There's an interesting article in the current G Magazine entitled "Gardens that Grow Themselves".
The basic idea is that you plant your garden beds densely with a diverse range of plants. Some of these are then left to go to seed, so that the soil in your garden bed builds up a "seed store", some of which will germinate when the conditions are right and a space opens up within the bed for them (ie. when other plants come to the end of their life cycle). Thus in theory creating a self-renewing produce garden.
The part of the article that most appealed to me was the idea that this densely planted area creates a highly protected micro-climate. As you can see from the photo above, my "vegie plot" is in a dire condition with all the hot weather and lack of rain we've been experiencing lately. Hmm... I probably should have mulched... And now is not the ideal time to be growing spinach in Brisbane, but I thought it was coriander. Oops
So I'm going to give this "ecological gardening" lark a go. Starting with allowing any "volunteer" vegies that show up in my garden beds to go for it.
There are already a couple of volunteers in my lettuce patch, below. Let the experiment begin!
I enjoyed that article. I reaslised this is how I have been gardening recently. I've given up on the idea of a tidy garden in rows and let atleast one or two of each vege type go to seed. I love how the garden starts to grow itself....saves me time :-)
ReplyDeleteTricia that's great to know that you are having success with this style of gardening! It does seem to have some intuitive "rightness" about it. I love your blog btw :)
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