Just a Suburban Backyard

before

This is a photo of our ordinary suburban backyard in 2008. It's winter.

Immediately to the right out of shot is the clothes line.

Upper right is the cubby house.

Upper left a small structure attached to the garage is the old wood shed, now a hen house.

The hen enclosure also contained the apple tree (3 grafts) and has a run behind the garage of 5mx2m.

The hens are situated at a point far from any dwellings (including neighbours) and have plenty of sunshine and protection from wind.

Their house is a small tin shed with cement floor. It has been fully lined with old timber boards.

Over winter I stack straw bales around the exposed walls for added insulation.

Ostensibly this photo was taken to show my brand new arch that Craig had made me for Christmas.

It is welded from scrap stair and fence railings.

initial bedding going in

As you may know from previous posts, we are chemical free (to the point of me running around with a butterfly net after cabbage moths!)

We believe in a harmonious eco-system. All things have a right to eat so long as the balance is maintained.

Insects eat some plants but in turn are eaten by other insects, frogs or my chooks....

In the photo above you can see the black compost bin in the upper right. The planting to the left of the path provides natural protection for the hens and they love to come out and free range under the plants. It feels safe and teems with interesting bugs.

same beds now

So with compost, horse manure bits and bobs of scrap. We have a thriving garden that not only feeds us every day but also has excess going to the growers' market every fortnight.

Many people at the market would ask me how much land I had and couldn't believe it was just a backyard.

Anyone can feed themselves and it may take on average an hour a week. Some weeks may take more, some weeks none at all.

In fact a post in the near future will show a young man living in a unit complex growing his own food in what I would have called impossible positions.

We tend to roughly grow things together in rows. For corn to self pollinate it's a must. But we don't get anal about partitions and separations. If crops are grown on a large scale all of one kind then it is like a laid out banquet for the predatory pests. All they have to do is move directly from one plant to the next! So we mix it up a little, make them work hard for their forage! Encourage a balance in who might be preying on whom.

We have tried different borders. Some timber and raised. Some stacked bricks but Craig has found his  preferred easy maintenance style is the spaded mounded style with lawn mower width walkways. This way he doesn't need the wipper-snipper.

So what if a pumpkin vine winds its way through the front roses.

What about coloured chard lining the driveway.

Mostly there are no rules really but as much sunlight as possible is a pretty biggie. We also rotate; in that we grow things in different places each time we plant. Again it's about natural balance. In the past a lot of "advice" for gardeners was based on commercial growing principles....IGNORE that! Most commercial growing means things are out of balance and cannot be grown without the additions of pesticide, herbicides and added manufactured nutrients. You are backyard growers and lets keep it that way.