Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

at least you are man enough to admit it BiG Red

Dirt growing is still fun, even when you have the choice of aqua... Besides you need somewhere to grow your spuds, I love home grown suds... .

Are the suds to clean the spuds eb?

I had some killer gardens in the past with root crops and all the usual veg. I was in Taranaki, under the volcano there, very beautiful, and great soil. Just add lime.

I was a fisherman one time there and so I decided to use the waste in my garden. I trench dug and turned over a large plot and buried lots of the fish guts in with aged compost a spade depth in, added lime and left it a month till spring.

That was one of those crops you dream about, the kind of veggies you'd take to a show. I think it was less labour intensive than washing gravel too hehe.

I don't have any big gardens now, section is set up and angled a bit crap for light. I have some nice bits and pieces.

Here's some images of our raised bed sheet mulch gardens that I took today. It's still producing like crazy - I've had to remove a barrow load of surplus parsley (English and Italian), basil and silver beet to the worm bins three times over the past seven weeks.....just to get enough light into the beds to allow smaller plants to come on.

Excuse my ignorance, but what are Sheet Mulch Gardens?

sheets of newspaper laid down to provide a barrier/mulch for weeds (I think?)

Wow, that sure is one healthy garden! Pitty you had 'worm' all those greens - a great garden there!

Here's a post I logged some time back - I'm not savvy with how to link to it so I've cut and paste it for you.

Sheet mulching, as we practise it, happens like this:

- we half filled the raised beds with coarse sand - for good drainage.
- we mulched the entire bed with wet newspaper - 6 sheets deep - to stop the weeds from coming through. We have nut grass here and it's a bitch if it it gets a hold.
- spread lucerne mulch - one small bale to each bed.
- spread cow manure - one bag to each bed.
- cover the whole with sugar cane mulch....or clean straw, pine needles, seagrass, etc - about 200mm (8") thick.
- water thoroughly - leave for two weeks - so that the heat dissipates.
- after the beds have cooled, scrape a hole in the mulch and plant your seedlings into the rotting stuff under the mulch. We put a double handful of coco peat into the holes and plant the seedlings into that - helps to keep the roots moist.....and you can plant seeds, too. Normally, it's best to wait until the garden is fully established (a couple of seasons) before you start to plant seeds.
- ignore everything you've read about how close to plant things - fill up the entire bed with a random planting of all of the seedlings you want to grow.

We installed a 6mm dripper line into our beds - the best thing we ever did - watering is now a simple matter of setting the mechanical timer every few days and forgetting it.

You can grow sheet mulch beds directly onto the ground. Don't worry about digging the ground - just knock the tall weeds over so that you can mulch them with the newspaper (or old cardboard, etc).

Over the years, we've used old railway sleepers and other garden borders but our concrete pit pipes are really good. We renovate each bed at the end of each summer - we just slash any existing plants (the insects will have decimated them anyway) and sprinkle cow manure and add more sugar cane mulch before planting our seedlings.

If you'd like more detail......see http://www.eco-action.org/dt/mulch.html

Nice post and link.

Given the interest in sheet mulch gardening and the fact that I did some today, I took some photos.

If you noticed that the last two photos were identical, go to the head of the class......I'm still trying to get a grip on the way this program works when it comes to loading images. Here's a couple more.....

Good one GD. I did nine a few weeks ago. Normally by now I would have them planted out, but the aqua thing has taken my eye of the ball .

Here's a photo of my most recently planted sheet mulch garden.....planted out on 30th September.......and one that shows what happens when you leave half a tub of worm castings lying around.

Oops! Still getting a grasp on loading photos into this forum.

hey gary where did you score those concrete pipes?