Improving the Soil

We have our work cut out for us, to change our barren front lawn into a productive vegie garden. And this is the first step. Here are the 20 bales of lucerne hay that were delivered this morning. We will have 50 bales of sugar cane mulch arriving some time in the next week or so. I'm also buying up on compost, manure and soil food at our local Bunnings.

Yes, I am spending a lot of money on establishing this garden, and no doubt I could do it for less. I mean, we have 3/4 of an acre of grass, and plenty of kitchen scraps, couldn't I use those? The answer is that yes, I could, and yes, I do, but the amount of compost and mulch I can produce this way barely makes a dent in the amount of land I'm trying to make productive. And while there is nothing particularly wrong with the soil, there's nothing particularly good about it either. We're basically trying to grow European vegetables in Australian soil, and the difference between them is quite significant. The vegetables will grow in the soil we have, but they won't produce as well as they should be. The answer to this, of course, is to increase the amount of vegetable matter in the soil, which in turn increases the nutrients, and the soil's water retention.

So we have a busy time ahead of us, preparing all this area for our summer planting. I hope to take lots of pictures, and document our progress as I go along.