Sat 27 October 9:00 am – 12 noon
Worms are wonderful creatures that do wonderful things for your garden. They move up and down through the soil aerating it; composting all the organic matter you have in the soil (we hope you have anyway); and, generating beautiful nutritious food for the micro-biology to process providing your plants with all the primary, secondary and tertiary nutrients they require to become a healthy and nutritious vegetable or fruit. Importantly, they feed the soil that feeds the plants that feed the people. If this is a healthy bio-intensive process then you are going to be one healthy vegetable consumer and you will not really need all the juicing etc that people engage in with a view to ensuring their systems are working properly.
The Humble Earthworm **
It is only when we try and short-circuit the process by waging war on the soil by engaging in industrial agricultural practices that we end up with vegetables that are low in sugars and vitamins. These are the vegetables that can be purchased at the local supermarket or, dare I suggest, from the local farmers market and will have very low brix levels. Many of the vegetables available from these markets here in South East Queensland are sold by ‘Rocklea farmers’, or individuals who take advantage of ‘farmers markets’ to purchase the product you buy from the central market and flog it off at low unsustainable prices. This occurs across the country and we can probably assume, internationally. These individual are exploiting the farmer by initially paying too little for the produce and the consumer by selling chemical laden fruit and vegetables. It is probably important to always ask the source of the vegetables you purchase at these markets.
Joel Salatin, the Antithesis of Industrial Agriculture
Industrial farming utilises pesticides and herbicides to kill all and sundry including every beneficial insect in the area and plants, such as deadly nightshade, that are classified as weeds. Now this particular ‘weed’ is one that the lady birds love including the one ladybird that will attack your vegetables. If you have deadly nightshade, the ladybird will eat that instead of your vegetables. Also, the berries of that plant are very sweet.
It is also farming that utilises chemical fertilisers to feed the plants. It does very little but to make the plants grow more quickly and not feed the soil. This is required to ensure a sustainable and regenerative production system. In fact, along with the use of herbicides and pesticides, it kills all the soil biology and life, including worms, on which your plants and you should be depending. When you engage in this type of farming or gardening, your vegetables are much more susceptible to pest attack and less nutritious. It is actually a fact that plants produce a natural chemical similar to that found in asprin when you have some insect attack. Studies published in The Lancet state this chemical is extremely good for your health and you do not get it in fruit and vegetables that are ‘perfect’ as a result of being farmed industrially. So, you do not have to take asprin, just eat healthy bio-intensively grown vegetables.
Overall, there are no positives in this type of growing system.
Composting Worms
So, worms are a great thing to have in the garden. They are also a wonderful alternative to the disposal of your fruit and vegetable scraps in the garbage bin. In Australia, at least 50% if all that is going into landfill is organic waste. Here it is buried and will eventually lead to groundwater contamination and the production of greenhouse gases. This is extremely environmentally unsound and wasteful because we can easily convert this waste to soil-building humus through the use of worms in a compact and easy to manage worm farm system.
These worms are not the garden worms or earthworms you find in your soil when you turn a sod, but composting worms and include the major composting worms – tiger worms, red wrigglers and the European night crawler. Composting worms are surface dwellers that thrive in the surface leaf litter layers in moist areas. They just need cool, moist, dark, oxygen-rich environments with a regular supply of food. The product from a worm farm is a nutrient-rich, pH neutral and high quality soil conditioner. You can make your worm farm from an old bathtub, Styrofoam box or any sturdy waterproof container.
Josh Sifting Compost at 270
The Worms and Soil Health Workshop will be run by Josh, one of our volunteers. Josh has been mentored by Justin since his arrival at Gold Coast Permaculture and has absorbed an amazing amount of knowledge. As a result, he presents an amazing workshop and one from which you will take home a mine of information that will enable you to easily and painlessly divert your scraps from your garbage and improve the quality of your home garden/pots out of sight.
Growing Herbs and Seedlings (Combined with Worms and Soil Health Workshop)
27 October 2010 at 9:00 am – 12 noon
Herb growing is fun and relaxing and a must for all of us with an interest in gardening. They create a a magical delight with their beautiful colours, soothing fragrances and fresh flavours and are plants to wonder at. Herbs are not difficult to grow and care for and just require a little care and attention to starting them off. Though many herbs are quite forgiving and you would have trouble killing many of them with a cricket bat, we here in Queensland have some particular conditions that necessitate a little extra care and attention to grow herbs successfully. Once growing, you will be able to cook for friends and family using fresh cut herbs from your own garden! Even create your own exotic olive oils and cosmetics using fresh herb blends as recently seen on Gardening Australia and dried herb arrangements.
Herbs
A herb garden can be as simple or complex as the gardener desires. Herbs can be grown in established borders, among low growing shrubbery, or in a vegetable garden. The simplest way, in terms of organization and care, is to designate a certain space for herbs and herbs only. The design one chooses can range from formal gardens to simple displays. There are a few herbs that are ideal for growing for the purpose of providing shade for other herbs and this can be a great strategy if you are just kicking off. If you are into your first herb garden, then you will need to do a little planning in order to be a success including the basics of propagation.
So, how do we grow these things?
Early Beginnings for the Nursery – March 2012
At 270 Ferry Road, we have a herb and seedling nursery that is just pulsating with life. In one corner is a paper wasp nest where many of the natural predators that inhabit our vegetable gardens reside and a European honey bee swarm trap on the roof of the shed in the opposite corner that has just recently trapped our first swarm (no bees in there now).
The bees arriving into our recently installed swarm trap
In-between, a thriving productive nursery exists that pumps out so many different varieties of herbs, both culinary and medicinal, that most of us have trouble keeping up.
Dan’s Nursery in May 2012
This vibrant and productive enterprise is run by Dan, one of our long-term volunteers. Dan has been with us since October 2011 and completed his Permaculture Design Certificate at Gold Coast Permaculture in July 2012. During this period of study, he began the herb nursery on his own initiative and now has one of the Coast’s largest collections of culinary and medicinal herbs. Medicinal herbs are Dan’s area of major interest and his knowledge base is substantial and ever expanding. However, to maintain the balance, his selection of culinary herbs is to be marveled at.
This is DAN the man!
You too can grow herbs relatively painlessly and Dan is the man to take you through this exercise. In this workshop, he will run you through propagation seed raising mixes for herbs and other seedlings (vegetables) and how to put it all together. He will tell you about cuttings and other main forms of herb propagation. Finally, he will answer all of your questions on what you need to do at home to establish your own productive herb garden. At the end of it all, if you need to take some herbs home to establish in your own garden, he will provide you with the herbs in a soil mix that will inoculate your garden with soil biology and create a rich and productive soil food web enabling you to also have the same healthy productive garden as those that exist at 270 Ferry Rd.
*Herb image sourced from http://mikemichalowicz.com/would-you-do-this-to-become-a-leader-in-the-spice-industry/
** Worm image sourced from http://blog.growingwithscience.com/2011/03/weekend-science-fun-earthworms/