It has only been 2 weeks since I have been back from Zaytuna Farm and although I miss it terribly at least I got back to Greece to find that my permaculture interest had rubbed off on my Mother! Our tiny pebbled garden (it was pebbled before I left for Australia in January) has been transformed into a microcosm of veggies, veggies and more veggies! On just 70 square metres and interspersed among our 3 baby olive trees, 5 lemon trees, 2 lime trees and our precious little pomegranate tree she has planted the following since February! : tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, 4 types of lettuces, cabbage,capsicums, eggplants, cucumbers, 2 types of courgettes, corn, onions, 5 types of basil, 2 types of spinach, broad beans, artichokes, rocket, Swiss chard, lemongrass , molochia, aloe vera, chilli, celery, parsley, dill, bay leaf and rosemary. Using nothing but goat poo for fertilizer and her tender loving care she has transformed what once was a pretty useless space into a wonderfully productive and organic kitchen garden. It is a great example of how much we can grow in a confined space! Much to my dismay Mum has not bothered to weigh any of the produce, but I’ve only been here 2 weeks and hand on my heart I have witnessed at least 7 kilos of harvested cucumbers, and they are still going!
What I love the most about this miniature Garden of Eden is the way she has taken full advantage of space. Below is just example of how she has done this. Using our hardy palm tree as a support frame, she nailed in 2 nails and wrapped a rope around them so that the tomatoes can climb up against it! I asked her if this damages the palm tree and she said no because the outer bark of the palm dries up and eventually falls off taking the nails with it and leaving undamaged bark underneath.
But the same principle can be applied on any other tree where nails would damage it just by using a bit of rubber hose and threading the rope through the hose so that the rope won’t cut into the bark. I made a little demonstration just to show you : ) and photographed it below.
So don’t ever let anyone tell you that your garden is too small! There are hundreds of ingenious ways to make the most of your confined space and I think Anastasia’s garden proves it!
A wick works through capillary action – the same force you observe when you dip a piece of tissue paper partially into a glass of water and watch the water climb the paper. Wicking occurs in many materials; cotton, wool, geo-textile, soil, gravel and even wood to some degree. Every material has different wicking properties which you can test by placing that material into a glass of water and watching the water “climb” up. When one end of the wick is saturated and the other end is dry, it creates a moisture gradient, which drives the wick until the gradient no longer exists or you run out of water.
