Basia's Profile

My name is Basia and I have been owner building a self designed loft house since Oct 2004 when the ground was first opened for sewerage and water lines.  I bought the block in Newstead, 17km west of Castlemaine in Central Victoria, Australia on 14 March 2004.  The land is zoned 'Township' and is 1 acre on the very edge of the township zoning.  Its a 1.7km walk to the supermarket and local pub. 

My dream is to gain organic registration and name my business 'Bielefeld Organics'.  The challenge is the suburban nature of properties around me and the issue of preventing contamination of land and produce from straying cats, dogs, goats and chickens (to name a few of the visitors so far).  I aim to grow organic edible and medicinal herbs.  I also have a desire to create garden sculpture, garden gnomes and perhaps make a little mini-golf area.  One day even a labyrinthe for walking meditations. 

Right now I am still finishing infrastructure - retaining wall stage 3 awaits me, finishing rabbit proof fencing, building the 6x6m studio.  But work has started on gardening in pots and I am waiting for early winter when my 40 fruit trees drop leaves so they can be planted out.  The Lisbon Lemon won't go into the mound until September.  I plan to put a grove of oak trees in for a retirement woodlot and have collected acorns from under the many Oak street trees in Castlemaine.  The boundary needs planting out with screening trees (edible preferably) so that some sense of enclosure is possible.  My southern side of land has a dirt road access with remnant yellow and grey box gums so I am planning a native garden with predominantly indigenous plants to the region (a cost factor limiting me there).  There are approx. 3 different species of native grasses covering around 6 square metres and Frances the native plant seller has found 4 small plants on the southern fenceline like native iris and saltbush.

The reactive clay soil needs 1/2 tonne of garden lime spread around and a cover crop of dun peas and oats to go in now, while the first flush of autumn rains indicate a wet winter.  It will take around 3 years of cover cropping and cutting back into the soil before I can put productive plants in.  Of course a soil test would be best to see what trace minerals are missing.  The soil is very acid, as indicated by the cover growth now of onion grass, couch grass and capeweed (copper deficient soil), and the presence of slaters, centipedes, millipedes and slugs.  To my astonishment I have found 3 worms in total since owning 'Bielefeld' .

Last year we averaged around 395mm of rain but the wettest year on record has been around 1000mm.   I am aiming to keep all rain which falls on the block to stay on it, in riplines, watertanks and of course the plants water uptake.  In permaculture terms the block has a northerly aspect with a fall of 4 metres across the acre.