How I've improved the soil in my backyard veggie beds

First of all I realize it has been a while between posts (I'm not dead in case you were wondering)

When I opened up my blog a few days ago I was shocked to see the last post was in 2016! Basically I got a bit blogged out and forgot / ignored it. I'm pretty sure that I've lost all the people who used to follow my blog and that is my fault but hopefully I can get things rolling again and put down some content regularly from here on. If you're an old follower who is reading this because of some kind of alert then please come back again. Anyway I'm alive and well plus I'm going to be starting my own garden design / maintenance business very soon now which is personally very exciting (see www.aggregata.com.au for a partially finished website).

Improving the soil in my backyard veggie patch

History of the site

We purchased our land in Macedon Victoria around 10 years ago and after a while I noticed a few strange things about the soil. The block we live on was one of the most barren in the street. Unlike the other blocks which had lots of trees and plants ours was rather bare with large patches of mixed species (weedy) lawn. Through digging in the backyard I found very little top soil compared to the front which had at least 15cm and more in some places. I'm wondering whether the top soil in the back yard was scalped by a bob cat at some stage.

Soil analysis

I learnt how to complete a basic soil analysis through one of my subjects at university and I discovered the following info about the soil in the backyard;

• It had a PH level of 5 which is slightly acidic and possibly detrimental to plant growth for some species
• Using the soil texture triangle I was surprised to find the soil was in fact classified as sandy clay loam (56.52% sand, 30.43% clay and 13.04% silt)

Ah Manutec my old friend. You are so much more accurate and reliable than the $5 Bunnings PH probe.

Is it 5.5 or 5? Hard to tell from the pic but it looked more like 5.

Soil improvement last year

I dug the beds last year in preparation for spring planting. I sprayed off the turf with organic herbicide and dug in some compost. Unfortunately I didn't attempt to rectify the PH. Plant growth was not great last season.

Bed #1 with last spring / summers pathetic left overs.

Bed #2 which I cleared out a few weeks back.

My raised bed. You can see the difference. So much growth. On a side note organic snail bait doesn't work. I caught the little buggers munching on my bok choy it a few nights ago. I'll have to try other methods as I don't really want to go back to using Baysol snail pellets.

Overhaul

After pulling the old veggies out I dug in roughly half a m2 of five ways soil mix then limed the

Although last years crop wasn't very good I was pleased to see the soil had improved structure wise. It felt nice and loose when digging it over and it had a nice amount of moisture. The soil definitely was less hard packed. I applied lime at the rate of 100g per m2 to try and change the PH back to a more neutral level. I'll do another PH test soon to see if it worked. I then watered the lime in and mulched over with old straw from my chicken coop that I removed a few weeks back. The plan for the beds are to plant out 1kg of garlic that is arriving in the mail soon.

There's nothing like the feeling (and smell) of driving a ute with one m2 of 5 ways mix on the back.

Look at that pristine bed all ready to go and not a weed in site. It won't stay that way for long :)

I always water down mulch. Don't know if it really helps it settle and become wind resistant but that's the idea.

Burnley late season produce plot still kicking

What's happening at Burnley?

Over the last few weeks my plot at university has been putting on some massive growth. I seem to have been gifted some fantastic weather as it has been quite warm for this time of year and we have had a few decent downfalls of rain (not that it matters so much because I have drip irrigation going). Weeding been kept minimal due to the heavy mulch covering the plot. The effectiveness of the mulch is evident from the carpet of weeds that surrounds the plot which is almost at the point of being classified as some form of turf due to its increasing density.

Harvest from the plot has included several mammoth zucchinis, lots of cos lettuce, some chard and finally a ripe grosse lisse tomato! Yes some of my tomatoes are now starting to blush red. None of the bush tomatoes have ripened but some from the other plots are nice and red. I tasted one from an abandoned plot and it was really floury but I suppose you can't expect great fruit this time of year. The grosse lisse tomato from my plot was a little better but still a bit on the dry side.

Little baby beans are starting to appear bringing hope of a mini bean harvest and the New Zealand yams are also starting to form now that the autumn equinox has occurred. Last week I checked my broccoli and small florets are there amongst the leaves and my snow peas continue their ascent up the bamboo tripod.

Small eggs are present under the broccoli leaves and i'm guessing they are probably cabbage moth larvae. Looks like I took too long to net the broccoli. Other than that no major pest and disease problems are apparent. More to come.

I was starting to think it wouldn't happen then one finally ripened on the vine.

The contrast in my two rows of carrots is obvious. The carrot seed was mixed with sand to aid dispersal but I think I needed to shake the vial more thoroughly as all the seeds ended up in one row and few in the other. I sowed some more in the thin row to try and compensate.

My broccoli plants have outgrown their netting.

Mammoth zucchini and regular zucchini on my backpack for scale.

Zucchini flowers are spectacular.

 My broccoli freed from its netting

Under-storey action beneath the chard and broccoli.

More mammoths

 

Baby beans forming at last.

Another harvest zucchini and my first chard. The cos is getting a bit big now, this one was the size of my head which may explain why they call it a 'head of lettuce'.

Burnley produce plot. Harvesting lettuce cos the time is right.

Melbourne University plot mini harvest

The last blog post I wrote about my Burnley produce plot related to it as it stood back on the 9th of March (approximately one month prior to this post). Back then all the seeds and seedlings had been planted out, the plot had been mulched and fertilised and drip irrigation was installed. Now in less than one months time I am starting to harvest some food.

The plot on the 9th of March

The plot on the 6th of April

It's amazing how productive the plot has been considering the minimal amount of work I have put into it. During the last month I have probably only done a total of 30 minutes of weeding thanks the thick layer of mulch I have employed. Other tasks have included netting the brassicas to protect them from cabbage white butterfly, threading some twine around my tripod to aid the peas in their ascent up the bamboo and pruning my indeterminate (vine) tomato plant. Pruning the vine tomato is actually something which at home I had attempted and failed. Essentially I think I failed because of the myriad of conflicting and confusing youtube videos I had watched on the subject. Due to that negative experience I gave up and grew only bush varieties (which necessarily require pruning). I think next spring I might give some vine varieties a go and write up my own guide on the subject. Today was the first harvest from the plot and I took home some zucchini and two heads of cos lettuce. All the other plants look to be doing fine. Next update coming soon.

From left to right: tomato, zucchini, beans, lettuce, NZ yams and carrots

My modified pea tripod (inspired by the Melbourne art centre spire) 

The vine tomatoes are looking healthy but will they actually ripen this late in the season?

Two cos lettuce (miraculously untouched by snail or slug) and a mega zucchini from the plot.

Seedling emergence and irrigation installation

Burnley vegetable plot update

This post describes my plot at Uni as it was last week on the 9th of March (a week after planting out).

Being a part time student means that unlike the full timers I have to leave my plot to fend for itself for 5 days. During my absence the weather was warm with some days in around or over 30 degrees Celsius. I was initially worried that the seeds I had sown weren't going to sprout, but my worries diminished upon arrival where I was greeted by several small green cotyledons (seed leaves) piercing the fine mulch I spread the week before. The carrot seeds seemed to have a high germination rate and the snow peas all had at least one representative present at the base of each bamboo tripod leg. Under the mulch the ground seemed moist so I suspect my fellow student came through on their promise to water my plot which was great considering rainfall had been minimal. All the other seedlings seemed healthy and all were still present and intact unlike some other plots which had endured nibbling from either various herbivores (I'm assuming wood duck or snail). I did a little weeding and watering and then installed drip irrigation which consisted of 5 drip lines. I mulched over the drip line and called it a day.

Example plot showing our drip irrigation layout

A snow pea seedling stretching towards the sun

This is possibly the most boring photograph I have ever taken. If you look carefully you can see the tiny carrot tops in a row.

New Zealand yams doing their thing

My plot at the University of Melbourne (a tradition since 1950)

Melbourne University Burnley vegetable plot week one (1/3/2016)

 

History of the plot system for students at Burnley

As part of our subjects for this year we are establishing vegetable plots in the field station at Burnley. The whole idea of having plots to develop and nurture was initiated back in the 1950s after a visit from Miss Frances Miner from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. She described a system of individual plots. The idea was implemented at Burnley and sections of the field station (back then a market garden) were transformed into cut flower, tree and also vegetable plots. Students were assessed on their plots and the best ones were awarded prizes (Winzenried 1991). The idea has been continued to this day although I'm not aware of any prizes being awarded. The plots are a great way to provide some hands on gardening experience for students that haven't done much actual gardening.

Plot layout, dimensions and soil composition

The plots were given are 4.2m long by 1.2m wide with the top of the plot (the short edge) facing north east. They all form a grid with walkways of roughly 60cm between them. All plots were raised beds of soil with no sides made of sleepers. We levelled them all down to roughly 15-20cm. The soil in the field station was a welcome contrast to the heavy clay of my home garden in Macedon. It seemed quite sandy and was a dream to work with a spade. The soil itself seemed a little hydrophobic as I noticed some water run off but this was easily worked around by constructing berms (water wells) which helped with the initial watering in of the seedlings.

Crop species

Our lecture Dr Chris Williams chose the crop species. It was always going to be touch and go as to whether some of these plants were going to mature as some of them (eg tomato plants) were being planted out rather late in the season. The timing of the start the semester meant we were growing our plants in more of a transition phase between summer and autumn rather than planting out in spring as one would traditionally do. From south to North we planted out the following seedlings / plants;

• Advanced tomato plants (Grosse Lisse and Roma) with intermingling Genovese basil seedlings as companions.
• Black Beauty zucchini seedling (semi advanced)
• Oregon Sugar snowpea seeds planted around a bamboo tripod
• A row of Brown Beauty bush beans (planted from seed)
• Cos lettuce seedlings
• New Zealand Yam / Oca (delicious if you haven't tried it then give it a go)
• Nantes carrots (by seed)
• Green Dragon broccoli seedlings
• Ruby silverbeet seedlings

Work done during week one

We initially level out or plots down to raised earth beds approximately 15-20cm in height. I then plated out the seeds / seedlings mentioned above and installed a bamboo tripod for the snow peas. I paid careful attention to irrigation as we were working on a day that was to reach 36 degree Celsius! I watered in each hole, planted the seedlings, constructed a berm (water well) around each seedling then watered in the seedlings. I spread dynamic lifter fertiliser on the bed and then mulched the bed with lots of straw (the sown seeds were lightly sprinkled with very fine sugar cane mulch). I mulched the walkways and then irrigated the whole bed very thoroughly.

Worries about irrigation

As I am a part time student I was worried about my plot drying out over the coming week. I only attend Burnley two days per week which meant five days where I couldn't water. The forecast predicted very hot weather. Luckily in my absence a fellow student voluntarily irrigated my plot.

A note on my lecturer for this subject (Plant production and culture)

Dr Chris Williams is particularly interested in edible plant culture, public open space issues and also in combining the two in the form of edible landscapes . He writes his own blog on such subjects. If you are interested the address is http://peopleplantslandscapes.blogspot.com.au

The field in 1894 when it was a market garden (Winzenried 1991).

Women attending crops in 1900 in somewhat impractical attire. Women were allowed to train at Burnley starting in 1899 which I believe was a quite progressive decision during that period of Australia's history (Winzenried 1991). 

Seedling being planted out at an unknown date (Winzenried 1991).

Class of 1950 students in what I assume could have possibly been the first student plots (Winzenried 1991).

 Student plots in 1965 (Winzenried 1991).

Student plots in 1980 (Winzenried 1991).

Overview of the area for our plots

Plots as furrows.

My levelled bed with spacing marked out and a few plants in the ground.

My plot all planted out and mulched.

References

Winzenried A.P. (1991) Green Grows Our Garden: A centenary history of horticultural education at Burnley, Hyland House Publishing Pty Limited, Melbourne.

Williams C. (2016) Lecture notes plant production and culture, University of Melbourne, Burnley.