Don and the Burke’s Backyard team travelled west of Sydney to Bilpin, in the Blue Mountains. There they met Greg Bailey, the owner of ‘Springside Gallery’, who showed them around his beautiful 4 hectare (8 acre) garden. Don was amazed at how lush and healthy all the plants looked, and asked Greg if there was a secret to his success.
Greg was happy to show Don his ‘secret’ – a huge sack containing straw which had been used as bedding for horses. Every day 16 bags of this material are collected from a nearby racing stable, and spread thickly on the garden as a mulch.
No-dig garden
Greg began work on the garden 10 years ago. He did not remove the grass or do any digging. Instead, he covered the grassed areas with a 60cm (2′) layer of straw waste from the stables. After about a year, the grass was dead and the mulch had broken down, leaving the soil fertile and teaming with earthworms. Greg then started planting. All the trees and shrubs thrived and grew at a tremendous rate.
Marvellous mulch
The mulch Greg uses is a rich mixture of straw, horse manure and urine. It is high in fibre and nutrients and virtually free of weed seeds, because the horses are stabled inside in loose boxes, rather than grazing out in the paddocks. Occasionally oat seedlings appear, but they are simply pulled up and added to the mulch as green manure.
Straw waste from stables is an excellent mulch for the garden, and a good soil conditioner for both clay and sandy soils. If you do not have access to stable waste, you could achieve a similar effect by purchasing bales of straw or lucerne hay and mixing it with manures or fertiliser such as Dynamic Lifter.
(Tip: Remember to keep mulch away from the base of existing shrubs and trees.)
Further information
Our segment was filmed at:
Springside Gallery
2967 Bells Line of Road
Bilpin NSW
Phone: (02) 4567 1124
The garden is open in Autumn (March – May) on Saturdays and Sundays, 10am – 5pm. Adults $3, children free.