I'm driven in my backyard endeavours to achieve three things.
- Food security.
- Provision of a diet rich in essential nutrients for excellent nourishment and health.
- Substantially reduced ongoing expenditure on material and water resources from outside the house and garden.
Water security is crucial in the often hot and dry summer conditions experienced here in Melbourne, and that's why I scoured the internet for ways to minimise its use. I have made a substantial investment in infrastructure to make this happen, and I know that others will do this at much lower upfront cost than I have. That's great, but I do urge anyone wanting to share my ideas not to shortcut the following.
- Use of good quality water, preferably rainwater.
- The creation and maintenance of highly active soil with good Soil Food Web diversity.
- Investment in "Teaming with Microbes" to help understand what happens naturally in the soil and on the plants growing in it. At AUS$15.48 on Google books, this ebook is a steal (20th March.2015), and no I'm not getting a commission.
I have made significant progress in the 4 years since I started this project, but I still have a lot to learn. I especially need to learn how to optimise soil conditions to get the best yields and maintain a continuous flow of edible plants from my very limited garden space. In other words I need to learn to be a better gardener.
