It takes some real creativity and a lot of faith to stare at an empty spot of land and imagine it to be a bursting market garden.
This is a 14×19 meter spot next to one of our pecan orchards that is currently empty. A few months ago Jason mentioned that it has full sun every day and would be a great spot for a market garden. I have been practicing for a year and a half now in the test/kitchen garden behind our house, and we finally think we are ready to break ground on a small (very small and manageable) market garden.
Just in time for Autumn and garlic planting season!
What is a market garden?
In short it is a garden that produces enough to sell at market. In our case a small and direct market.
From the Cradle right to YOUR table in the form of farm boxes (well at least that is the plan).
Step One: A market garden drawing
This is very rough drawing of this autumn’s market garden. It will change a lot by the time we are done, but it is a vision filled with a wide variety of produce, flowers, and lots of garlic for this season’s focus crop.
We are blessed to have a wonderful climate here in the highveld of Gauteng, and we can grow a lot of veggies right through the winter.
Step Two: Order seeds
We are lucky to have https://livingseeds.co.za/ right here in Gauteng. They are one of the very best heirloom seed banks in Africa that grow 90 percent of the seeds on their own farm, just south of Joburg in Klipview. If you ever want to venture down there, they often teach classes on the weekends. They also have an amazing sample garden to stroll through.
It truly is magical for those of us who love growing food. Thankfully they have everything we need for the market garden this season, and so with one simple click, we are off to the races. I cannot wait to open the box when it arrives.
Step Three: Get a TLB to clear the spot
We need to remove the grass.
We could leave the grass and just do a layer of cardboard and then compost. This would be the full no till method, as Charles Dowding, my favorite market gardener, suggests. However, I tried that in my backyard test garden and this African grass is tough and bloody persistent. Much like the people of this beautiful country who push through no matter what, that grass never did quit. We had to spend so much time pulling grass, and preventing overgrowth. It was a real time killer.
So for this garden, we have decided just to get rid of as much of the grass as we can at the root, Hopefully that will make it a bit easier in the long run.
Step Four: Amend the soil
The challenge we have on the farm is that our soil is very acidic. VERY acidic! A 4 on the PH scale!!!
Basically the plants and trees on our farm are living with hardly any nutrients getting to their roots. Only iron levels are high. Everything else in the way of nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, etc….basically non existent.
This of course is far from ideal.
Using a no till method means that we will be planting into pure compost above the layer of cardboard, but we would still like to amend the soil below. This will improve the drainage and can contribute to the life of the soil in our no dig bed.
In order to do this, we need to add some organic matter and dolomite lime, working it into the soil. This will, over the next few months, adjust the acidity of the soil. Hopefully bringing it to a more neutral/slightly acidic PH of 6.2-6.8, which is perfect for most plants.
Check out our Instagram post about this process here.
Step Five: Build the beds
Now it is time to build the garden bed. First, we will top the ground with cardboard (all tape and stickers removed). This will suppress weeds and grass from growing into the beds.
Then we will build the bed with pure compost from Viewpoint Farming in Boksburg. This will be the third time that I am using viewpoint farming’s compost and I must say I find it to be fantastic. They certainly understand compost composition and their product proves to be solid time and time again.
Progress so far
