Back in the garden - Bus life on hold

After over 12 months on the road, living and working from our motorhome (#forkthebus - that's a whole story in itself that you can find on our facebook Finchys Australia page if interested,) we find ourselves living in the driveway at my parents house.

Not far from where we lived at our permaculture property, they have good soil, good rainfall and a temperate climate, although going into Winter now after chasing the sun for the last year feels like the South Pole.
However, mid to late Covid-19 Autumn is a perfect time to get in the garden and plant winter crops.
My dad, (Johnno) and I refurbished and extended his vegie patch.

In southern Australia it's time to plant winter greens and root vegetables. We are planting by the moon and running with a 4 bed rotation system. So we planted vegetables that grow above the ground in the New Moon Phase (1).

Bed 2 is our Brassica's bed which includes leafy greens, silverbeet and spinach etc.

We planted Broccoli, Silverbeet, Perpetual Spinach, Rocket, Mesclun Salad Mix and Baby Spinach.
This bed needs manure and blood and bone turned into before planting. Chicken manure is ideal but needs to be old, anything fresh will burn the new plants. Our new load of soil we had delivered had poultry manure in it already, mostly duck shit, so is ideal for these crops.

In the First Quarter Moon Phase (2) plant above the ground again. We planted into Bed 1.
Bed 1 is our Legumes Bed or peas and beans. We planted Dwarf Peas, Climbing Peas, Climbing Snap Peas and Broad Beans.

The tags I use are old venetian blinds cut up. Write on them with pencil and then rub it off and re-use.
I write the date planted P, the date to harvest H, and any other details that will jolt my memory about their care as they grow. The legume bed only likes organic matter, potash but no nitrogen.

Let it be

After 18 months of not doing anything in my garden, it is flourishing.
Due to many factors affecting my ability to put the regular time into my garden, I have done virtually nothing to it for the past 18 months.

Yet it has still provided fruit, herbs, minimal veg and plenty of habitat for the insects birds and occasional blue tongue lizard.

All the self seeding greens, herbs and even parsnips have provided wonderful habitat for the hoverflies and other small pollinators.

ADD:
A month after this post we sold our property. We had a massive garage sale and sold, gave away or donated all our belongings and began life living in a bus full time on the road travelling Australia.
Our nomad lifestyle website is:  www.finchysaustralia.com

I do miss my beautiful abundant permaculture garden  but still have the opportunity to garden when house-sitting around the country. Our new life on the road is a big adventure and just another chapter.
I am forever grateful for the knowledge I gained from doing a PDC with the Food Forest in Adelaide in 2005 before we built our property. Hands on learning and being creative are two of my all time favourite things to do.