Tag Archives: drylands

Microplot garden design – 1

Posted on February 27, 2015 by tikiwanderer

One of the things I’m experimenting with is dense microplots for urban gardens. Take three, maybe four species of food or useful plant, and grow them together in a complementary fashion so that they each help each other thrive and … Continue reading →

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Plant profile – Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare

Posted on June 8, 2014 by tikiwanderer

Fennel is one of those weeds that turns up all over the place around this city. It’s also a useful herb. As both weed and herb it has a potential role in my low-water zones. It’s in the Apiaceae (formerly … Continue reading →

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The pistachio bed

Posted on June 7, 2014 by tikiwanderer

The female pistachio bed has been developing slowly over a couple of years. The pistachio itself is in a depression. I dug the soil/sand out to about eight inches, then mixed a bag of cow manure into the sand that … Continue reading →

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Notes on brome grass (greater brome, ripgut brome, Bromus diandrus)

Posted on December 26, 2013 by tikiwanderer

This is a post to record some notes from my current reading, on the assumption that I’ll forget what I’ve read if I don’t write it down. Ripgut brome – common name for two species, diandrus and rigidus. Better common … Continue reading →

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Choosing our primary tree

Posted on November 13, 2013 by tikiwanderer

My drylands food forest – and all four zones out behind the house – are planned around a primary tree. In the very centre or near enough to, tall, shady, able to protect the space from the ravages of daily … Continue reading →

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The olive tree bed

Posted on November 3, 2013 by tikiwanderer

The olive tree is one of my secondary canopy trees in zone 4, the drylands food forest. Technically it’s a woodland rather than a forest but the aim is much the same. Because the canopies won’t interlock, each of the … Continue reading →

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Where a bandicoot has dug

Posted on October 22, 2013 by tikiwanderer

There’s a corner up the back of my zone 4 garden with soil like the rest of our area, but worse. Sandy, rainshadowed in winter, heat-burned in summer, hydrophobic off the scale. No sign of any previous soil conditioning, though … Continue reading →

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More on Enrich, the Eureka Prize winners

Posted on October 6, 2013 by tikiwanderer

Back in early September, a collaboration of researchers won the Eureka Prize for Sustainable Agriculture for their body of work on a project called Enrich. Here’s a little more about it. The Enrich project started in 2004 with the aims … Continue reading →

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Cercis siliquastrum, zone 3 / zone 4

Posted on September 24, 2013 by tikiwanderer

This year, to mark the equinox, I planted a tree. The timing’s a bit coincidental, it’s taken me over a year to source this tree and we finally got it on Saturday. But I celebrated by planting it anyhow. It’s … Continue reading →

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Report card for sustainable natural resource use in agriculture in WA

Posted on September 22, 2013 by tikiwanderer

This month the W.A. Department of Agriculture and Food released a report card on the condition of the State’s agricultural area. It summarises the current status and trend of 10 key indicators of land condition. Department Agriculture Resource Risk Management … Continue reading →

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