Celebrity Gardener: Daniel Austin.
Location: Upper Sturt, SA
Area to be used: "I have set up an Aquaponics growbed using an old spa and have an 2 overgrown weedpatch's on a rental property approximately 1m x 1m and 4m x 5m"
Who will be involved: Myself, girlfriend (who doesn't have a green thumb by any stretch) and sister.
A bit about Daniel: I'm a 26 year old horticulturalist by trade recently taking on a role teaching Hydroponics to international horticulture students. I paint on the side and work in the green room of radio 5aa's weekend horticulture show. Other than that I like to get in the kitchen or onto the bbq with a beer and share a good meal with good company.
What do you hope to achieve? I hope to cross fresh vegetables off of my shopping list entirely and get people involved in Urban Farming and the variety of techniques available.
Challenges? Time, shaded location, water
Current Progress:
After a few months of leafy greens to establish the system. The Aquaponics bed now has chard, jostaberry, pepino, tomato and cape gooseberry growing with about 30 silver perch supplying nutrient. Setting up this beast included some real challenges the tank capsized, pumps broke and fish got cold but I have the recipe right now and it takes care of itself. I can't recommend highly enough people trying this method of food production.
Area one will be a raised bed with the bulk essentials, there is space to the sides for melons/pumpkins to sprawl but I'm probably out of time there, I hope to fill this area year round with spring onions leeks and silverbeet and other veg as seasons allow. I'm also thinking of putting trellis for some peas/beans at the rear of the bed. the biggest challenge I'm seeing is weeds at the moment.... Lots of weeds.
Area two will be my experimental patch it's a small area with some dappled shade I'm planning on putting some longer term plantings here including a few varieties of chilli's, okra, blueberry and any other strange things i come across. I'm not going to raise this bed too much but i am going to add compost and a new product called Biochar to see what sort of yields it produces. The challenge here will be the slope of the land and the soil here is relatively poor. will be interesting to see what happens here..
Area three will be a container garden in the city we are planning on using the out of date recycling containers no longer used by council. Kate has sourced compost from the city green waste at the local council depot the challenge here will be space and hoping that passers by leave something for us!
G'day again all, well we have finished-ish two gardens and the Aquaponics system is booming and producing good sized tomatoes and pepino's as well as leafy greens. The raised garden bed has been planted up with broccoli, cauliflower, rosella, peas, beans and chillies. we have started a potted section of edible perennials as well as some of the herbs known for getting away in gardens.
Hello Everyone! Here is an update on our gardening progress.
