Rain, rain go away

This Friday was meant to be the kick start to my Market Garden project with Simon, the farming director of Northey Street. The Market Garden is a portion of the farm that is specifically planted and harvested in order to sell food at the organic markets on Sundays. The garden, however, has fallen by the wayside due to a revolving door of management at the farm. In order to be brought up to par again, it needs some TLC.

It is my job to redesign and map out the garden. By doing so, Northey Street will be able to maintain a simple crop rotation system in order to keep feeding the soil nutrients. The "Leggy, Leafty, Fruity, Rooty" system is what is it known as on the farm. Legumes (leggys to the Aussies) come first because they produce their own nitrogen and are able to add nitrogen to the soil.  Leafy greens are next in the ground due to the fact that they require a high amount of nitrogen. Fruiting plants, peppers for example, like a lesser amount of nitrogen and rooting plants, such a carrot, require the least amount. This crop rotation system is one of the principals of permaculture that can be seen all over Northey Street City Farm. Rotating the crops allows for the maximum yield without needing to clear new areas to plant. A rotating set of volunteers make it difficult to oversee that this rotation is always used but by planning and mapping out the garden, instructing volunteers with little permaculture knowledge will be made much easier.

Sadly, I wasn't able to get past the initial planning stages for the garden on Friday. The weather turned against me at about midday and it started to rain. Instead, I spent the afternoon in the nursery, learning the register and beginning to answer customer questions.

As you can see from this photo, the market garden has become a bit overgrown.