Giving it a go in Mandurah

After buying our home in Mandurah, WA five years ago, my partner and I set about creating our own functional and productive garden including a chook pen, vegie patch with fruit trees and a relaxing green space for ourselves and our dogs.

Having lived on the coast for about 20 years I was aware of the challenges of coastal gardening with its sandy alkaline soils and salt-laden westerlies. Our home is located 800 metres from the beach, luckily with a protected aspect.

It was a ruthless beginning as we had to remove overgrown, dying and weedy trees and shrubs before planning our garden. While digging out the myriad of roots to make way for our new shed, compost heap, lawn and garden beds we discovered oyster shells, limestone and enough tree roots to keep us in firewood for some time. Neighbours explained that the sand was trucked in from a beach up the coast in the 1980s and used as fill to cover what was once swamp. We had inadvertently invested in highly alkaline soil with anaerobic swamp mud about a metre below.

Raising the stakes

Raised beds were set up and layered with compost, manure and straw, then planted out within weeks. Raised beds would give us the best chance to introduce organic matter for holding water and balancing pH for the summer vegies we were intent on growing.

Beds are refreshed each season with our homemade compost, animal manure, minerals and pea straw. Our two-bay compost bin takes lawn clippings, straw from the chook house, mulched prunings and green waste. Our worm farm contributes too. Lawn paths were grown around the beds to reduce reflected heat in the summer and create a cool space. We chose to grow capsicums, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces herbs and Asian greens, along with leeks, onions and garlic, which all cope with alkaline soils. Each year we add something new like mini cauliflower or sprouting broccoli.

Trees of course

Olive trees were planted as screening along the back fence. Seed-grown paw paws and potted dragon fruit were transplanted into sunny protected areas using compost that we had bought with us from my previous home. Waste not, want not. Sweet potato plants annually create a living mulch bed under the paw paws. These paw paws are three metres tall now and the dragon fruit spreads along the fence, both now providing great annual harvests.

Diggers tamarillo seeds quickly grew into trees with masses of fruit. I took a punt and grew my own tamarillo seedlings from those fruit last spring. I now have succession plantings of this vibrant, tasty fruit. Like paw paws, their large leaves suffer in winter from the south-westerly winds, but with a prune they bounce back to fruit again in warmer weather.

Weird, wonderful and windy

I have been inspired by gardening programs and magazines to grow unusual fruits and vegies. I was desperate to try jujubes (think apple crossed with dates). I found a grower in Jarrahdale in the Perth hills and she encouraged me to try two varieties. The deciduous jujube grows rapidly and fruits prolifically. Unfortunately, in their first year the fruit flies were brutal so this year I bagged the fruit so I could enjoy the harvest.

Last summer saw pumpkins take over the compost bins, chook pen and neighbour’s shed – a wonderful harvest. We successfully grew Jerusalem artichokes in a small bed, appreciating the tall stems, small sunflower-like blooms and bee-attracting qualities. We harvested many kilos of the delicious tubers and made soups, stews and baked them. Unfortunately, the nickname ‘fartichoke’ is no joke. We are growing spring onions in that bed this year.

Win some, lose some

We persevere with tomatoes in pots, which do okay but never great. Cucumbers sometimes wither in the summer heat and lime and mandarin trees need to be potted and coddled with extra minerals as they struggle with the alkaline bore water. We also persist with in-ground lemons and oranges but give them supplementary rain water often. A much-pampered avocado tree seems to be winning but requires supplements of iron, potassium and ammonia sulphate to stay green.

Young apple trees are growing well, as is the pomegranate, which is espaliered up the front of the chook pen to provide shade for my girls in summer. We have ongoing success with persimmon, blueberries, strawberries and a fig, all in pots, as well as feijoas and a passionfruit over the chook pen.

Finally for colour and flowers for us and the insects we grow poppies, salvias, pansies and calendulas. There is always something to harvest.

Written by Jackie Quantock, long-time Diggers member and home gardener.