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 is at the heart of their productivity. Kelrick and Maree's farm is about 50 mins inland of Byron, is one of her favourite places to talk soil, food, and production. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe

Starting 30 years ago on black basalt soil which is fertile and can be hard setting.

They cut the paddocks as mulch a diverse mix of pasture species, whatever is there, even weeds, as we can cut and mulch before seed set. "You want diversity in the plants in a mulch, that's a diversity in minerals going into the soil! If you're just applying bales of wheat straw, that is not much in the way of diversity".

Diversity is writ from the large scale to the small – implemented across the farm, in each paddock, and on an individual bed scale. "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 each growing something different. Amongst the food are always flowers. "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 vars of Aibika.

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.

Filmed on Bundjalung Country | Georgica, NSW

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