ORGANIC SUSTAINABILITY

It takes faith to persevere with the establishment of an organic garden environment. The first year that you establish your plants is bliss as they are going into fresh soil. The next year every pest imaginable seems to have discovered your garden and be gratefully chomping their way through your vegetables. By the third year the predators, like the lady beetles who eat the aphids, will arrive. By the fourth your garden should be coming into balance. You will still see some pests, but if your plants are not stressed they will thrive. To keep a garden thriving not only does it require good soil, it needs thick mulch to keep that soil moist and to allow the earthworms to prosper.  My compost bins have been worked over by generations of compost worms since I introduced them to this garden in 1992. As they convert each bin of waste to compost it is spread out on my gardens. The ground is covered with hay and they continue their work under this layer, aiming to break the hay down and incorporate it into the soil. Thus the hay must be replaced over my gardens each year. One of my flower garden beds is permanently planted with deciduous shrubs. Every year self-sown Californian poppies emerge from the hay mulch to bloom amongst the shrubs. Peter Andrews would like these poppies, which I have seen flowering wild over the hills of California, as they are tap-rooted plants. They will be bringing up nutrients from deep within the soil to finally rot down again as mulch and they will be preventing a build up of salt in the soil.

Californian poppies

These mulched shrubs and Californian poppies are part of the hill forest segment of the farm adding nutrients to the soil.

Take a look at this photo of green shrubbery in my front garden. Again, most of the soil beneath these plants has been mulched. Some of the shrubs are evergreen, but other deciduous shrubs drop their leaves to add nutrients to the soil. Peter Andrews advocates plant diversity.

Green Garden

I bought those three rather slow growing conifers from a nursery, but then struck five cuttings from them which are now half the size of these three bushes. See if you can count the five in the photo below.

Hidden amongst annuals

The high growing larkspurs and cornflowers are just coming into bloom. This is an area of the flower garden where I haven’t yet covered the ground with mulch. If plants are thick they will shade their own roots and prevent evaporation from the soil while denying weeds a foothold. Again, there is diversity of plants.

Shade and mulch both help to maintain a productive garden during the heat of summer. Each year visitors are amazed by the size of my rhubarb plants. The secret is that the rhubarb likes lots of manure and water, plus a position where it is protected from the heat of the afternoon sun. Mine grows on the eastern side of the apartment building, thus gets no afternoon sun. The huge leaves also assist at providing their own shade over the root area. As I was about to remove these flowers from my rhubarb plant I noticed a green tree frog on the stem. This is an adult size tree frog and there must be hundreds of them in my garden judging by the amount of chirping I hear every time a cloud passes in front of the sun and they announce their hope that rain is coming.

Rhubarb with frog

The presence of these frogs is evidence that I use no chemical sprays on my garden plants. Plant biodiversity means that I now have a dynamic chain of predators working within my garden to assist with the health of my plants. Many birds, large and small, come into my garden to hunt for insects or forage for food and provide many services. The Babblers and gray Apostlebirds travel in flocks, scratching over fallen leaves and hay mulch searching for grubs, thus turning and loosening the mulch for me.

Finch nest

Small birds like the Superb Blue Wren hide their grass nests deep within a shrub, but the Double Bar Finches build grass nests in the thorny branches of climbing roses. No cat could climb this branch and should the mother bird be temporarily disturbed she will seek shelter in the nearby fig tree. Note again the use of rocks and evergreen ground covers surrounding the deciduous fig tree. The leafy fig tree shades them during the hot summer months. This biodiversity of plants within my garden, all growing organically,  are adding desired nutrients to the soil. The deep rooted plants are recycling nutrients and preventing a build up of salt in the soil. Ground covers, rocks, plants or mulch are shading the soil, retaining moisture and allowing the earth worms to flourish while birds add their droppings or provide other service. Small Eastern Spinebill Honeyeaters enjoy the blue flowers of the perennial salvia and are the only pollinator of the Fijoa fruit trees, sometimes called the fruit salad guava, as bees show no interest in these red flowers. I have identified about 300 different birds passing through seasonally, or living as permanent residents on our land. It is the biodiversity of our organic garden which attracts so many visiting birds.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, biodiversity, bird, book, Californian, compost, Das Helwig Haus B&B, mulch, mulching, poppies, Queensland, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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