Malmsbury Kitchen Garden is on a quarter
acre block in Malmsbury, Victoria, Australia. The very first step in setting up
the garden happened on the 15th of October 2012, when we hired a
huge rotary hoe, and turned over a little less than 50% of the block. Since
then, raised beds have been dug, compost and manure spread and seeds and
seedlings put in the ground.
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| The first day, long grass... |
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| Steve on the rotary hoe |
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| The first planting, cabbages! |
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| The first planting, zucchini! |
The soil is a pretty heavy grey clay that turns to concrete when dry. When we first dug over the soil in October, we thought that perhaps nothing would ever grow here. But we have been very pleasantly surprised by what a bit of irrigation, attention and compost will do! The first season has been a huge success with plants seeming to just shoot out of the ground.
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| The zucchinis just a couple of weeks later |
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| The garden after 6 weeks |
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| Tomatoes after 2 weeks in the ground! |
The design for the whole block was planned with permaculture principles in mind to maximize productivity of such a small area as well address some specific site issues. As the design is progressively implemented, some little things get tweaked as we go, and it will most definitely continue to evolve over time.
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| First harvest |
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| Dwarf Sunsation sunflowers |
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| Poppies |
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| Broccoli and marigolds |