Bean Ladders and Junk Mail Mulch

Surviving this "Winter' has been hard going in the vegetable gardens. Annuals have suffered miserably from the wind and lack of rain. I've been hand watering just so I can keep the plants alive.

Since there has been no grass a'growing there has been no a'mowing, so I've not had grass clippings on hand to mulch with for months. To make do, I've been, methodically collecting junk mail to serve as my primary mulching material.

After a few weeks of collecting newspapers and catalogues from neighborhood roadsides I've got the routine down pat and have recoated my whole garden with a carpet of paper.

While I'm paper-in-the-garden obsessed -- being a dedicated junk mail gardener --  I surprised myself how effective slapping down even more paper can be for retaining and protecting the goodies underneath and, of course, suppressing weeds.

I'm all for that. 

(See a weed: throw some wet paper over it.)

Slapped down wet, over the first few days it's a good idea to hose the paper often so that it truly settles. To aid the process, and to weigh it down against the wind, even a light sprinkling of whatever vegetive mulch you have will do. Twigs, sticks, old pieces of clothing, pulled weeds, bush trims -- whatever -- just throw what ever you've got on top. Of course the more 'real'  green mulch you have the more aesthetic the landscape. A bale of hay, for instance, will go a long way lightly sprinkled over newspapered garden beds.

My trellis in its early days

So with the mulching taken care of -- and a new routine and hobby it is too (maybe as a ritual a couple of times each year) -- I planted up big as soon as we started to get some rain.

Beans Beans Beans

Since I already had my trellis in situ and my Choko vines were already enlivened and climbing over it , I've been planting a mix of climbing beans under neath. I didn't want to rely on my old method of training the beans up knotted clothing because it proved a cumbersome ascent for them and the cloth was always too flappy and most climbers didn't take to the fabrics as preferred perches. 

Instead I've trimmed  wire mesh into narrow drops that fall from the trellis tops to the ground. I slide a stick -- any longish stick(bamboo is good) -- along most of the length  to hold the ladder upright and against the wind.

They are completely mobile so as soon as bean sticks its little seedling head above the soil I can drop a ladder within its reach. Because they are made from flexible wire with a (easily slid) stick as a backbone, the ladders are effortlessly bent to shape or angled  in diagonals to reach wherever the target plant is located.

And the beans love their new ladders. I reckon that after each growing season all I may need to do is cut the bean stork at ground level and move the ladder elsewhere -- even with its vegetation still attached.

Too easy. 

I suspect that a similar technique may suit tomatoes -- support them from above rather than from below.

Watering via terracotta potting

In other snippets, I've managed to collect even more terracotta wine holders and these have proven a very efficient means of irrigating the garden. 

The hype may indeed be true.

While my dogs (or the crows) will knock the lids off them -- the only drawback I've had with them is that once 'opened' small cane toads jump into the water filled tube and can't get out. So while they make great cane toad traps evicting the toads to  freezer heaven is a difficult exercise. 

Nonetheless, I'm hoping that by combining terracotta pots with my skills in tench mulching with paper -- I should be able to colonise a section of garden that now struggles for moisture as it is all sand. I've thrown over it a load of wood chips but the area needs a lot more attention if plants are going to thrive there. Among it all I have trenches packed with newspapers (and whatever) which have been embedded there for over 12 months and the sand is turning into soil.

I'm now planting out a lot of lemongrass in this area so that I can grow more of my own mulch. Lemongrass grows a superb mulching material with its stems that begs to be harvested at least twice per year. 

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The Humble Choko

Chokoes and I have a dedicated symbiotic relationship

That's an interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

People question my  support of the humble choko but when you take to the vine like I do my love  is unconditional.

• They are so easy to grow, anyone can.
• They are always bountiful.
• They are low carbohydrate.
• They can be prepared many different ways.
• They fruit for a very long season.
• They offer different cuisine options each stage of their aging.

That said I also think that the ever so 'umble choko is a design delight. As a vigorous vine it can be grown over almost anything to mask, to shade, to decorate ... In that regard it is the most important plant in my backyard. 

Along with an assortment of beans, the choko is the plant that climbs over my trellis to shade the salad plants underneath during hot weather.  A choko vine is so easy to groom and maintain -- snip here and there -- so that I can regulate light and shade as conditions suit.  

Come Winter I simply cut the vines back hard.

Then the vines start to fruit. The young fruits are soft and tasty such that I prefer them to many varieties of zucchini. There's no ready fungal problems like those you get with other squashes and the young fruits keep on coming over a long period of time. As the fruit ages and enlarges your culinary options may change but then  the humble choko may be the most productive plant you have growing. 

I now use choko vines as ground cover to keep the weeds down over new mulch. It's so easy: just dig a small hole with your fingers and embed some  fruit. Then step back. Choko growth in its early stages is always entertaining. It is also these early shoots that offer further culinary options in their own right (as does the tubers which can be prepared like yams).

I mean, seriously, what's not to like? Even the young leaves can be used in salads.

And when you get so many chokoes that you cannot eat them all: they make great fodder for chooks ... and neighbours.

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Chokoes are us.

I am beginning to get obsessed with chokoes as they are so easy to grow and have many edible attributes -- leaves, fruit and roots. Cooking them is one issue. Growing another.

Then there is the un-respected art of using choko vines for shading and design.In that regard my trellis rocks and is so chocko friendly the beans are, for the moment, taking second place in my outback love life.

And what outback dunny is complete without choko decoration?

Not that I can nowadays go 'our back' but there was a certain quirky charm in the tradition of disguising the habit under greenery.

Such a versatile vegetable.

From New Orleans Lance Hill writes that he is seeking choko stock from local heirlooms that are naturally resistant to anthracnose . (Is that an issue here?) He goes on,

 "Here we only eat the fruit—no one ever thought to eat the leaves or shoots. The second phase of my project is to create an international on-line recipe site to increase the uses of mirlitons, but food habits are deeply entrenched. The Cajuns of Southwest Louisiana do eat them raw like celery sticks. They pickle them as well.Truly it is a remarkable and thoroughly disrespected vegetable....Anyway, keep me posted on Chokos. I am interested in all lore, growing methods, plant pests and diseases, and recipes and textile uses."

I'm harvesting fruits at egg size and have planted 8 vines to keep me (and the chooks) supplied. At that size you can indeed eat them like celery sticks or radishes.

Since I have so many vines it is interesting to compare one with the other. They are all exciting to monitor although some are more  exciting than others. In way of structural layout overhead on a trellis beats growing the vines  up a wall. It is much easier to locate the fruits from below when they are above you as they hang down nicely in profile , silhouetted against the sky.

The setup is more aesthetic that way too. While the choko flower is a bit passe, the way the fruiting and flowering tendrils project themselves into the air is delightful filigree.

Tonight I did a quick run around and harvested at walnut size...

Then cooked them.

...sauteed in bacon, shallots and garlic with a cream, Basil and Parmesan sauce. Not bad tucker. No peeling. Not much of anything in way of preparation chores.

Any big ones that escape my early harvest are thrown into the pen as chook food.

I'm going to be drowned in chokoes I'm sure as new fruits form daily. But they are so versatile at table if you think outside the box.

But when Googling your options remember that the  humble choko is also known as chuchu, sayote, tayota, chayote, chocho, chow-chow, christophene, mirliton, vegetable pear, or pear squash. And since they emanate from the Mexico territory their cuisine traditions lend themselves to things like crunchy  salsas. However, no Sunday lamb roast is complete without chokoes being included in the roasting pan,.  Chokoes -- as mirlitons -- are also integrated into French cuisine via their ready consumption by Louisiana Cajuns and Creoles.

Here's a few recipes to wet the appetite: chayote recipes  -- that map the amazing versatility of the abused veg with some really tasty and exotic selections. Also here's an extensive list of choko recipe links that seem almost exhaustive: chayote recipes. 

Or for the Asiatic tastebud prone this is an easy winner: Pop’s Thai Friend’s Thai Chayote Squash Recipe as does the Vietnamese styled Sach ko char xu.

Bon appetit.

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Salading it in Summer!

Maybe the weather has been on my side (salad), but the main reason I built my over bearing shade-generating trellis seems to be fulfilled: it's late January and I'm harvesting salad greens!

The shade isn't enough as it is remarkable how much shade you need to 'protect' greens from burning or bolting. While I cannot insulate them from humidity -- underneath the structure, under the New Guinea Bean/Cucuzzi, Chokoes and sundry climbers aloft, I'm growing and harvesting chicory, matsuma  and arugula (rocket). 

Lunchtime -- my salad time -- is thrilling. Culinary chomping.

Growing salad vegetables -- green leafy things -- is the absolute main reason why you need to have a garden. Tragically, in the sub tropics just at the time of year when you want to munch more on foliage, your plants will usually fail to thrive or sabotage your culinary plans by seeding.

Working against that imposition of Mother Nature  has been my quest. Promoting  unnatural green habits has been my marker...

I'm also generating dandelions but they aren't shaded and pay the price. Their leaves burn when they aren't wilting in the Summer sun. 

Pity as I do like a good dandelion leaf. My salading is a weedful mix and texture and taste are exotic. In comparison to my preferred greens your main stream cos lettuce is tasteless.

Elsewhere -- out there under the Summer sun -- I'm growing and harvesting capsicums to good effect. They are a bit dry as I have had a lot of trouble keeping water up to them and it has been dry.

The crows are sampling my tomatoes before I can get to them but my garden is egg plant self sufficient.

I haven't as yet needed to fall back on my reserve greens for salading: sweet potato or chocko leaves, Ceylon spinach (yuk!) and water spinach. They aren't my favorites. I don't hold to the adage that just because you can grow it you  have to eat it.

Trellis Gardening: Rag Snakes

Higgledy Piggledy Sticks

Now that the rain has finally visited the neighborhood, the vegetable garden is taking off. For those plants that climb, above their cute little cellulose heads is my trellis.

Among the keener climbers, some have already reached the rafters. Madagascar Bean being way out ahead of the competition.

My french beans have not climbed as high as I'd expected. I need to get some snake beans in for Summer and they'll climb with abandon. But the Frenchies have been lacking in the growth stakes except for the always tasty Purple Beans -- my favorite.

But as I plant and foster care my plants -- adding bits and pieces to my structure and game plan -- I'm inventing new ways and means to snake and ladder their climb upwards.

Snakes.

The bamboo frame of my trellis is not climber friendly: too smooth. So I add odd bits of branches, sticks and stuff  higgledy piggledy to give perches. I call these add ons, "ladders".

After experimenting with on hand material to create drop -- I call these drops  'snakes' -- I think I'm finally on a possible winner: old rags, ripped up and knotted together.

I had in mind kite tails --where the knots serve to add weight to the drop and offer   ledges so that there's something for the vine to hang onto. 

Raggedy tails  like this are tied to the rafters and dropped over the targeted plant -- maybe winding the drop around the plant like a cloth vine itself. There is no need to tie the cloth to the plant or fiddle with the plant's tendrils to hook it up with the snake.

The beauty of old clothing material is that you can pull it any which way to 'fit' the plant.

Nature takes its course and the snake and vine soon enough marry and climb upwards for happy ever aftering.

Ladders

 I had used rope for the snakes but the rope was nylon and didn't offer an easy grip. It was also light -- too light -- and without being anchored, waved in the wind. Jute or sisal rope would have been good but it's expensive. With the mix of rag material (the very free rag material) -- I get a bit of stretch that allows the climbing plant to sway without fear of being uprooted by a 20 knot plus gusts.

That the rags will rot in time is no problem as most of my climbing  plants are non perennial or short lived. And besides anything that wants to stay up there over a few Summers will thicken at its base. Of course repair is easy: just add a torn rag and knot it on.

I'd like to use designer ragging so that my snakes are colourful additions to the landscape. Maybe if I group rag drops in threes or more, parallel to one another, they'd impress like colourful curtaining.

Addition:


To add weight to the snakes , offer greater perches and more structure I'm tying any old twigs to the the knots. This addition gives the drops more form so that there is more to hang onto. This is useful at the end as the twigs enable the rag tails to fall more heavily to the ground next to the vine so that they are more in place and ready for hook up.

Reach for it! -- Trellis Gardening: Snakes and Ladders

 One of my best engineering initiatives was to construct a trellis over a section of my vegetable garden . I did it because I wanted to grow salad greens longer into each Summer of heat and humidity here in the sub tropics.

Now that I have 'planted out' the space with height in mind, I get to enjoy tendril creep as the climbers and ramblers I've planted head skywards.

My main impulse was to foster shade, but when I realized that in harvesting and creating shade I could also customize the source of the shade  a whole  new prospect emerged .

I've used old palm fronds as my initial shade resource by weaving them over and through the trellis frame. As the vegetation takes off and climbs  my plan is to  replace the fronds with living shade which I can trim back as required -- depending on the seasons.

So now climbing over my trellis are many bean species, Chokoes, cucumbers, Ceylon Spinach, and a grape vine ... in fact anything I can get that climbs or clambers. 

Underneath it is much cooler than elsewhere in the garden but not as cool as I'd like. I do, however, get better shading -- a cooler underneath -- from the palm fronds than I do from two runs of shade cloth in the mix.

So successful and engaging has been the exercise that I may build a further trellis system over the rest of the vegetable garden. 

I thought that the main game was to build a trellis out of so many uprights and rafters and to then climb the plants up the uprights. But my trellis design  has proven much more versatile. 

While I can rest bean poles/climbing poles/sticks against the frame to encourage climbing, I'm experimenting with dropping poles, ropes, old hoses, etc from the frame to the climbing plants below. I suspect my best option may be to use coarse, maybe jute, rope -- like so many bell ropes hanging down. For now, I'm using whatever I can get.

I've learnt that while bamboo is a useful material (also light, feral free and easily worked with) for building a trellis -- bamboo canes have a very smooth surface and don't foster tendril attachment as  coarser materials do.

The main game with trellises in my experience is to use  a bean pole approach rather than mesh as mesh is so hard to relocate and clean up after each seasonal usage. So single uprights (or 'drops' as in the case of ropes) make more sense to me as they are easier to manage than intertwined wire.

This means that my trellis is always evolving: new plants, new structures, new ways to climb up ... as I pursue a sort of 'Snakes and Ladders' approach: climbs up/drops down.

 

The Joy of Choko

Choko variety at Botanical Gardens in New Orleans-Photo Lance Hill

I have been fiddling with my wonderful trellis that has micro-climated my vegetable gardening so much that I am aghast at the consequence a few poles can make.

Strung over my trellis for now is a rag tag collection of dry palm fronds. Underneath is mottled shade and some healthy photosynthesis by a mix of keenly growing vegetables.

I've been busy planting.

To avail myself of the structure I've planted a lot of climbing beans and cucumbers so that green stuff is expected to climb. I also planted a grape vine...

But on reflection, the most useful of the plants I've planted to adorn my trellis is choko. Like grape vines, it's easy to cut back and tame choko vines and they will shade the underneath.

On a site dedicated to Choko -- Mirlitons.org --

Mirlitons.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the conservation and innovative uses of Louisiana heirloom mirlitons. “Mirliton” is the Louisiana name for the iconic perennial climbing squash (botanical name: Sechium edule) better known as “chayote” in the Western Hemisphere.(...and 'Choko' in Australia--DR)

there's an interesting aside about the vine's utility:

Katrina left the New Orleans area with thousands of empty lots. Growing mirlitons on overhead trellises is an excellent form of urban commercial micro-gardening and the shade canopy would inhibit weed growth—a big problem with abandoned lots. In addition, there are a myriad of uses for mirlitons that have not been explored commercially, including food preserving and the use of vines for textiles.

Of course with Chokoes you'll want to personally determine how much shade falls below but it's an easy business to do.

Anyway the site's resident Choko expert -- Dr Lance Hill -- also offers a great gallery of photographs  that showcase his Adopt-A-Mirliton, heirloom preservation and growers' network projects. He also explores systems for trellising of chokoes and offers many photographs of trellis techniques.

Hill also links to a cookbook dedicated to Chokoes and written by Roslyn Deakin here in Australia which offers 176 ways to prepare Chokoes.

How many do you know?

So there are indeed folk out there who respect and value the humble Choko. It's a celebration I have joined.

As I move more rigorously into Choko mode I'm embracing the vegetable with abandon. As it happens, the local  seed supplier, Green Harvest , also take up the cause of the neglected Choko. 

In their latest published notes/newsletter, GH call the Choko, "the most unappreciated vegetable in Australia"  and then go on to extol its versatility.

Start your harvest early  by steaming the tender shoots and young leaves. Then pick the small, egg sized chokos; these are simply delicious with more flavour than zuchinnis. (As for the old large ones)...in Mexico they simply split them open to remove the nutritious and tasty seeds and feed the rest to the cows."

So maybe by dint of habit and neglect we're missing out on a bounty?

A sponge garden under the trellis

Aside from some rare references on line and a review of the method in the water harvesting works of Brad Lancaster there is not much information to be had about 'sponge gardening' (aka 'vertical mulching').

There's even less about harnessing newspaper as 'sponge' material. 

As I have written before -- here and here -- I deploy a lot of newspaper in my vegetable garden. I, in fact, 'paper' the garden with newsprint. 

On sandy soils papering is my way of creating sponges to hold water and protect soil biota. 

I started as we all might do with the newspaper-plus-mulch technique of weed suppression. But now, I am covering my newspaperings with grass clippings  not so much as herbicide, but  to (a) stop the sheets blowing away and to (b) add a source of Nitrogen to assist the break down of the paper without local leeching. As I experiment more aggressively with deeper layers of paper over the soil between the garden beds, newspaper becomes a crucial tool.

Note to self: Carbon Nitrogen(C:N) Ratio

Newspaper-- 800:1

Grass Clippings -- dry 19:1  wet 15:1

I now have rivers of paper running  like a grid throughout my garden -- laid down where the paths are. This is a thick lasagna layer almost 2 inches/5 cm thick. My protocol is that every now and then (eg: twice yearly at least) I add more newspaper (and grass clippings) as the old layers beak down.  I keep manuring the parallel beds in order, among other reasons, to keep Nitrogen levels up.

It's carpet gardening or, in reference to natural systems, 'perched' gardening.

perched lake:A lake that is isolated above the groundwater table by a layer of rock or organic material.
Perched lakes can occur in depressions where an impermeable layer has formed in the soils near the surface. These layers develop as a result of chemical reactions between the soil and water and gradually precipitate organic and inorganic matter in the soil profile. The precipitated matter eventually forms an impermeable layer, preventing water from percolating to the water table. The depression will then retain rainfall and runoff and a lake will form that is ‘perched’ above the water table.
Brown Lake on North Stadbroke Island is an example of a perched lake.

There's a lot of spin in gardening discourse. You are told to add this and buy that. But the best approach is to use what you can get and recycle rather than what you may have to buy in -- and I can get grass clippings and newspapers in a seeming endless supply so I'm building my garden out of  those core elements.

Vertical mulching with newspaper:beginning process

Where months ago I'd dug vertical holes -- up to half a metre deep -- and piled in newspaper, cardboard packaging and grass clippings plus a handfull of manure -- today there is a  lot of exciting biological activity: a thick mulchy, wet sponge occupied by a range of soil critters of the kind you'd expect to find on a forest floor.

Colonisation runs in stages: ants, slaters, termites, (as moisture consolidates) grubs   and worms... Depending on weather, and moisture content especially, the process takes months as the break down -- the rotting -- occurs. When the hole or trench implodes as the paper structure collapses and falls in on itself, grass clippings and leaves fill up the spaced to carpet the depression in the soil. Underneath the  soil is soggy and any trench dug may be a walking hazard if you don't know its location. The hole becomes a bona fide sink and when hand watering, I run the hose into it to wet it.

I also throw into these trenches old bones and dead cane toads (imported from my freezer where I've 'put them to eternal sleep').

Later I developed the technique of digging shallow trenches along the edges of the garden beds and burying rolled up newspapers like one long paper tube. These acted as a spongy frame around each garden bed.

Rolled up newspaper 3 months  after  horizontal burial

However, I suspect my single layer  tubing wasn't deep enough. The ease with which the paper rots and merges with the surrounding sand suggests that one layer deep and one layer thick  in itself isn't sufficient.

Now, as I develop confidence in the methodology I'm making the paper layers on the paths thicker by laying down more newspaper over what has been spread out before. 

I suspect there is an optimum thickness that is season and moisture dependent so I have to keep checking underneath this sheeting to see what is happening below. Too much 'fresh' newspaper and the water will run off and the Nitrogen demand may exhaust the local soil.

Since I am on flat sandy ground I cannot harness gravity to good effect so these papered walks are sponge sinks that are designed to hold moisture above the sand longer that the  beds next door. 

In sync with the paper burying I've been extending my trellises. I prefer to use  palm fronds as shade on these as they don't catch the wind and pull at the structure as attached shade cloth does. The fronds are also easy throwaway for mulching after seasonal use. They are also free.

I weave the fronds in and out of the trellis frame  to locate shade where I want and don't want it to fall. So the fronds make shade very customisable in my shade boutique.

This is in contrast to the method of relying on companion planting  using taller plants(eg: sweet corn)  or trees as shade sources. With a trellis -- even if it is climbed over by plants -- you have much more control over shade and light.

My 2 metre high trellis is also very versatile as I can grow climbers up poles resting any which way without having to stoop while gardening beneath or putting in a new standalone structure. Most trellis systems I think aren't tall enough. Since my garden runs north south I'm deploying lean-to effect on the northern and southern aspects in order to give myself shade options through the Summer heat.

Underneath the environment has  experienced  a climate change.  I didn't expect the impact a few poles strung together could have on what it felt like in mottled shade. The air is cooler. There's less dry out of the mulch and soil. There is more stable environment throughout the day: less in the way of extremes. I also have a sense of working not just in horizontal mode. The garden has 'risen up' and seems ready to hang and clamber. It becomes more a forest rather than a succession of beds. 

I haven't finished the structure yet as I have more canes to harvest and erect, but I have sown beans, choko and cucumbers so that they can start their climb skywards.

Trellis shade: cooler plants

A neighbor has given me a dwarf banana plant. It is one third the height of your standard banana 'stem' so I'm delighted to have such botanical utility on hand.

Such a compact item will fit in anywhere.

Anecdote: 'My neighbor' has a great garden so we got to talking about how he built up his soil -- as one does here where I live 'cause it's sand all the way down. "Seaweed", he says -- and he named a beach north of town where it always collects and washes up. "Ah, right," says I, who is also a seaweed collector. But then he says the gov environment guys visited him at home to inform him that collecting seaweed is a no-no. At hom they came a knocking! How absurd is that when the local council has to grade the beaches here to remove the rotting stench of the red seaweed that washes up this time of year. It's slippery and slimy and cakes the sand up to the high tide line. Within its putrid depths lurk the dreaded sand flies... I fill  a bag of what may come my way when I'm out and about and he says that he does the midnight run. I'm sure the right to washed up seaweed must be listed in some international freedom charter some where. It's like fire wood or mushrooms.

To go with my nanna I built the first of the trellises I had in mind. (See: Summer Heat, Bean Trellises and Palm Fronds.)

My trellis is a scaffold made from feral bamboo canes with a shelf two metres above the ground.

I've thrown palm fronds atop this as I wait to see what happens in the next big blow. 

Shaded underneath.

I'm thinking that all I need is a time window so that beans and other climbers can grow to clamber over the frame  to root it and supply shade below. Then I need only add the fronds selectively during the Summer bolting-to-seed season. I hope  to not go down the thatching route as any attaching would offer  the wind traction to pull my structure apart.

While I expect the fronds to sail away with the wind, that's no big deal. So long as I don't attach them to the trellis, I maybe get to keep it. 

The impression is that I've interior decorated the backyard and gone  islander style.

Once I'd built the trellis I realised that if I built one for each bed -- and that's a lot of bamboo harvesting: 15-20 canes for each 5 metre long bed! -- the nature of the garden changes dramatically. 

I can now go 'up' easily and hang my vegetables aloft while the mix of trellis and climbing plants will act as a wind break on  sensitive items below. 

The design I'm replicating -- simple though it is -- is a sort of Swiss Army Knife  for the vegetable garden. 

It's like all my Christmases have come at once. No more staking. Whatever I may grow I can 'support' if required by leaning a cane against this structure in the same way that a broom rests against a wall. I don't even need to deep bury an end or tie  a pole into place. 

I can't wait to get going with some more beans to see me through Summer. Snake beans  survive the Summer here, but require a tall trellis. 

Voila! That I got. 

Other fresh beans are not so happy in the heat so I'm hoping to utilize shading so I  can crop them .

Already I've planted choko to my trellis and will add Ceylon Spinach  (another Summer stalwart although I dislike its glutinous nature) and see how far I can reach with climbing cucumbers. You'll note that using lean-to ascending struts should suit cucumber growing.

The growing permutations with a trellis like this are limited only by my imagination (and bamboo supply).

I am reminded of  the inner suburbs of Melbourne before gentrification where the backyards of so many Italian and Greek  migrants  always had structures built above the garden beds -- beds more often than not between cement paths. Along these trellises were grown grape and passionfruit vines as all space every which way was harnessed to the harvest.

Maybe my trellis will one day get a makeover and become permanent. But for now: free, easily cut and harvested bamboo -- which will rot away but is easily replaced..

GARDEN NOTES/UPDATES

Afterward:The alternative is to use a Permaculture approach and grow climbing plants over other plants. Been there. Done that.  My complication is that I have to concentrate my soil making and formatting my gardening into management level plots requires a certain schematic rigidity to layout -- neither feral nor free form planting.  My primary interest is shade and to get enough shade from 'other plants' so that I can control how much sunshine and how much shade on a day to day basis isn't  possible with tandem planting. Similarly the plants I'd need to grow for climbing upon aren't the ones I want to necessarily eat. I don't grow corn but I grow sunflowers. I love growing sunflowers but because I like to bunch them up there's not much room for other stuff.

 Tenerumi

Catch up Report: After another session harvesting bamboo I extended my trellising to another few beds and gave myself over to the dynamic logic of the enterprise. While I'll need more bamboo harvesting time -- and spending time in a bamboo grove is very Zen, hacking away, I assure you -- the impact on my patch has been extraordinary. The environment has changed drastically just with the poles and cross pieces and a few fronds. I planted chockoes in each bed and got myself some climbing bean seeds. I'll experiment with zuchini and cucumbers as climber candidates. I have also tracked down an Italian climber vine that is used in soups and pasta dishes: Tenerumi -- a Sicilian Squash. I may also plant one grape vine as that, while perennial,  is deciduous.

Water upkeep: I've also been laying down more newspaper on my garden 'paths' which serve as sponge/vertical mulch troughs.(See: Growing a meal on sandy soils ). Mulching beds like this -- thick newspaper or cardboard layers covered with grass clippings -- along the paths between my garden beds really hold the water in a way the beds do not. While these new layerings haven't broken down yet, I suspect I've become paper obsessed and am burying papers and cardboards in cooee of anything that grows. I dug a deep trough near the banana I planted. And the 'ditches' I had dug for my pawpaw circle beds three months ago (and filled with newspapers and brush cuttings)are now musty and full of compost matter enough for me to plant sweet potato in them today. While the standard approach in gardening is to fret over  your garden beds I've gone  lateral and am now caught up in making the best use of my pathways as passive irrigation ditches. Water  stays put longer in these paper sponges and I'm beginning to wonder if I should be watering these  troughs rather than the beds themselves. How much paper can I lay down without leeching too much Nitrogen from the beds nearby -- as its break down has an input quotient?

Summer Heat, BeanTrellises and Palm Fronds

The sudden onset of  -- not just warm but -- hot weather here has drawn my attention to the horrors of Summer. In the sub tropics what you assume to be an opportune growing season is thwarted by the fact that so many vegetables will run quickly to seed.

Unless you plant little known exotics such as Kangkong you an end up surviving a  Summer without salad greens --at all.

So extending salad garden productivity is something that interests me.

Of course, the first thing to do is shade  your salad crop. But do I want to go to the cost  of draping shade cloth all over the garden and paying Bunnings for the privilege? And shade cloth can look so ugly. It's hardly potager de rigueur.

So I went looking for some structure I could use to shade my crop. I've had a succession of bad experiences   staking vegetables -- especially beans and tomatoes. Despite the design, they never work well for me.

So I gave up staking and will now let my tomato fruits rest on mulch. 

I thought that if I harvested more feral bamboo I'd have a lot of structural options. But as soon as I rammed a freshly harvested running bamboo cane into the earth, it may root.

Then I found this design by Thomas Wagner Nielsen:

Nielsen, a Danish gardener, has a web site -- happyfarming.com -- which focuses on such matters as designing the best of all possible bean trellis. He even offers a free ebook on the topic: Bean Trellis Tips.

Since I'm seeking shade first and staking support second, Nielsen's imaginative design suits me to a T. While I get to use bamboo for my cross beams, I'm planning on erecting uprights with drift wood that accumulate on the shoreline here  as so much  dead forest. (We built our chook pen out of it). The driftwood won't invade my patch and the gnarled and twisted grey wood shapes add a certain sculptural substance to the outlook. 

So I simply insert my uprights and lash on some bamboo to form the horizontals. For my shade, I don't need expensive shade cloth. Around here, for obscure reasons best known to themselves, people create gardens completely out of palms, and palms drop fronds which make excellent shade material.

For the palm grower fronds are a disposal problem as they are so big and cumbersome.

So once I have my structure: Voila! Instant shade. Anytime. I just need to collect some fronds from my neighbours and throw them where I need them, like roofing. I use them for shade over Summer then mulch them.