Sunday, November 28, 2010

What Superman did - a good news story.

Yesterday was a huge garden day. Superman and kids pulled out all the stops. We also hired two young men again to help with the digging. Here is what we did....

This is what the garden looked like at 7.30am when we started.

We set to clearing everything out so we had a blank slate. We have lots of wood chopped for winter, leaves and twigs for the compost, the rest will go to a centre where they make compost from garden refuse.

We started preparing the holes for the fruit trees. We dug out twice the diameter of the pot they are in. Filled it with compost leaves and manure. Then a layer of soil and filled the holes with water.
The avo tree was so pot bound we had to loosen the roots. In it went and a layer of compost and manure was put around it - not touching the stem. Lucky decided it was the perfect place to lie - I guess she is missing the trees too.


Then Superman and Son set to making the frames for the raised beds. We have made them the same dimesions as our first beds so that when we make the movable chook pen the pen will fit over all of the equally.

Into each raised bed we added 3 bags of manure, 2 of compost and other leaf matter.

Look at all the wormies...bring back life to the soil.

Then we wet the beds and sprinkled lucerne seeds over the surface and a fine layer of sand. We will let this grow a few inches then dig it in as a green manure.

Superman is my HERO! He has made a home for my asparagus. This is the first of 2 and each hold 4 plants.

My littlest one came up with an idea of having a wildlife pond. I am so excited about this...I should have thought of it - du-uh! And Superman grabbed this idea with both hands and by the end of yesterday the pond was dug, lined and stones laid around half the edge.



I will plant herbs and indigenous plants around it, get some tadpoles and we hope that it will become a thriving ecosystem. We will put the bird feeding station nearby too. The edges slope very gently so that wildlife can come and visit it and get in and out easily.



By the end of yesterday (4pm) we had planted two trees, made a pond (3/4 of the way), made and filled 3 raised beds, made an saparagus planter, planted 4 asparagus plants and created a new compost heap.



Like I said - Superman and kids are my heroes!

6 comments:

Grant said...

Wow, that's impressive. Well done guys.

Chris said...

Wow, exciting times, Wendy! Looking forward to seeing the pond take shape. :)

Lois Evensen said...

Wow, all in one day! Fantastic. I, too, am looking forward to seeing the completed pond. We have a pond in our back yard and it has been a source of fun and beauty all the years we have been here.

What a great feeling you must have to have finished so much so fast!

Best,
Lois

Linnie said...

Wow! You're truly an inspiring family!
Well done!

Kids and Canning Jars said...

What a day! I need to have ya'all come over to my house I live on 3/4 on an acre and cannot get done nearly anything like you. We are working on restoring a pond we found on the property. The previous owners had filled it in with yard trash and we found two huge laundry lines with buckets in it. Good luck and thanks for the inspiration..ps my loafas are still alive and slowly growing.
Melissa

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

Thanks so much everyone, we were exhausted by the end of the weekend! At 9pm our lights were out and we were snoring.