Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia visits Inner City Permaculture and tours the garden for a Facebook Live Stream with Mark Udovitch (PlantBasedMale)
Good evening everyone and welcome to this the first preview for the 2023 Sydney Edible Garden Trail I am super excited that we’ve come to that time of the year again where the trail is about to open up people’s people Garden hosts are going to be sharing their backyards like this one here with
You over the weekend the 4th and 5th of November this Saturday and Sunday I’m really excited about it and uh as always which has become a tradition I come out and do a couple of previews so I’m doing a preview tonight another one tomorrow and then probably another one a little
Later in the week uh there’s going to be 51 Gardens just really that’s that’s a lot of gardens I I I can’t imagine that everyone’s going to be uh visiting 51 Gardens but you can plot your own course on the trail and visit whichever Gardens uh you know uh where you want to
Uh travel but there they’re all over Sydney and there’s some absolute crackers so the three I’m going to show you are three very different Gardens and um starting today where I am which is on gagle bigle and gadigal land here at uh in a suburb called uh badwell Valley and
You only need to look at the Garden here to realize that it is definitely a steep slope and that gives it a lot of opportunity to uh to use that slope which you’re going to see and to help us through our walk as we uh have a closer
Look at this Garden beautiful time too I I I managed to get here just just in time when the lights the lights right um you’ve got you’ve got a couple of Jack Arandas that are going off there’s even a big poinsettia that uh the Poinsettia here is doing its best version of a
Flame tree just I think it’s got an identity crisis it’s going oh you know I see so many Flame Trees with um jackar randers but uh I would like you all to welcome and uh well actually let us know where you’re joining us from which uh
Which part of the country and and which country are you on um but our host here uh do I’m not sure if they have a garden number but I’ll get that from uh Mark in a sec but please uh say a big hello to our garden host here in bugle bule
Valley uh Mark T hi everyone hi thanks so much for coming just on Q Mark is here now Mark absolute pleasure that you’re throwing your garden open for people um tell us a little bit about it because as you can probably see everyone it’s it drops down over that hill and wait
Till you see what’s in store down there um turber land bruan thanks cam good to see you hello D Mars and welcome to Adam Kelly from Sydney so yeah Mark tell us a bit about the the block how big is it and so the block size is um 961 s m oh
Wow and we’re just about 10ks out from the CBD so this was a real hidden jam and it was on the market for number of years and because of the fact that it was so steep um no one was really interested in it yeah um but to me I
Just saw so much potential and um and you know learning about permaculture and permaculture principles and just seeing how everyone else um was looking after steep slopes um I decided to tackle it head on with my partner Lisa wow well what do you reckon shall we go and have
A look around yeah absolutely yeah are you ready everyone we’re going on the Move I’m going to turn I’m going to turn the camera around and uh I’ll just take it out of the Cradle here and we are going on a Lampoon of sorts here we go so let’s uh let’s
Follow farmer Mark he’s got his he’s got his gum boots on or Wellies whatever you call them so we’ve come down one small Terrace and you’ve got this beautiful uh Bott brush here this um has that just finished flowering it has it’s gone through a cycle of flowering and often it’s filled with
Lates um and now we’re getting those red WD um Birds coming through as well and they’re really noisy and oh the WD Birds yeah yeah it’s really awesome um and you know when we sit up on our deck and we um and we watch like watch all the birds
And listen to the chatter it’s like being in a treehouse it’s just epic I see there’s a a Maly over there in the neighbor’s place is it yeah that’s my neighbor Adrian um the two of us were both um like obsessed with growing food um he’s got like a number of um uh
Edible trees and that mury hangs over and I make jam and stuff out of it it’s just awesome DNE and Adelaide says hello CIA hello Celia yes we’re all ready to go with the trail so um yeah let’s carry on was this stonework in when you first
Arrived so there was like some stonework but it wasn’t as nice as this so we um one of friends um he runs the landscaping business and he helped us out um and they had to really squeeze in with the with the Digger to get in um it
Was just a real tight tight job um and now that we’ve got the shed up there we basically are done like so any sort of land or excavation works this just finished so there you go everyone you can see what we mean there’s the house up there and we’ve come down one two
Three Terraces and yeah take us away Mark okay so talk us through it so this is another Jack Aranda here and you’ve got what do we say about these yeah well they we just added them to just get some nice um sort of like height and Greenery
In the area especially um now that it’s a bit dry they’re looking a bit sad um but normally they’re full and they look really beautiful yeah and they got plenty of shade yeah absolutely yeah and so um in this area because it’s quite shaded we have
Um it doesn’t look like much but if you have a look here this is our Ginger and turmeric bed so this has all just recently been reset and mulched um and what I did as well is I’ve basically cut back a um an English spinach and it’s just self-seeded through here so that’s
A bit of a cover crop whilst we’re waiting for this to come back up yeah nice yeah and then obiously the fennel comes and comes and goes that thing just makes so many seeds yeah um so this is this is probably the original fennel one of them them um really nice um like
Licorice smell and taste and um and eventually we’ll cut this down like we can see here there there are bulbs forming and who doesn’t love like a baked fenel oh it’s just so good hold the phone I just see what’s going on here nice digs beautiful steps can you do
A and you do a guest appearance on the longest running Australian Children’s Program play school on the OBC all right now where are we so carrying on um so this is another one here we can see the turmeric has come up so these are all like on their way up
They’re sending those um those leaves um oh yeah they they are looking they are looking verdant yeah and this whole thing is just completely chalkers with it it looks so different at the moment looks baren but give it too much and it will be as tall as this oh and so
You’ve got this Frame here to hold them up so this Frame is actually um originally because we’re so dry at the moment I’m thinking of throwing over something just to keep the humidity and the moisture in y um originally these came from our beds but as you’ll see
Later um we put some archers in and now they don’t fit there so instead of um getting rid of them of course you know Sy Edible Garden Trail all about Recycling and reusing and repurposing so um they might not fit exactly but they look great and they’ll they’ll function well
Yeah what do we got here so um here we’ve got um this is an actually an old um water tank that was cut in half and at the moment we’re growing tomatoes we’ve got some garlic chives coming through and then we’ve got all these little seedlings of um romesco uh
Lettuce and and um what else have we got some other sort of rocket and things that have just been scattered through here um so again in a couple of months it’s going to look really really nice and then of course the cherry tomato is starting to flow us so we are getting a
Couple of um we will soon be getting cherries and over here’s our aeton raspberry patch so this was absolutely chalkers and we were getting two or three handfuls of berries a day and um my daughter ory every day after work I’d come down with her and she would just
Like smash them M she was loving it all right wow now wait for it everyone because you haven’t seen anything yet have a look at this production Powerhouse of a place there’s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 is it do I count 10
Beds there’s nine at the moment that was Greek Greek interest there and then we’ve got the big U bed that goes all the way around and then we’ve got like our our um sort of the start of our Orchard and um a couple of other things we’ve got obviously this bed is just
Absolutely choca block with silver bed and kale um so we can eat from this every single day it’s just it’s just never ending it’s just yeah like you can’t even give it away fast enough um and here we’ve got a couple of these are Sugino um Tomatoes these two that are growing in
Here and and you’ve just used very simple system a star picket that’s it and a little bit of Steel re forcement mesh that’s right and this particular piece of Rio mesh was actually dumped um in the laneway right next to our house so of course I just grabbed it it was
Like a gift but someone gave me so of course I was going to take it the Tomato gods were that’s it were shining on you and I like this little Archway Mark that again more Rio mesh exactly just bent over yep exactly and then just held together with some cable ties really
Nice and simple um really strong as well so we can we’re going to be growing here we’ve got um cucumbers that are coming up down along here so they”re only just starting but they’ll eventually Encompass the whole Arch and then over here we’ve got um
Well this is a tomato so this is a tomato that I’m actually going to try and as an experiment train up this side of the archway and see how that goes because um you know why not we’re all about testing different methods here to
See how it go yeah and here we’ve got um our first flush of beans that are coming through so these are French beans like green ones um and they’re just starting to flour here nicely you can see and over here this is a um so that’s
Another um cucumber but then this is a um it’s like a French heirloom pumpkin um has really nice deep um grooves in it yeah ribs and it would just it just looks like a really nice pumpkin to grow um orange sort of light orange variety um apparently good for baking and soups
Oh stop it yeah so um we’ll be it’ll be plenty for you Coster if you want to come back um and here’s another one here and then this is all English spinach again like we we we cut it back we blend it um and we make really like awesome
Pesos with it it’s just it’s just unreal the um the gods of spinach pie are dancing oh 100% down on your garden i’ I’d be in spinach pie every day night of the week and now oh what about this hold the phone everyone can I can I just do a
Quick little cut look at this garlic so this bed is um is absolutely chalkers with garlic um recently we pulled up an entire bed like this and it fed our family for 9 months so you know we eat garlic a lot um but this sort of
Bed it’s only 2 m by 1 M it will save you so much money at the shops it’s just unreal like how and it’s and it’s simple you know what I mean it’s not it’s not a difficult crop if I can do it anyone can
Do it there can you just can you just repeat that oh yeah um I was just say if you can what oh if if I can do it anyone can do it there it is everyone there it is it’s official look at this garlic so check this out check out how big this
Bulb is look at this this is a monster like so when did you in in a Sydney climate when did you put these in I think I put it in around March or April it was um they haven’t been in the ground for a very long like a garlic
Period of time you know what I mean March or April Yeah March April and now we’re off beginning November yeah so what’s that 6 months seven eight months wow yeah and they’ve and they’ve just absolutely yeah Selena ask where did you get your seed garlic I think I got it
From I’ll have to um if you if you chat to me on Instagram I’m um plant-based male I’ll let you know exactly um because I have I follow them but I have to find um I have to find it but I let you know it’s Victorian yeah it’s an
Australian variety yeah oh look at that and this is the second bed this is the second one so the original one was this which has now got the cucumbers and um it’s got a couple of sunflowers just for fun because of course half of gardening
Is fun yeah and um yeah exactly so we want to make it you know I wanted to um kind of bring the magic to um my daughter’s life as well just so that way she grows up with this because I I never got to grow up with um with this sort of
Backyard um so I just reckon it’s just it’s just awesome I want to make her childhood special a good on you yeah um and then I mean and then something to make the adults um have a special time as well is this you got this finger lime tree that’s absolutely loaded look at
All these finger lmes that’s your GMT and the just Tre carefully here that’s all good come on down oh yeah it’s loaded is absolutely loaded and this tree is in its um second year of giving us fruit I think it’s about four years old four years yeah
That’s that sounds right oh look at them all yeah and this is so we’ve got a couple of them there’s another one um down the line over there also giving us tons oh yeah it’s just fantastic they’re going to be they’re going to be ready very soon
Yeah um and then here we’ve got this is a Brazil Cherry just something a little bit interesting yep um and here we’ve got um this is an orange um and then here’s another sort of orange as well and then this tree I can’t ever say the name of it I just
There’s something about it I can’t say it it’s a jab Copa or whatever jaot the onea yeah so it’s got the little grape sort of um on the trun on the branch corre and it’s it’s thriving it’s doing really well in this clate wow yeah oh well there you have it everyone that’s
The engine room of the growing but there’s more oh absolutely yeah this time come and follow me this is the best tour Mark I’m loving it I’m glad I’m actually glad I got here at this time because there’s plenty of people watching thanks for joining in
Everyone and it’s great to be able to so this this is um like a Madagascar Bean which would going to start growing up and over this Archway so this was our pumpkin Arch originally and we um and we um we basically extended it about uh 4 M so now we’ve got plenty of
Um plenty of grow space for lots of different things not just pumpkins yes yeah yeah yeah well it’s a big long it’s uh it’s a good length of tunnel that’s right yeah and it’s again it’s very strong like it’s just you wouldn’t you wouldn’t believe how good it is with
That um we’ve just concreted in those teap posts yep and um and a little bit of um what do you call it um wire or cable tie wire or cable tie yep that that’ll get you out of that’s it out of jail and tie it down yeah and then along
Here we’ve got our um wicking bed like wicking setup so this is something I put together recently and it’s just for garden herbs and stuff that that you don’t want to necessarily occupy a whole bed with yep so I’ll just dig one out
For you so this is a sage so if we D um take it up you can see that’s the wick which is just a Geotech fabric yep and then inside it’s full of water and we’ve in Sydney we’ve had so much um heat lately and wind and wind
Yeah exactly these would just fry everything and because we’re in a valley depending on the direction of the wind sometimes we’re good so I’ll show you in a second with that food Forest set up down there this is actually like a wind break but it doesn’t protect protect us
From this direction ah so which is why I thought this wicking bed setup would be perfect yeah yeah so that’s and that’s interesting so you just put the fabric into the base of the pot correct yeah about halfway halfway up yep just fed it through halfway and then um and it’s
Moist as like if you have a look at it look you just look at the surface oh yeah and it’s yeah and it just the plant and the soil takes up the water that it needs it needs yeah yeah that’s right great was did you create that or did you
See it some no so I saw it um from Margaret from house oh yeah yeah exactly hey Margaret she might be on I don’t know are you there Margaret she might I know CIA is cia’s here so that was a great idea that I saw from a website and
Um and I just put that into action recently yeah we’re going through the UMO now so it’s a perfect time to set up a really smart um watering system for things like herbs things that are are fragile yeah yeah and then here we’ve got um pigeon peas so they’re like a legume
Um and then if you want you can do just like a little Maraca that you can shake like a rattlesnake yeah so um yeah so they they’re really good and when you open one crack it open you can’s got a wicking pipe too oh yeah um let’s just see if we’ve got any
Here we go so this this is what you end up with so anyone that comes on the trail to visits us I’ll happily give you some of these because one seed and you get you get tons yeah and then you know I just I love the wildness of permaculture I’ll just give
That a Chuck there and then we’ll see what happens comes up ex the way we go there we go that’s the nursery that’s the uh that’s the incubation Zone um and so here we’ve got our um this is our CH tunnel so my friend Chris um he’s an engineer up in Newcastle
Shout out to him he helped design it for me in a way that made sense um so secure oh secure absolutely yeah we’ve got foxes in in the um National Park not not far away Y and um so it’s nice and secure we’ve also got stray cats and
Things and obviously Murphy’s around our dog um so it’s nice to just keep our CHS secure and make them feel happy and um yeah and safe so they’re probably sleeping but we can come and check out on the check them out Sydney Edible Garden Trail has joined us hello Bridget if it’s
Bridget so here we go here we go let’s have a look let’s see where they are oh hello so hi ladies hello everyone you got your bums to us that’s it there we go hello oh they’re looking well how many have you got we got five five so
They’re all different breeds um and obviously we’ve named them all um this one speckled she’s actually going through a Broody spell at the moment so she’s been sitting on the eggs and stuff lately we we have to kick her out especially on those hot days just to
Make sure she Waters herself yeah um so we’re just concerned about her sleep well sleep well girls let me see if I can uh give you a face full of just just go chicken can he’ll try and give you a bit of light there you
Go there they are it’s a little bit dark in here we’ll leave them we’ll leave them to sleep good night and this um this material here we’re actually using like a coffee chaff so it’s a really nice um it’s a free material often you get from Coffee
Roasters yep um and it makes the the C smell really nice too like a fresh coffee yeah so can’t that that’s oh she what’s going on hang on fruy fruity lady fr’s up hello that’s good she’s going hang on she’s like am I getting a snack is that
Why cost is here yeah what what’s going on I haven’t signed a release form I’m not going on video I’m going to go and hide yeah hi Luke good day sirel hello Linda and Jean welcome to Bardwell Valley in Sydney where we are getting a sensational dusk tour of Mark and Lisa’s
Garden along with Audrey as well Little Audrey okay so come on through here in in the peak of Summer this area this kind of we call it the Food Forest is just it’s 10° cooler than the rest it’s just so nice to sit here especially in
The rain we’ve got mango bananas there a mango here look at that and it’s doing well there’s lots of um lots of flowers this year this is probably the first time I’ve seen this many flowers um but it’s well on its way to becoming um hopefully a productive tree well my
My investigation around a tree’s health is to look down here oh this and look look at that look at the base look at that that that is happy that’s establishing really nicely it’s thick you can see where it’s where the trunk is just really thickening and it doesn’t matter
About the height and you don’t want it you don’t want it super high anyway no that’s right I’ll keep it I’ll keep it low um now this chicken run yeah so we call it the the channel the chicken tunnel the channel yeah so we W originally when we built that
That run all the way back there I was like oh it’s a bit sad that they got to spend their life just there so we built this um tunnel out of A10 project mesh and then we just bent um some conduit some electrical conduit around and just
To give it a bit of strength and how have you locked it off at the ground so we’ve just used some like like tent pegs that’s it basically yeah and um and so far so good no one’s tried to dig in or disturb it every now and then I find a
Pigeon or something a bit weird in there and then I just you know gently take them out yep um and then this is where we kind of dump all of our greens and leftovers for the TRS to go through so again like you know really simple tool
Just a brick and then we open this up and then into the Chute is where we put all of our um scraps and um and stuff all the goodies that the chooks like oh it’s also a good way of actually getting them out of the out of the coube yeah
Keep them occupied I’ve got a little door there that I can shut and then I can just do all my CH maintenance like house maintenance whilst they’re out and they’re um they’re not stressed as well they’re like enjoying their life here um yeah oh fantastic so you wouldn’t think we’re in
Uh we’re in the heart of suburban Sydney when you come down to this part of the yard where you see the canopy of um of trees and yeah I can imagine this this part of the garden would be substantially cooler yeah and then here we’ve got we’ve got some um
Elder flowers which we’re going to soon um turn into um like a sparkling wine so we’re going to cut those flowers down um they’re all way up on the top now um and the elder flower is it responds really well to almost being hedged you can be really Savage with it
Cut it all the way back and then it will come back and there’ll be a flush of really beautiful flowers oh Cecilia Mark mentioned you might have heard it right at the top um for it’s just on 900 square met was that right yeah 961 961 yeah so it’s a it’s a
Special block that’s right but but so much of it is so steep it’s um as uh as we were saying earlier this will uh see Mark live to 960 years as as a Blue Zone Gardener it’s the Blue Zone we’ve got our own little blue Zone oh yeah when
When you walk up and down those stairs but what a treat that you you come down here and it’s it’s exercise it’s temperature it’s Beauty it’s everything exactly and then we’ve also got this um massive mury here which works as a nice shade for the um chicken CPE so in
Summer it’s flush with berries and leaves so it gives them a lot of shade and then in winter it’s all deciduous and it drops everything um and then lets in all the lights and so they warm themselves yeah so the berries kilos I’m telling you like hundreds and hundreds
Of kilos of berries drop here every year like really hundreds there I can’t like honestly there’s so many that the TRS don’t even eat them anymore they’re just so sick to death of the berries and we we eat them and Audrey eats them just off the um the brand it’s
Awesome yeah yeah so good well Mark what an absolute pleasure that we managed to get the garden tour in as uh as dusk Falls um any other final final word or final thoughts about the trail and is this is this your first time on the trail this is our second
Time on the trail first time um we’ got quite a few people come through we were one of the only ones in the basite C participating now we’ve got a few more which is good there’s some community so definitely make sure that you swing by Bayside
Council so we’re in Bor Valley uh 4th and 5th of November so you’re open Saturday and Sunday what times 9 till 1230 both days 9 till 12:30 there you have it everyone if you uh if you want to see this firsthand um there’s your chance 9 till 12:30 Saturday and
Sunday well done if you want to check us out on Insta we’re at plant what’s your water bills like with a garden like that big that was Giovani um the water bill is not too bad because we have um we’ve got a rain catchment
System so we have a big tank um and that tank is used exclusively for here so for the yard so so I don’t have it doing the toilets or anything like that I’ve just got it servicing the yard um so we are in the we we do like obviously the last
Couple of years um last couple of years have we’ve had um lenia so we haven’t had a need to water anything so this is probably the first dry year that we’ve had um and that’s why we’re using these systems like that wicking bed um and we
Are slowly at the at the moment we have sprays which we will probably look to convert oh yeah um to drippers oh okay yeah yeah yeah so we’ve got some sprays just in this part because we just needed to throw water basically everywhere because we had so many things
Establishing everywhere um and it was just important to make sure that um you know especially with a young child you don’t want your um you don’t want your garden to suffer yes um that’s your other like passion Y and then obviously we’ve um we’ve got
Bees as well here they’ll be in bed yep um but interesting fact is our neighbor who grows a whole bunch of fruit trees he actually said that this year has been his best fruit set year that he’s ever had wow so he said all of his peaches
Nect TR everything the whole tree is just absolutely like like bowing down with that much fruit and it’s and he put it down to the fact that that that Hive is right there the flight path is aimed straight into his yard so he’s got a pomegranate tree that’s monstrous it’s
Like 3/4 of the size of this bottle rra and it’s just absolutely packed jam packed with fruit ah so hopefully we’ll get some um we’ll do a bit of a trade do some honey for some um you know nice fruit yeah yeah well Mark thank you so
Much for um throwing the the gate open for us as a preview um to everyone watching you can come here on Saturday or Sunday and uh yeah have a have a great weekend on the trail thanks so much for coming
2 Comments
Awesome garden tour
Amazing garden and cannot wait to see more videos Mark!! 💜