This market garden uses backyard methods for large scale produce | Discovery | Gardening Australia

Palisa visits a thriving market garden to find out how diversity and learning are at the heart of their productivity.  Kenrick and Maree’s farm located about 50 minutes inland of Byron, is one of her favourite places to talk soil, food, and production. Subscribe ???? http://ab.co/GA-subscribe

Diversity is writ from the large scale to the small – implemented across the farm, in each paddock, and on an individual bed scale. Kenrick says “we have the luxury of space here, so gardens are spread out across the property. Trees, grass country, the gardens are in between.  They all contribute to the biodiversity that supports production”.  

Within any one paddock is also a diversity of crops, 15 rows and each growing something different.  Amongst the food, flowers are always planted.  “Over the course of the year, we grow between 70-80 different things, but we also grow different varieties of individual things to ensure we have options. 3 varieties of garlic are now in the ground, all given to us by a customer, we also have 3 varieties of Aibika" says Kenrick.

The Aibika also represents another pillar of their successful production, with a changing climate you have to “adapt—adapt-adapt!   It is a protein-rich perennial leaf crop, adapted to increasingly erratic weather. ..We have had bushfires in the rainforest, the driest and wettest spells on record.  It has also been critical for us to save our own seed, to acclimatise varieties over time and widen their climatic resilience.”

Kenrick says they also have 3 rows of perennial spinach, all transplanted from self-sown plants that popped up where the crop grew last year.  They have a simple technique for taking advantage of the natural strength of these plants.  “We just dig it over, water and then move the plants as they germinate.  Self-sown seedlings are always the strongest!”  

While Ken and Maree have been doing this for decades, their flexible and diverse approach keeps them looking firmly to the future.  “The challenges of this changing climate mean that in a way we are re-learning it. Sometimes we have to go back to the drawing board, it keeps us on our toes!  The body gets tired, but the brain doesn’t!”  

Featured Plants:
ROCKET - Eruca sativa cv.
PERPETUAL SPINACH - Beta vulgaris cv.
COLLARD GREENS - Brassica oleracea cv.

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