We knew we were in for some serious hard work when we bought our farm. It had lots of potential but very little of the infrastructure that we actually needed to run an efficient market gardening business.
So, we had it all planned out; months of preparing the soil while building the facilities we needed. “Best laid plans” and all of that. Throw in six months of chemotherapy, and we ended up a little behind schedule, to say the least.
We were able to manage a few infrastructure projects during those difficult months, but ultimately our gardening didn’t start until Spring was well underway, and other growers were already enjoying some early produce. It was an anxious and exhausting time, but three months later, give or take, we were actually making an income from our market garden, and consuming the freshest produce we could dream of for ourselves every day. This is not a horn-tooting post; we are not perfect market gardeners by any means, and our farm is far from perfect too, but our experience proves that this kind of set up can be achieved relatively quickly in difficult circumstances. Here are some things we’ve learned along the way during our first season so far: the “don’t do what we did” things we would like to say to budding market gardeners.
WATER
I don’t think anyone needs to be told that water solutions are the biggest priority for a grower in Australia. Irrigation was meant to be the first thing we sorted out. But it’s an expensive and labour-intensive job, and when you’ve suffered some unexpected financial barriers and your team mate is recovering from chemo, you just can’t always do the things you want to.
Irrigation is finally in place now, but for several months we were spending hours hand watering with hoses, or jumping up every half hour to move sprinklers. Once we realised that we were draining our house tanks, we were even scooping bucketfulls of water out of the ditch to use it on the gardens. Even though our irrigation mechanisms are set up now, so that we’re drawing on water from our ponds, this isn’t enough. The water is running out. We’re not alone, everyone is suffering this summer. If we’d been able to, we would have built a new pond before winter, watched it fill, and used this for our vegetables. It is by far the thing we lament the most, and a good lesson. Don’t try to cut corners or make do where water is concerned; you must find a way to sort it out early on, and before you do anything else.
As time passes, we are getting better at finding ways to conserve and re-use our water, which is a major component of regenerative agriculture.
COMPOST AND MULCH
Whatever amount of compost you think you need to establish your market garden – triple it. That was our lesson anyway. We had picked out the garden sites early on, tested the soil, added organic fertilisers to adjust certain nutrient levels, but we weren’t prepared for the swamp.
Yes, there’s no water now, but back in September all of the leftover winter water was sitting in our garden sites. Again, we had factored this into our original plans and had intended to dig drains and channels, but the machinery required wasn’t readily available to us, so this didn’t eventuate until December. Instead we focused on building up the soil, with compost and mulch, but we underestimated how very boggy it was, resulting in unbudgeted compost purchases. We have established our own compost systems now, but it will take time for these to develop into a useful product.
Going forward, as we work on our regenerative systems and build up the soil, this shouldn’t be an issue again, especially with our drains in place to draw away excess winter water (hard to think about that as I write this in the middle of a drought!).
TARPS
Weeds… the enemy of anyone trying to grow veggies (or anything) organically.
We covered our garden sites with tarps to kill the weeds that were there. We did it as soon as we could, but simply – you guessed it – didn’t have enough time.
This is a simple one: tarp your beds as soon as you can, and leave them there for as long as you can.
We have tools to make our weeding chores easier, but they re-grow faster than we can hoe, so we’ll be fighting this battle until we can tarp again.
PEST CONTROL
We have a number of strategies in place for dealing with pests like caterpillars. We utilise companion planting which, among other things, is the practice of growing other plants alongside the vegetable plants, to give the bugs something to eat other than the veggies. Sacrificial plants, you might say. We have also planted hedgerows full of ‘decoy’ plants for the insects (which double as wind breaks). But these methods are definitely not enough. Even our diligent, carnivorous guinea fowl can’t keep up with the pest control, especially since we only have a small flock at this stage.
So, row covers are really the number one method for preventing produce damage by insects. We knew this at the beginning, but the need to get a lot of seeds and seedlings in the ground left us time poor, and we put the netting on later than we would have liked. Now that we have our row covers in place and taking them on and off isn’t much of a chore, we don’t suffer the pests much. But if you’re wondering why you haven’t seen any brassicas from us this season, well that’s why. Get your row covers on ASAP!
Cabbage moth hanging out in the hedgerow.
Harvesting silverbeet.
Harvesting mesclun lettuce.
We could have postponed our growing once we knew we were going to be behind… wait a year, do all the preparatory work, start making income next season… but where would be the challenge in that?! Besides, try telling that to a loved one who’s just spent far too long lying in a hospital bed “wasting valuable time”.
We’ve shown you several unflattering pictures in this post - weeds, piles of compost - but this is the reality of our journey and it’s important to us that we tell it transparently. The point here is that despite all of our prior knowledge and planning, we still made amateur errors – but we made them consciously, which probably helped us deal with the issues when they inevitably arose.
If we had stuck to some of our original plans, the ones that factored in all the logical first steps, we probably would have saved ourselves some stress, and we wouldn’t be working as many hours as we have been. But we love the work, and if we’d waited, we wouldn’t be eating our own fresh vegetables right now! We also wouldn’t have made the friends and connections that we have from selling our produce so soon either, and that has meant a great deal to us.
