After over a decade of either living in apartments or travelling around the world I finally own a place with a modest small-medium
yard in Adelaide, South Australia. The great thing about not having had a yard for so long is really appreciating every square inch of it and having so many ideas.
Most of my yard's paved, but there are bare garden beds streching all the way along the long
fence.
Hugelkultur had to be cancelled when I was warned by a neighbour that the termites it could attract will eat into our houses soon after, so I'm using horse manure instead which I get for free from the racetrack.
Because it's a busy neighbourhood it's unfeasible to keep
bees, and the paving makes
chickens unpractical too. So I'm focusing on vegetable and fruit growing for now, and will add a small self-sustaining
pond later without a filter or pump. I plan to grow non-dwarf fruit
trees which I've started from cuttings very close together, so I can fit lots of fruit in with intensive proximity planting. I just throw vegetable seeds wherever and hope they grow, figuring that if they're strong
enough to survive and flourish then they're the vegetables suited to my environment.
I'm attracted to
permaculture largely out of miserliness and laziness. I hate spending money on stuff, so making free fertilisers from 'rubbish' like garden waste and household scraps appeals to me. I'm too lazy to pull out weeds, so I eat them instead. Rather than spraying insects with poisons I'd rather have birds and insects come along and do it for me. Yet out of these less than noble intentions, I've developed a deeper appreciation of and connection nature, which affects my perspective on life in general.
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