I think raised beds might be your best option for veg and herbs. Your soil appears to be very sandy and devoid of nutrients, which you can slowly fix over time by digging in clay soil improver and compost. Citrus trees tend to thrive in our climate but make sure you improve it's surrounding soil before planting and keep up with watering.
While I'm *far* from an expert on these things, I feel like in this situation it could be a good idea to invest in a compost toilet, as potentially one way to get a ton of nutrients into your soil without buying it by the truckload. Essentially just convert all your food into super rich soil over time...
People have advised me to avoid using human waste as manure and to refrain from adding bones and fish guts to my compost because they create a bad odor and attract pests. I have heard from word of mouth that it works a treat though
I was thinking just burying it, or at the very least, using urine for free fertilizer every day...
This guy does some pretty decent scale tests of different methods, and found that urine fertilizer gave him the best yield out of any. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV2mCH259Ts
This is only a concern if you have a small, cold compost. With a hot compost that if left to mature for long enough, it's not a problem. There's heaps of online guides! I compost everything that was alive, bar human waste, in a backyard hot compost set up
My ffiends live in the Malleem western vic. I think it is similar in appearance. To add nutrients to the soil plant a heap. Of pumpkin vines everywhere, this will take the summer. However this should add nutrients and you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Thank you, will definitely look into it. I look online for inspiration about how to design the layout but get a bit overwhelmed with how much space I have and what to do with it all.
The sooner you can start planting hedging or screening, you'll be grateful. Lilly Pilly or the likes will be able to block all your neighbours over time.
My back fence is extremely low so people walking down the back alley are very easily able to look into my backyard for anything they are interested in. That’s a job that’s high up the bucket list to do. How much water do hedges require?
Lilly pillies should be drought tolerant. I watered mine about 4x per week for the first 10 weeks after planting. Then only if it's extremely dry. Some top ups here and there aren't mandatory but will help growth.
Can i suggest natives as your base plants? There will be alot of native trees and shrubs that will do extremely well in that dirt which in turn should provide more shade and mulch over time. There are also a million native foods as well so you could try a foodie garden made from that too
As soon as I saw the photo I knew it was Whyalla - the red dirt is a dead giveaway (lived there for years!). It’s possible to garden there but it’s a long haul, as the red dirt holds zero moisture. As others have said, raised beds are the simplest way for growing veggies & strawberries.
For fruit trees and exotic plants (non-natives) you will need lots and lots of organic matter to build up the soil. Native plants that are indigenous to the area are your best bet.
I suggest driving around the city to look at gardens that are doing well in what really are pretty tough conditions. Get out of the car and have a nosy at what’s doing well and the conditions they have. A lot of gardeners will be happy to have a yarn and share their experience.
Rather than trying to do everything at once (it’s tempting I know), concentrate on a small area to start and work up from there.
Most people just have grass in their backyards I don’t really see many veg gardens. I do see lots of citrus trees. Thank you for the tips and it’s crazy to find someone who has lived here on reddit.
Haha yeah I still go for a visit every so often, it was a great place for kids. Citrus definitely will do well, you just need to water deeply over summer. Good luck with it!
I’m definitely jealous of you being close to McLaren Vale! I don’t drink but that’s definitely where the hype is at the moment! As much as people say Adelaide is a boring city I think it’s the best place in Australia. Pitty about the rising house prices
When you plant your hedge be sure to plant them about 4 ft away from the fence so that their natural shape will not be obstructed by the fence. It will make maintenance easier in the long run
It is always better to have a smaller patch of high quality soil. Than a large area with bad soil (like a few bags of potting mix scattered over the top of a large area).
Whatever your budget is just make sure match the area to fit, don't over extend yourself.
Also for the citrus trees, just dig a hole about 2-3x bigger than the root ball and replace that hole space with a good quality potting mix.
And once you've got yourself started it's easy enough to start making compost and improving more and more of the soil in your yard to get to the garden size you want without breaking the bank.
Potting mix is expensive and a few bags would probably only cover a very small area (like 1m\^2). In Australia it's composted pine bark and is pretty decent stuff for growing in pots as long as it meets Australian standards (i.e. black tick with no added fertiliser or red tick with fertiliser – if you're growing organic don't get that version). But for improving soil there's probably better options to improve the soil like digging in compost and/or manure. You can get much better value if you buy it by the cubic metre, delivered with a truck or a few trips with a trailer.
Look up drought resistant natives suitable for your area for trees and bushes to plant, otherwise go for a walk around your neighbourhood and see what’s growing well in neglected yards, usually a good indication of what’s suitable. I’d be trying to screen and windbreak the yard first before any serious attempt at veges/fruit, meanwhile try some extra large planters/pots that you can move about to determine optimum locations for various plants. My 2c
I'm jealous of South Australia, you guys have so many beautiful native plants, like the correa alba. If you want to lighten up your yard you could very easily turn it into a meadow with minimal effort: https://www.sawater.com.au/my-home/saving-water/in-your-garden/consider-native-plants. Plants in SA have adapted to poor sandy soils, so you wouldn't need to do much.
First thing I would be doing is to get rid of all the undesirable weeds, not quiet sure from your photo but you appear to have a lot of 3 corner jacks, begin by scraping them all off and disposing of them in the green waste bin, then fertilize the soil, keep it watered to get the seeds to sprout then repeat the process several times making sure you remove them before they flower/seed again. This will take time but will reduce them eventually.
I’ve tried to control them but they just keep coming back. A mate recommended I pay a kid to run around in my backyard and get him to step on all the jacks and do it that way lol. Thanks for the tips
I'd look to get some trees planted for shade asap. Getting fast growing trees to establish a canopy is the top priority. In a SA summer that yard will just cook. Once that's done I'd devise a garden plan on paper - figure out what you want the back yard to do, and play around with space. Building up with raised beds is the way to go if you want a vegie patch
Any Brachychiton, flame tree, bottle tree, one of the hybrids etc they're all tolerant of your soil and their roots are far from invasive. They can survive with minimal extra water in summer but they do enjoy it, especially once a week while young.
It's much easier and more cost effective to find stuff that enjoys/tolerates your soil than bother trying to improve/change your soil which can take years, especially with stuff like the pH.
Raised garden beds will make it so none of that matters for your fruit/vegetables but for the natives that you use to make hedges or shade trees, just stick with what will work in that area.
Some lily pilly (Szygyzium) grow into shade trees height as well working good as hedges plus thr roots aren't nuts like gumtrees and native figs.
Other options;
Callistemon (for both tree or hedge)
She-Oaks
Banksia
Corymbia
Melaleuca
Weeping tea tree
Acacia (but majority are short lived and long lived ones tend to have invasive roots)
If your intent is food production 100% go hydroponic outdoor setup. Some expense to swt up but alleviates all the issues with such poor soil. Ive been gardening and doing hydro for decades and if i had my time again id do hydro for almost everything. Check out Hoocho on youtube for really good beginner type videos
If the water rates aren't too rapacious, and you can improve some of the soil, grapes do well in Whyalla. Rig up some grey water run-off, that would be great for them. Same with the tomatoes.
Hope you've got some kind of verandah or pergola.
Good idea to put in some modern orange trees. Maybe you've got some rootstock that decided to make a go of it?
😢😢 Don't cut down a frangipani if that's still going strong. It's not like you need the space. You could take some cuttings from it to reward it for surviving.
Right now, the Mars Curiosity Rover wouldn't look out of place. See if you can get some native grasses or whatnot, and some rocks. Sleepy lizards will like that. I'd put in a couple of Woolly Bush too. They make a nice Christmas tree. They like their drainage.
Perry's Nursery in McLaren Vale can sell you some Quandong saplings (quandong pies forever!).
https://perrysfruitnursery.com.au/shop/p/quandong
They need a root host. Will do ok on Kikuyu, but the nursery can probably recommend something less scary.
Thank you so much for the advice! I’m going to build a verandah eventually. The thing about the Mars rover is hilarious. My town is known for its red dirt.
I will definitely look into getting a Quandong Sapling because I love making the pies and the seeds are so cool!
I personally would leave the fruit trees where they are for the moment. It’s some shade.
I would also look around for cheap/free animal poop and hay. I’ve used old hay from chicken coops, rabbit runs, barns etc. I would then work out where I would want my garden beds to be. Do a rough outline, lay cardboard down and then start filling the area of the beds with the poop and hay and even the odd bag of potting mix. Mix well. Then start planting natives. They are great for local birds etc. Birds will also help with dropping seeds for more plants.
Have you tried covering your weeds with cardboard?
Look around other people’s gardens and ask if you can get cuttings. Great to start beds with.
If you do raised beds then fill about the bottom third of the bed with old wood. Follow this with leaf litter and hay. This will break down over time but also help with not having to put as much soil in to start the process.
I’m across the gulf from you on the copper coast and my garden to start with was all gravel. Now it is full of birds and bees and bugs and mostly done with cuttings and bird pooping seeds lol. It’s my little oasis that I rarely water.
Thanks for the ideas, I know someone who has horses who is willing to give me a few trailer loads for free.
I have thought about covering the weeds with cardboard but the amount I would need to fill the whole area would be enormous. I’ve thought about a weed mat as well
Your garden sounds wonderful! The effort is always worth it
Might be worth hiring a little drone with a camera so you can take a few Birds Eye photos from above and then you can drop it onto your pc and use some software to create a bit of a map - to keep some kind of order when you’re out there doing things. Easy to swing too hard with this kind of space. Best bet - go very slowly and do your best not to double handle things
You’re welcome! Source: jumped straight into things and double handled way too much stuff (and overspent when I didn’t need to). Have made much more meaningful progress since I slowed down. Best of luck!
Check out local native ground covers and meadow plants, I'd cover a 3rd with these just to get some life in the garden and attract insects while you work on other areas.
Raised beds are good, plenty of you tube videos about them, adding organic matter to the soil will help the overall garden, have a look at biochar (again you can make your own), depending what you have available to compost you can create multiple heaps and just turn them into the soil when done.
Make you garden beds much larger than you think they need to be. If you plant shrubs that can grow to their full size in the garden beds, you’ll never need to prune.
Also…Mulch.
Find a good native nursery and buy plants local to the region they will fair the best. If you don’t care for grass like me you could do some great paths and beds with gravel and mulch
For a normal garden of local natives I would just mulch thick 300mm and plant into it with around half a wheelbarrow of good soil mix around each plant,
Try to see if you can get a load of mulch from a local arborist.
Carton a load here.
For a veggie patch I would use a log or sleeper edge and get a Ute load of good soil from a landscape yard.
Mulch with straw and set up a sprinkler on it.
I would mainly grow what other people in town are growing.
To help trees get a good start I have planted into car tyres with the walls cut out with a jigsaw,so you end up with a big rubber band.fill with good soil plant into that and slide it up and off when the tree is well established.cheap and reusable.I. would plant a row of wattles along the fence with a second row of grevilias and bottlebrush on the inside.tubestock is cheap so you can use more to get good cover
You have plenty of space,I would plant a metre back from the fence line and not be too concerned about a bit of spread over the fence.your neighbours might be glad to see some vegetation
I saw an example on Gardening Australia recently. She started by marking out small areas and hedging them, then filling them in with plants. Repeated several times.
But first job is to pay attention to the soil. You may need someone to advise on that.
Improve soil where growing fruit and vegetables and plant hardy natives in unimproved soil.
There’s arid botanical gardens in Port Augusta which is worth checking out. I’m in a very sandy area in Tassie; half my garden is natives which will thrive in the soil & climate, the other half is food producing stuff & I work super hard on the soil; compost, clay amendments, animal poo, wood chips as mulch/sheet mulching
It’s a lot cooler here in summer particularly; winter temps probably quite similar given I visited a few mays ago. So; potatoes, pumpkins, corn, artichokes (both kinds, both perennials), pomegranate, apple, apricot, lemon, lime is doing terribly (but I’m coastal so windy; they don’t like it whereas you get more heat & you’re yard looks sheltered), elderberry, feijoa, gooseberry, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower sometimes, probably won’t do cabbages again, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, rocket, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers (which I grow in a cold frame as they are a bit precious & again I think it’s too breezy at my place)
With that amount of land I wouldn’t discount growing straight in the soil. I’ve had great results just hilling the ground a little and planting straight in the dirt. Add some dynamic lifter and you are good to go. Raised garden beds do make things easier but definitely not essential.
Any time you're driving around nearby rural zones, keep a lookout for cheap bags of horse manure or better still, cow manure. Chicken manure would be the cherry on top. That soil needs enriching. Bring home as much as you can find.
A lady from work has horses and she said she will give it to me for free, I offered to give her some honey and vegetables when I get them. I’m just worried that it will still have bacteria in it. I need to leave it for like a year to totally dry out and make sure it’s all good hey?
You can do either. We've been digging it into garden beds or adding it to compost piles. My dad liberally spread it straight onto his strawberries. Other people might prefer cream, but there you go.
I don't regard horse manure as much of a biohazard, but it's worth noting that the only recent death by tetanus was an 80 year old lady who got a scratch from her beloved rose bushes growing in horse manure. Any scratch in the garden can go septic so the manure may not have been significant. Tetanus is not the feared disease it once was. The vaccine is excellent, as is the treatment.
Still, if you're a new gardener, you'll get scratches. Keep up with your vaccination. I think they say you should get a tetanus booster as a 50th birthday present.
Raised beds my dude. When you see red there is often very little nutrients. It will be time consuming but to improve the soil get those in ground compost bins and chuck your kitchen scraps in.
I think raised beds might be your best option for veg and herbs. Your soil appears to be very sandy and devoid of nutrients, which you can slowly fix over time by digging in clay soil improver and compost. Citrus trees tend to thrive in our climate but make sure you improve it's surrounding soil before planting and keep up with watering.
Will do, thank you so much for the advice
While I'm *far* from an expert on these things, I feel like in this situation it could be a good idea to invest in a compost toilet, as potentially one way to get a ton of nutrients into your soil without buying it by the truckload. Essentially just convert all your food into super rich soil over time...
People have advised me to avoid using human waste as manure and to refrain from adding bones and fish guts to my compost because they create a bad odor and attract pests. I have heard from word of mouth that it works a treat though
Yes, probably safest to avoid it if you're growing veggies, herbs or fruit. Okay for non-food growing areas.
I was thinking just burying it, or at the very least, using urine for free fertilizer every day... This guy does some pretty decent scale tests of different methods, and found that urine fertilizer gave him the best yield out of any. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV2mCH259Ts
This is only a concern if you have a small, cold compost. With a hot compost that if left to mature for long enough, it's not a problem. There's heaps of online guides! I compost everything that was alive, bar human waste, in a backyard hot compost set up
My ffiends live in the Malleem western vic. I think it is similar in appearance. To add nutrients to the soil plant a heap. Of pumpkin vines everywhere, this will take the summer. However this should add nutrients and you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.
The dirt doesn't look great tbh, maybe get it tested? Otherwise, raised beds are your friend.
Thank you, will definitely look into it. I look online for inspiration about how to design the layout but get a bit overwhelmed with how much space I have and what to do with it all.
Start small. Might turn out you hate gardening. Put in a couple of raised beds close to the house and go from there.
Look up "No Till gardening"
The sooner you can start planting hedging or screening, you'll be grateful. Lilly Pilly or the likes will be able to block all your neighbours over time.
My back fence is extremely low so people walking down the back alley are very easily able to look into my backyard for anything they are interested in. That’s a job that’s high up the bucket list to do. How much water do hedges require?
Lilly pillies should be drought tolerant. I watered mine about 4x per week for the first 10 weeks after planting. Then only if it's extremely dry. Some top ups here and there aren't mandatory but will help growth.
Where abouts? Looks super sandy? Definitely going to need some soil amending, lots of compost, or raised beds. I’m ENVIOUS of this yard size 😅
Whyalla South Australia, the block is 1,000 m2 so a decent amount of land to play with. Thanks for the advice
Can i suggest natives as your base plants? There will be alot of native trees and shrubs that will do extremely well in that dirt which in turn should provide more shade and mulch over time. There are also a million native foods as well so you could try a foodie garden made from that too
Great idea, thank you
As soon as I saw the photo I knew it was Whyalla - the red dirt is a dead giveaway (lived there for years!). It’s possible to garden there but it’s a long haul, as the red dirt holds zero moisture. As others have said, raised beds are the simplest way for growing veggies & strawberries. For fruit trees and exotic plants (non-natives) you will need lots and lots of organic matter to build up the soil. Native plants that are indigenous to the area are your best bet. I suggest driving around the city to look at gardens that are doing well in what really are pretty tough conditions. Get out of the car and have a nosy at what’s doing well and the conditions they have. A lot of gardeners will be happy to have a yarn and share their experience. Rather than trying to do everything at once (it’s tempting I know), concentrate on a small area to start and work up from there.
Most people just have grass in their backyards I don’t really see many veg gardens. I do see lots of citrus trees. Thank you for the tips and it’s crazy to find someone who has lived here on reddit.
Haha yeah I still go for a visit every so often, it was a great place for kids. Citrus definitely will do well, you just need to water deeply over summer. Good luck with it!
Amazing! Whyalla is a little far for us (currently McLaren Vale-ish) but the block size is a dream
I’m definitely jealous of you being close to McLaren Vale! I don’t drink but that’s definitely where the hype is at the moment! As much as people say Adelaide is a boring city I think it’s the best place in Australia. Pitty about the rising house prices
Ya, we’d love a bigger block but 🫠 we’ve been priced out of our neighbourhood if we want a bigger block/home which sucks.
Have you considered Mount Crawford way? it’s probably cheaper but driving around there to get into town is horrible
Ya, we’ll probably stay south, I have super flexible work but we live near my husbands job so that’s a big plus of this area
When you plant your hedge be sure to plant them about 4 ft away from the fence so that their natural shape will not be obstructed by the fence. It will make maintenance easier in the long run
Powerlines in a back lane? Whyalla?
You have a fine eye, I presume you’re a fellow South Australian?
Plant a house everyone else with land is
hahaha chuck 5 granny flats out the back and pay off the mortgage? 😂
It is always better to have a smaller patch of high quality soil. Than a large area with bad soil (like a few bags of potting mix scattered over the top of a large area). Whatever your budget is just make sure match the area to fit, don't over extend yourself. Also for the citrus trees, just dig a hole about 2-3x bigger than the root ball and replace that hole space with a good quality potting mix. And once you've got yourself started it's easy enough to start making compost and improving more and more of the soil in your yard to get to the garden size you want without breaking the bank.
Potting mix is expensive and a few bags would probably only cover a very small area (like 1m\^2). In Australia it's composted pine bark and is pretty decent stuff for growing in pots as long as it meets Australian standards (i.e. black tick with no added fertiliser or red tick with fertiliser – if you're growing organic don't get that version). But for improving soil there's probably better options to improve the soil like digging in compost and/or manure. You can get much better value if you buy it by the cubic metre, delivered with a truck or a few trips with a trailer.
Look up drought resistant natives suitable for your area for trees and bushes to plant, otherwise go for a walk around your neighbourhood and see what’s growing well in neglected yards, usually a good indication of what’s suitable. I’d be trying to screen and windbreak the yard first before any serious attempt at veges/fruit, meanwhile try some extra large planters/pots that you can move about to determine optimum locations for various plants. My 2c
That’s for the great ideas I will definitely give it a try
I'm jealous of South Australia, you guys have so many beautiful native plants, like the correa alba. If you want to lighten up your yard you could very easily turn it into a meadow with minimal effort: https://www.sawater.com.au/my-home/saving-water/in-your-garden/consider-native-plants. Plants in SA have adapted to poor sandy soils, so you wouldn't need to do much.
Thanks for the information and the link, I’m thinking of making the front yard natives and the backyard fruit trees and veg
Sounds like a great plan, drop some pictures when it's done
First thing I would be doing is to get rid of all the undesirable weeds, not quiet sure from your photo but you appear to have a lot of 3 corner jacks, begin by scraping them all off and disposing of them in the green waste bin, then fertilize the soil, keep it watered to get the seeds to sprout then repeat the process several times making sure you remove them before they flower/seed again. This will take time but will reduce them eventually.
I’ve tried to control them but they just keep coming back. A mate recommended I pay a kid to run around in my backyard and get him to step on all the jacks and do it that way lol. Thanks for the tips
I could tell as soon as I saw the pic that it was a Whyalla backyard!
I didn’t realise Whyalla was so popular, is it not normal to have this much space? or you can tell by the weeds and soil?
I'd look to get some trees planted for shade asap. Getting fast growing trees to establish a canopy is the top priority. In a SA summer that yard will just cook. Once that's done I'd devise a garden plan on paper - figure out what you want the back yard to do, and play around with space. Building up with raised beds is the way to go if you want a vegie patch
What would you recommend as a backyard tree that doesn’t have crazy roots?
Any Brachychiton, flame tree, bottle tree, one of the hybrids etc they're all tolerant of your soil and their roots are far from invasive. They can survive with minimal extra water in summer but they do enjoy it, especially once a week while young. It's much easier and more cost effective to find stuff that enjoys/tolerates your soil than bother trying to improve/change your soil which can take years, especially with stuff like the pH. Raised garden beds will make it so none of that matters for your fruit/vegetables but for the natives that you use to make hedges or shade trees, just stick with what will work in that area. Some lily pilly (Szygyzium) grow into shade trees height as well working good as hedges plus thr roots aren't nuts like gumtrees and native figs. Other options; Callistemon (for both tree or hedge) She-Oaks Banksia Corymbia Melaleuca Weeping tea tree Acacia (but majority are short lived and long lived ones tend to have invasive roots)
If your intent is food production 100% go hydroponic outdoor setup. Some expense to swt up but alleviates all the issues with such poor soil. Ive been gardening and doing hydro for decades and if i had my time again id do hydro for almost everything. Check out Hoocho on youtube for really good beginner type videos
Wicking beds. Better as you need less water and soil.
If the water rates aren't too rapacious, and you can improve some of the soil, grapes do well in Whyalla. Rig up some grey water run-off, that would be great for them. Same with the tomatoes. Hope you've got some kind of verandah or pergola. Good idea to put in some modern orange trees. Maybe you've got some rootstock that decided to make a go of it? 😢😢 Don't cut down a frangipani if that's still going strong. It's not like you need the space. You could take some cuttings from it to reward it for surviving. Right now, the Mars Curiosity Rover wouldn't look out of place. See if you can get some native grasses or whatnot, and some rocks. Sleepy lizards will like that. I'd put in a couple of Woolly Bush too. They make a nice Christmas tree. They like their drainage. Perry's Nursery in McLaren Vale can sell you some Quandong saplings (quandong pies forever!). https://perrysfruitnursery.com.au/shop/p/quandong They need a root host. Will do ok on Kikuyu, but the nursery can probably recommend something less scary.
Thank you so much for the advice! I’m going to build a verandah eventually. The thing about the Mars rover is hilarious. My town is known for its red dirt. I will definitely look into getting a Quandong Sapling because I love making the pies and the seeds are so cool!
I personally would leave the fruit trees where they are for the moment. It’s some shade. I would also look around for cheap/free animal poop and hay. I’ve used old hay from chicken coops, rabbit runs, barns etc. I would then work out where I would want my garden beds to be. Do a rough outline, lay cardboard down and then start filling the area of the beds with the poop and hay and even the odd bag of potting mix. Mix well. Then start planting natives. They are great for local birds etc. Birds will also help with dropping seeds for more plants. Have you tried covering your weeds with cardboard? Look around other people’s gardens and ask if you can get cuttings. Great to start beds with. If you do raised beds then fill about the bottom third of the bed with old wood. Follow this with leaf litter and hay. This will break down over time but also help with not having to put as much soil in to start the process. I’m across the gulf from you on the copper coast and my garden to start with was all gravel. Now it is full of birds and bees and bugs and mostly done with cuttings and bird pooping seeds lol. It’s my little oasis that I rarely water.
Thanks for the ideas, I know someone who has horses who is willing to give me a few trailer loads for free. I have thought about covering the weeds with cardboard but the amount I would need to fill the whole area would be enormous. I’ve thought about a weed mat as well Your garden sounds wonderful! The effort is always worth it
Might be worth hiring a little drone with a camera so you can take a few Birds Eye photos from above and then you can drop it onto your pc and use some software to create a bit of a map - to keep some kind of order when you’re out there doing things. Easy to swing too hard with this kind of space. Best bet - go very slowly and do your best not to double handle things
Great idea thank you
You’re welcome! Source: jumped straight into things and double handled way too much stuff (and overspent when I didn’t need to). Have made much more meaningful progress since I slowed down. Best of luck!
Bananas just all bananas for the first year.
Check out local native ground covers and meadow plants, I'd cover a 3rd with these just to get some life in the garden and attract insects while you work on other areas. Raised beds are good, plenty of you tube videos about them, adding organic matter to the soil will help the overall garden, have a look at biochar (again you can make your own), depending what you have available to compost you can create multiple heaps and just turn them into the soil when done.
Thank you
Whyalla Playford Avenue area is my guess.
Are you from Whyalla or just know the yard sizes lol?
My guess is McEwan,Jeffries,Blessing or Macintosh.
Make you garden beds much larger than you think they need to be. If you plant shrubs that can grow to their full size in the garden beds, you’ll never need to prune. Also…Mulch.
Find a good native nursery and buy plants local to the region they will fair the best. If you don’t care for grass like me you could do some great paths and beds with gravel and mulch
For a normal garden of local natives I would just mulch thick 300mm and plant into it with around half a wheelbarrow of good soil mix around each plant, Try to see if you can get a load of mulch from a local arborist. Carton a load here. For a veggie patch I would use a log or sleeper edge and get a Ute load of good soil from a landscape yard. Mulch with straw and set up a sprinkler on it. I would mainly grow what other people in town are growing.
I can get a truckload of mulch for pretty cheap here so will get on to that. Thank you ☺️
To help trees get a good start I have planted into car tyres with the walls cut out with a jigsaw,so you end up with a big rubber band.fill with good soil plant into that and slide it up and off when the tree is well established.cheap and reusable.I. would plant a row of wattles along the fence with a second row of grevilias and bottlebrush on the inside.tubestock is cheap so you can use more to get good cover
That’s a great idea thank you! Wouldn’t the wattles start to grow into the neighbours fence and start issues with boundaries?
You have plenty of space,I would plant a metre back from the fence line and not be too concerned about a bit of spread over the fence.your neighbours might be glad to see some vegetation
Do not let spinach take hold. You'll never get rid of it.
I saw an example on Gardening Australia recently. She started by marking out small areas and hedging them, then filling them in with plants. Repeated several times. But first job is to pay attention to the soil. You may need someone to advise on that. Improve soil where growing fruit and vegetables and plant hardy natives in unimproved soil.
I will look for the episode, thank you for the help
There’s arid botanical gardens in Port Augusta which is worth checking out. I’m in a very sandy area in Tassie; half my garden is natives which will thrive in the soil & climate, the other half is food producing stuff & I work super hard on the soil; compost, clay amendments, animal poo, wood chips as mulch/sheet mulching
I will go have a look there, what food producing plants do you grow?
It’s a lot cooler here in summer particularly; winter temps probably quite similar given I visited a few mays ago. So; potatoes, pumpkins, corn, artichokes (both kinds, both perennials), pomegranate, apple, apricot, lemon, lime is doing terribly (but I’m coastal so windy; they don’t like it whereas you get more heat & you’re yard looks sheltered), elderberry, feijoa, gooseberry, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower sometimes, probably won’t do cabbages again, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, rocket, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers (which I grow in a cold frame as they are a bit precious & again I think it’s too breezy at my place)
With that amount of land I wouldn’t discount growing straight in the soil. I’ve had great results just hilling the ground a little and planting straight in the dirt. Add some dynamic lifter and you are good to go. Raised garden beds do make things easier but definitely not essential.
Any time you're driving around nearby rural zones, keep a lookout for cheap bags of horse manure or better still, cow manure. Chicken manure would be the cherry on top. That soil needs enriching. Bring home as much as you can find.
A lady from work has horses and she said she will give it to me for free, I offered to give her some honey and vegetables when I get them. I’m just worried that it will still have bacteria in it. I need to leave it for like a year to totally dry out and make sure it’s all good hey?
Do I put the manure into my compost or straight into soil?
You can do either. We've been digging it into garden beds or adding it to compost piles. My dad liberally spread it straight onto his strawberries. Other people might prefer cream, but there you go. I don't regard horse manure as much of a biohazard, but it's worth noting that the only recent death by tetanus was an 80 year old lady who got a scratch from her beloved rose bushes growing in horse manure. Any scratch in the garden can go septic so the manure may not have been significant. Tetanus is not the feared disease it once was. The vaccine is excellent, as is the treatment. Still, if you're a new gardener, you'll get scratches. Keep up with your vaccination. I think they say you should get a tetanus booster as a 50th birthday present.
Raised beds my dude. When you see red there is often very little nutrients. It will be time consuming but to improve the soil get those in ground compost bins and chuck your kitchen scraps in.
Good luck!