U Is For Underplanting

As you might have gathered, I'm growing what amounts to a food forest in my garden. In time, the gardens are expected to provide the majority of our vegetables, fruits and herbs.

In theory, we have a big enough land to be able to accomplish our goal. However, I have no plans to grow our main grains (maize and sorgham) on a large scale enough scale to support us year-round, as my grandfather used to do.

There are plenty of maize farmers in our province and I'd rather support them than try to duplicate what they do at a much higher cost.

This gives me enough space to grow a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs - some being our staples; others the type we buy based on availability and affordability but not necessary, while others would be to experiment and liven things up a little.


My plan is to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers all interspersed with each other so that I have productive garden that is attractive, where the plants support each other to grow and that I don't have to work  like a slave to make it work.

Below is a basic framework of how the various plants would be interspersed with each other.

An illustrated  7-Level Forest Garden via The Good Life

So how does under-planting come into it?

Under-planting is just that - planting crops under each other. First imagine that I live in a lightly forested area (which I do). There are a lot of indigenous plants, some of them producing some kind of wild fruit.
So I'm adding traditional fruit trees to the mix, planting them up all over the yard to create the canopy level.

This year I planted around 15 fruit tree saplings. The plan is to try to have as many varieties of fruit as possible, and we should have one or two in season throughout the year.That's the first layer of the garden.

The second layer is dwarf trees. Some will go into the soil, others into large containers placed all over the yard. The majority of my trees are still saplings, so it will be a long time before I see a return on any of it.

The third level is shrubs and berries. These are the plants that grow into medium-sized bushes. We've planted a number of chilli, capsicum and strawberry bushes, but I plan to plant some more.

The fourth layer is herbaceous - that's most of the leafy annual crops we grow such as lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, kale etc. This also includes many of the bushy herb plants.

The fifth layer is the root vegetables like onions, carrots, turnips etc while the sixth layer is ground cover crops. Many herbs and berries make excellent edible, evergreen ground cover. So far I've used mint and thyme. I also want to use cranberries, blueberries, chamomile, oreganum, lavendar and sage. 

The seventh layer is the vining plants - cucumber, sweet potatoes, grapes, strawberries, pumpkins, butternuts, kiwani etc. So far I'm just letting them run wild on the ground, but that's not ideal, and I'm slowly building movable structures/cages that I'll put in to vine over.

Here are some of the tips I found on the Internet while researching under-planting:

1. Place your fruit trees in their ideal location, as they'll occupy that space for decad
3. The next step is to add your perennial plants, as they also form a permanent feature in your garden.
4. Grow crops that need shade under your tall plants that love the sun e.g  my broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage crops are planted under trees,  and lettuce hides very well from the summer heat under the big leaves of marrows (zucchini?).
5. Plants crops that  structurally support each other close together e.g. maize and beans are grown together, and the maize provides the beans with a structure to run over.
6. Plant crops that may have a beneficial impact on each other e.g. my companion plant chart shows that onions are a very beneficial plant, and can be planted with beetroot, strawberries, tomatoes and beans and potatoes. So instead of having a bed full of onions, I transplant them to the borders of most beds.
7. Mix your plants up to ensure biodiversity in your beds. I usually start out with seedlings from one crop and then add different companion plants into the bed to mix things up. 
8. Make sure that the plants you put together have the same water needs. Also try to get plants with differing nutritional needs together (e.g. a nitrogen-releasing plant with a nitrogen consuming plant)

I hope that you find this information useful for your own under-planting effort. You can also get some tips on under-planting  your ornamental garden in this article.

K is For Kale

source: wikipedia

I apologise for this post being so late. I spent the whole day in the garden planting seeds, transplanting seedlings including kale, weeding and watering different sections of the garden.

I enjoy blogging and would have loved to hang out with you but playing outdoors on a sunny but cool Autumn day won out. And it did feel like playing, sorry:)

About kale: I want to grow different varieties, but so far I've only grown the curly leaf variety.

I still have May to plant kale seeds for this season though, so I have time to look for lacinato/dinosaur kalewhich has tall and narrow leaves.

I've never grown/eaten it before, but I understand it has a slightly sweeter and more delicate taste than the curly kale.

I also want to grow redbor kale, if I can find it. I looked it up online when I first heard of it and it's beautiful, with curly, dark red leaves that look like they are deep purple. It's apparently sweet and mild too, but even if we don't fall in love with the taste, I want those colourful leaves in my garden.

Growing kale

I've found kale to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow in my garden in Phokeng. It became my default brassica when cabbage crop after crop failed or brought a poor harvest. By contrast I found kale to be more resilient and less prone to damage from pests and diseases.

Site selection: My biggest challenge was making sure that the crop is sufficiently cool and in consideration of our relatively hot semi-arid climate, I plant it under the trees around the property. That keeps it mostly in the shade, but it doesn't seem to mind.

Soil preparation: I read that kale doesn't like too rich soil, but that's not a problem for me, as it has to compete with trees for nutrients. However, I do keep the soil well-composted.


The planting process: Planting the seeds involves inserting them a centimeter and half (½ in) deep into the soil, then watering the patch. I then keep the area moist until the seedlings break through
.

Caring for the plant: From then onwards I give the patch a good soaking every second day until each seedling had five or six leaves.

Today I thinned the seedlings moving them around under various trees so that there is approximately 45cm (18in) between the plants in the beds. After this, I only need to water them once or twice a week and mulch the beds to help the kale and its companion retain moisture.


Harvesting: I've found that kale tastes best for us when the leaves are still young. I start harvesting the leaves when they are around 10-15cm (4-6in) long. When I cut, make sure to leave the small leaf growing in the centre, so that the leaves can grow again.

I usually harvest kale within the day that I'm going to use it, so I don't store it long. But I understand that you can keep it in the refridgerator for a couple of days. 

Serving suggestions: Don't forget to cut off the veins when you wash your kale and prepare it to cook or make a salad.

My family loves a  kale and potato mash-up. Basically, we boil potatoes with a medium onion, and when it's half-way cooked, we put in fresh, shedded kale leaves and boil them both until they are soft. A spoonful of low-fat margarine, a dash of salt and they are happy to eat this with any meat or fish dish and a green salad.

We also include kale in most of our stir-fries, coupling it with julienned carrots, thinly sliced onions and robot peppers, broccoli and whatever fresh vegetables we have on hand.

For an extra dish that can go with most meals that involve rice, we just shred it, boil it until all the water is drained and fry it with a bit of oil, add a bit of salt and cayenne pepper and we're good to go.

You can also use this recipe for broccoli and cauliflower leaves, which we slice a bit more thinly and boil longer before frying. They taste like combination of cabbage and spinach.

OK. Did I mention we like brassicas? Cos we really do:)