Saturday, June 28, 2008

It's done

We have officially finished the preparation stage of our main veggie garden.

So to recap it went from this:



To this mess:



To this which is taken today!





Fences

This past week we finished the fences to close off the veggie area. We have to do this because of the 3 dogs who will trample everything. My son was such a star and build 6m of fencing froms scratch...




Monday, June 23, 2008

Blood...sweat - no tears!

We took advantage of the clear weather today and finished off the beds. Yesterday we got the kids busy adding compost to the bed areas. Today they had to dig over the beds to a spade depth while hubby and I worked on getting the fence posts in place. My husband (doing the hammering) whacked his finger and that was the blood part, then the winter sun decided to shine down hard - that was the sweat part!



We put stone chips down on the pathways in between to prevent weed growth.



We then replaced the borders to stop sand running onto the paving.




All in a days work!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Slow progress

Despite some really torrid winter weather this week we have managed to get our raised bed frames in place.

First we measured out the spaces in between.



Then my son of 11 and husband made the frames one buy one.






The finished object...



There are 5 frames of 4 m in length and 1.5 m in width. We have space to add another two panels on the tops of the beds as we need to.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Slim pickings

Bearing in mind that it is winter here we were nonetheless thrilled to eat from our garden tonight. We had a baby leaf salad with our spaghetti bolognaise!

Monday, June 16, 2008

An artist's canvas?

Well I have had to do lots of positive thinking this week looking at what now waits for our family. This was the area of our garden up until 1 week ago:



But it now looks like this (can you understand my concern?):



And today we had all the wood arrived for the beds and fencing, so this week is indeed going to be one passed with blood (well...hopefully not!) sweat (definately) and tears :-))

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Take a look at these potatoes!



They are ready for more potting soild and another tyre! It's so exciting.

The heavy duty work in the front garden for clearing has been put on hold due to torrential rains...so it resembles more of a mud bath there than anything else...which is rather depressing!

Friday, June 6, 2008

Cleaning out the old - making way for the new!

Today we had our garden guy come and do the tough stuff. I guess we could have done it ourselves but it would have taken a looong time, so having a little surplus funds helped make this decision.



This is looking down to the right where I want to put my raised beds. The biggest problem here was the many clivia's and an Australian Creeper that had to be removed. The Stinkwood will be cut back next week.



Here you are looking to the left. Biggest problem: grass and the huge Bay tree with it's myriad of stems and massive root system.




Looking to the right now that most of the work is done.



Looking to the left with work done. They will return next week to remove the stumps and grass. The it is up to me.

I plan to build raised beds like these: http://www.vegetable-garden-guide.com/building-raised-beds.html

Monday, June 2, 2008

Potatoes have made their way into the world!



All 4 of our potatoes have sent out their shoots! It was so exciting as we weren't watching them and on our way out to 10 pin bowlinf yesterday my youngest noticed them.

I think in about a week (judging by current growth rate) we can add the next tyre and cover the stem with more soil.