I guess I better give a bit of background because folks get the wrong idea all the time.
I’m not a botanist, or agronomist, or plant scientist, and my formal education is pretty much nil. I’m just a highschool drop-out come fruit picker, and being flat broke all the time I was always keen on foraging and learning about plants. Every new food source meant a couple of free meals and another day that I could just have a bit of a fish and just chill out by the river, instead of working my butt off for bugger all $.
When me and the Mrs started this business our actual plant growing experience was pretty much nil too, so we did what everyone else does. We just believed what the expert farmers and advisors told us. After all, they had been doing things forever and they were paying their bills?
Over time I began to see that many of these plant “facts” were actually one-off untested observations.
Another thing I began to notice is that folks do things based on what works in ideal conditions, but I don’t have ideal conditions. I don’t own acres of flat red or black loam, irrigation, and machinery. I just rent 25acres of regrowth scrub with a dry rocky rubble soil that has bugger all water, and what little it does have constantly drains like a sieve.
I don’t have their lifetime of experience or their green thumb either, so when things start to derail I didn’t notice, or by the time I did it was too late anyway. What seemed to work great for them, often didn’t work at all for me.
I reckon a lot of folks are the same?
For this reason one day I totally cracked it and decided from that day forward to never believe anything that I have not seen firsthand myself. It’s how I roll now and I don’t regret that decision in the slightest. Instead, I just suck up as much info as I can like a great big manically obsessive sponge.
I spend 1000’s of hours reading studies and researching plants and I join every club, group, forum, website, newsletter, or mailing list I can get my hands on. If it is anyway related to rare plants, germination, gardening, farming, botany, plant identification, seed swapping, self-sufficiency, weeds, bush foods, aquaponics, aquaculture, permaculture, prepping, you name it, I am a member or I will be as soon as I physically can. I then use that mountain of information as the basis for extensive side by side trials to figure out what really DOES work for me here.
That’s what the links below are all about.
They are not what I reckon you should do, as how the bloody hell would I know?
If you want to compare your climate with mine then the Bundaberg Wikipedia page is a good start. Bundaberg is my nearest real town and it’s a little over an hour’s drive. Here it gets a little hotter, a little cooler, and a lot less consistent rain as we are higher up and further from the coast, but it’s pretty close.
Because well-meaning folks repeat one-off observations or opinions as proven facts, accidentally misinforming the average dude in the street, I have also decided I will never do that. I can’t offer any opinion about things I haven’t actually done. I don’t know about snow, or indoor growth, or hydroponics, or broadacre cropping, or what plants will work best at your place with your climate and your soil-biota, for the simple reason that I haven’t ever done it myself.
You should definitely not take anything I say as a fact, as in my expert opinion, “expert opinions” are very often wrong…
There is nothing that we do here that you can’t do yourself at home, but there are a couple of rules if you want a quality product that will store and germinate well. This may sound obvious but folks get impatient or greedy and stuff it up all the time! Select your best fruit from…
Our basic soil mix is exactly the same for every single plant species we grow. There are many reasons for this. The main one is that it worked consistently best for the widest range of species in our very extensive side by side trials. I germinated and grew 100’s of different species in a couple…
With seeds that are not tiny, we already have numbers of in our collection, or are known to be easy germinators, or even if the weather is consistently warm and sunny, then this is the technique I use. Anything I have never grown before, or species that have tiny seeds, or if the weather is…
If the seeds are super small, the weather is cold but they like it hot and humid, or the species is new to my collection, then this is a method I always use in my trials. I also do other things like using the Large common or warm weather germination technique. Depending on the rarity…
Straight off the bat I will say that germination of aquatic seeds is not the same as germination of normal plants and vegetables. It is no harder to do, and the greenness of your thumbs is totally irrelevant, but there are rules and methods specific to each of them. If you don’t give the conditions…
If I believe the species benefits from this method I always say so in the descriptive text. Many other plant species may also benefit from it but if I don’t personally suggest it, then that’s because I don’t know for sure. Or failing that I ran a side by side trial and there was no…
Some species have natural chemicals within them that prevent germination of the seeds. They are designed like that because in a particular environment just falling to the ground and sprouting immediately would mean death and extinction of the species. By delaying germination and not sprouting today, they increase their chance of survival tomorrow. This is…
I used to do this a lot as experts told me it was necessary for a heap of commonly grown cold climate species. The idea is to trick the plant into thinking the long cold Winter has finished and now it is Spring-Summer and time to shoot. It often worked great but sometimes I had…
Heirloom, heritage, landrace, open pollinated, hybrid and GMO seeds. I get asked about these different types of plants all the time and I reckon this is the best way to start. It’s gonna be a lot of text, and I am gonna make broad sweeping statements that may not be 100% accurate in every single…
We are not Organic Certified for a few different reasons. The main one is I strongly believe it to be a bit of a scam that does little to benefit the growers or consumers, just lining the pockets of the middle man. For us to get certified would cost us ~1/3rd of our total yearly…
As unorthodox as it sounds, this is where you use Salts to increase germination rates and resulting plant vigour. While salt can definitely kill plants, and salting the earth is never a good idea, this really does work for a heap of different species. Once you wrap your head around the science it makes perfect…
Weeds, what are they good for? I reckon the answer to that is everybloodything! Straight off the bat, I will say we don’t use synthetic herbicides as it’s just silly, and I talk about that in greater detail in the article Are you organic certified. “Weeds” are a valuable asset to us. They can be…
Willow water is very old and very well known method of rooting plant cuttings. Willow or Salix species naturally contain a mix of both Indolebutyric acid (IBA) and Salicylic acid (SA) and it’s effectiveness for assisting rooting plants is undeniable. There is also a multi-million dollar market for commercially produced powder or gel products, and…
55 Site Acrylic Cutting Cloner Plans The idea behind this is bloody awesome, and they work really good for 1000’s of different species without the need to use any hormones or chemicals. I run mine just using rainwater, but tap water works fine too. It really surprises me that they are only really popular overseas…
This tissue culture media can be used for experiments with cuttings clones, or for seed germination. This is not how the professionals do it, but I figure you folks may still be interested in my low chemical, bodgy DIY method, that does the job well, and costs bugger all. I have used it for experiments…
Let’s start with basic safety rules about handling and storing insecticides! Don’t ever store in drink bottles or food containers as some doofus may drink it by mistake. It happens so commonly that in most places it is actually illegal and considered negligence. As in “negligent homicide”, something well worth avoiding… A much safer option…
Dirty muddy or grey water irrigation pump. Do you want to use liquid compost, tea, muddy water or grey water on your garden? Would it be nice to use a standard garden hose instead of a bucket to water your trees and stuff with less than crystal clear water? Does it frustrate you getting blockages…
The Original DIY Greenhouse Saga. This project was not as easy as we first thought but it’s still doing the job all these years later. First of all let me point out, (if it isn’t really obvious by the quality of the finished product) that all our measurements were approximate, and we had no clear…
There are major pros and cons with each of them, and every plant species is more or less suited depending on the set of circumstances they evolved in, or were selected for. Where you live and your own local conditions will help you decide what is best where you are. Everywhere is different, and trial…
This is not Bokashi, but for our needs and budget, it’s even better! It is not reliant on continual purchases like Bokashi systems are, and it is also not reliant on strip mining minerals the way most commercial synthetic fertilisers are produced. This method works great and it provides a continual source of plant nutrition,…