Medicinal Garden Diary Episode 1. How to Obtain A Yield With Compost

Today I want to chat with you about the permaculture principle of obtaining a yield, and, because we're starting our gardening journey at the bottom, with soil, we're focusing on compost. Now, what does compost have to do with obtaining a yield? Well, in a closed-loop garden system like I’m trying to create, quite a lot. Before we begin, let me offer you a no-frills description of what the principle obtain a yield means in permaculture.

Looking Beyond The Obvious

One of the things I love most about permaculture is that it invites us to rethink what success looks like. When we hear the words obtain a yield, most of us immediately think of baskets overflowing with vegetables or fruit trees laden with harvests. And yes, that is certainly one kind of (fabulous) yield. But permaculture asks us to notice all the other gifts our gardens offer, too. A healthy soil is a yield. Seeds saved for next season are a yield. Pollinators visiting your flowers are a yield. Knowledge gained through failure is a yield. Every system should give something back, even if it’s not the thing we originally set out to collect. Once you begin looking through that lens, you realise your garden is providing abundance in ways other than what you harvest.

Compost is one of those quiet, unassuming yields that can easily be overlooked. It isn’t glamorous. You can’t scatter it across your dinner plate or arrange it in a vase. But it might just be one of the most valuable harvests your garden produces, because every handful represents nutrients returned, waste transformed, and the promise of healthier plants and a healthier Earth, for seasons to come.

I’m not going to go into a long explanation of what compost is, or how to make it; the internet is full of people sharing their wisdom on that subject. What I do want to share with you is a few strategies that I’ve used in my garden that have absolutely transformed the soil in my veggie patch, and have done it in a super easy way. My style is always; how easy and straightforward can I make this, so I can get on with my life.

Last Winter

Last winter I shared this letter on Substack showcasing my garden as it was, and my plans for its future, which included working on soil health because the garden I inherited was overgrown, full of weeds and the veggie patch was filled with sandy soil, and, as I discovered later, bits of broken terracotta posts, kids toys, long streams of net (!!!) and other random bits of paraphernalia. My veggie patch now, 12 months later, is a fertile growing space that has seen me harvest peas, spinach, broad beans, potatoes, leeks and poppies. Right now it’s full of broccoli, cabbage, chamomile, broad beans, sweet peas, celery, chives, thyme, garlic, onions, spinach, kale and self-seeded potatoes. Yes, I’ve obtained many yields, and I owe it all to compost (and manure, which is kinda funny, how waste products make things grow.)

Composting Without The Bugs

Most gardeners will teach you to compost in big above-ground bins. The whole idea of an open pile of decomposing mess makes me squirmish. My parents had a compost bin like that when I was a kid, and I can remember my mum sending me out in the darkening evening with the veggie scraps from that night’s dinner to throw on top of it. Now, let me tell you, I do not like bugs. I understand them now, so I’m not as intolerant of them as I was back then, but when I went out to that compost heap as a kid, I was freaking out about all the creepy crawlies. So maybe my aversion to open compost piles come from childhood experiences, but I also live in the city, one with a bit of a rodent problem, and I 100% do not want to encourage rodents in my yard.

My solution was to opt for an in-ground worm farm, without the worms. I simply buried a compost basket directly into the garden bed and began feeding the soil. This system is so much simpler and has all the benefits of regular compost making and then some:

• It feeds the soil exactly where it’s needed. Instead of moving finished compost around the garden, the nutrients are released directly into the surrounding soil, right beside the plants that need them most.

• It encourages earthworms and beneficial soil life. Even without adding compost worms, local earthworms quickly discover the buffet. Along with fungi, bacteria and countless other tiny organisms, they help break everything down into rich, living soil. Whenever I lift the lid on one of my in-ground compost bins, I’m greeted by masses of little flies, worms and tiny bugs getting very, very busy. And they’re all nicely contained within the system, so I’m not freaking out! I’d also like to add that I have not seen a cockroach yet. Happy days.

• The nutrients are less likely to be lost. Heavy rain can wash nutrients out of traditional compost piles, but burying organic matter keeps much of that goodness where plant roots can access it.

• It improves soil structure. As the organic matter decomposes, it creates humus, helping the soil hold both moisture and air. That’s especially valuable in my windy Tasmanian garden, where keeping moisture in the ground is an ongoing challenge.

• It requires very little space. If you’re gardening in raised beds or a small suburban garden, you don’t need room for a large compost heap. One buried basket can do the work in a single bed.

• It saves time and effort. There’s no turning piles, no wheelbarrowing compost across the garden, and very little maintenance. Nature does almost all the work for you.

• It becomes a slow-release fertiliser. Rather than one big application of finished compost, nutrients are released gradually over weeks and months as the material breaks down, providing a steady source of nourishment.

• The Process is much quicker. A regular compost pile can take between 6-9 months to decompose, whereas I noticed my in-ground compost took under 3 months to completely break down.

Here’s a short video of my first in-ground system.