Preparing for No Rain Vegetable Gardening | Permaculture Garden

hi there I'm Linda and this is hunts Valley permaculture with changing weather patterns we need to be investigating ways to make our Gardens more resilient in today's video we take a look at what I'm doing to help my garden survive drier times I live in South gippsland Victoria Australia and get about 1200 mL of rain on average a year most of that comes in winter and spring with Summers often being very dry and the dry times can stretch into Autumn I'm on tank water only so I'm very mindful of using this water to water the gardens in those dry times so I need to build my garden so that those rains are captured and stored by the soil for the drier hotter conditions during the growing season wicking beds are a great way to Drought proof raised garden beds and I've used them in a Suburban home where nearby tree root systems stole all the water and made in-ground gardening more difficult they worked fantastically here I don't have that issue and prefer to have in-ground beds rather than the raised beds and the reason for that is so that I can utilize the Contour of the slope in the area in which I've built my garden by building on Contour making paths with wood chips as the water moves down the slope it is slowed by these water sinks when enough rain falls and the garden is soaked to capacity the excess will just move down the slope and leave at the bottom if I had more a grid style Garden I don't think it would be as successful at slowing the water the biggest thing to focus on when building your garden is getting enough organic material in place and that includes the bed itself and also the paths the reason for this is that the organic material on the surface absorbs the the rain as it falls or flows through the system not only that it prevents evaporation from the soil surface in both the path and also in the garden bed so let's have a look at the Garden a little bit more closely I have paths then garden beds and then some more parts now the main thing to focus on I believe now is to get the organic matter really deep on both the paths and the garden beds while the growing mostly happens here the roots can stretch out into the paths to access both nutrients and moisture now just as important as it's water conserving and holding functions the organic material is also an important source of food for the soil food web supporting the soil food web is critical for a healthy happy and easily growing Garden the soil food web feeds and protects the growing plants but it also improves soil structure with a rich soil food web the soil structure is optimal which means it's water holding capacity is increased and intact soil food web means the moisture will be retained in the soil at times of no rain for up to a period of three months and your plants will survive with little to no additional water it's important to have a no dig gardening style to maintain this structure having a deep organic layer on top means you're less likely to disturb the soil structure when removing vegetables especially the root crops now that might be pretty hard to achieve in the early days while you're still building your no dig beds and getting all of that organic matter on top so for the carrots here I do still dig them even though I am working to increase that layer so that they will just pull out of the compost layer and leave the soil undisturbed as we improve the soil food web and increase the organic layer on top through mulching composting and wood chipping we also increase the percent of organic material in the soil itself and this also increases the soil's water holding capacity so how do we go about getting enough organic material in place well I do build compost and move this material to the garden beds when it's ready when building garden beds I do prefer to buy some mushroom compost in because it's a quick easy way to get those garden beds established I also get in loads of wood chips which I build my paths with in the early days of improving soil this seemed to break down quite quickly so it often needs to be topped up what I have been noticing is I've got a lot more organic material around the place than I have time space and energy to build composts recently I saw a Hugh Richard's video on building compost in new Pathways and I thought that's the solution I'm looking for we have two problems they're ever depleting wood chip layer on my path and the ever increasing organic material supply from my garden and surrounds so their solution will fix both of these problems so what I have been doing after seeing that video by Hugh is starting to build compost in all my Pathways so I do gather up my organic material and it might just be right in the garden bed next to it chop that down put it in here layer it up with the different materials and finally add the wood chip layer on top so it uses up this excess organic material and also reduces the amount of wood chips that I used I do buy that in so it is something that I have to get into the property and pay money for so if I can reduce my use of that that's a win and it also just quickly recycles all of this material really close by so in this part here I have laid down cow manure and Sawdust and different greens that I've cut down from the garden I have started a video to show its progress over the year and finally on top is of course the wood chip now in a year's time I expect to be able to just remove the wood chip layer and underneath will be organic material that is composted down by the worms and the soil organisms and I'll be able to just move it into the garden beds next door and then start the process Again by rebuilding the paths so the materials that I've got around the place are both the chicken and duck bedding I've got plenty of grass clippings shredded branches and leaves deciduous leaves manures sawdusts lots of free materials and then to finish off you just top it with the wood chips once the system kicks in and I'm harvesting compost from the Garden Path I can just put it directly onto the garden beds I'll also add from my compost bins but it means I don't have to buy any compost in and I'll be self-sufficient for compost going into the future my focus is to add as much organic material to this space as possible I believe that it will create a more resilient Garden that will require less additional water during dry times as the years go by and the soil improves well I hope you've enjoyed today's video and good luck with your gardening thanks so much for watching and bye for now [Music] [Music] okay [Music]

Channel: Huttons Valley Permaculture

Views: 6,304

Keywords: permaculture gardening, organic gardening, organic gardening at home, no dig, no dig garden bed, no dig vegetable garden, self reliance, compost, compostinplace, composting, vegetable garden, no rain, composting for beginners, permaculture vegetable, permaculture vegetable garden, permaculture vegetable garden design, permaculture vegetable garden layout, permaculture kitchen garden, beautiful no dig permaculture kitchen garden, incredible permaculture kitchen garden

Id: UVCi_rDMKkA

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023