extremely healthy for us in terms of their anti-cancer attributes. Recent medical studies appear to fully support this hypothesis.
A Bio-intensive Garden in Production
Remember, perfect plants come from sprayed crops. Not only do you miss out on the benefits of holes in your leaves (a famous person at Gold Coast Permaculture is quoted as saying “a hole never killed anyone”), you also get the disbenefit of poisons that have been sprayed all over the plants!
Give me holes in my kale every time!
The Final Layer and Shaping
Our garden install at Studio Village Community Centre was completed by just after 1230 Saturday afternoon and everyone departed feeling somewhat tired and a smidge damp (it had rained off and on all morning) but truly satisfied that the beginning of a wonderful community garden, a long-term asset to the local community, was now in place.
Thank you to all the wonderful people, including David and Owen from Council, who turned up to assist in the installation and it was just brilliant to see the budding gardeners in the youth of Jack, Sebastian and Cameron getting in there and going for it.
Note:
For a garden install at your site please contact Gold Coast Permaculture on 0434727276/0457299639
