GARDEN UPDATE JANUARY 2022
Around the Patch
So EXCITING news that i shared last month about my husband finally deciding to do the work on our new LARGE vegetable garden. The back has been a wasteland that we decimated as it was just full of yukka trees..... yikky yikky... ( though it looks nicer than the wasteland... lol)
in its place we cant dig out the concrete and start gardens fresh so we have built large raised beds on the wasteland down the back. One is now complete 3-4 more to go.
We are currently still in the ripping out stage
its taken a while so we have had wave after wave of weeks to contend with during this time
l
Basically i have to dig up the whole entire lot of the stones.
put them through a sieve...
leaf blow off the left over leaves
wash them
scrub them
then refill the areas around the slabs.
continue building on top...
SHIT YOU NOT... lol
ITS A BIG JOB FOR SURE... So i started that today... but its raining now... can't sieve dirt in the rain it turns to mud... sigh...
Just as a refresher we are getting:
FOUR large 2.2 X 1.3m beds (I have filmed a creation video to post)
ONE smaller bed behind the water tank
Some sort of potting area,
worm farm i already have
Process
At the moment it is late summer in QLD - So we are going to focus on a spring planting date in August onward. Hopefully by then all the beds will be ready and we can have compost ready to go. At time of writing my husband has created the prototype and we are going to use this bed as a COMPOST PILE for the time being as it will be expensive to bring in lots of soil. Even if we can 1/2 the soil bill by creating our own of the next few months it will be WELL worth it.
I'm diving the garden bed in two... filling up one side then the other. as the compost will work better if its a mound and can heat up. It might take too long to fill up the whole bed. so far this is working well and we do actually have a bit in the pile... its just slow going as it is a BIG bed. its only been a week.
TOP TIPS
I will be going around the local fruit and vege shops asking for clean )non plastic cardboard) and vegetable scraps to help them along. They often chop off lots of cabbage leaves that they give away. an extra box or two of vege scraps and brown waste (cardboard and leaves) every week will march the compost along nicely.
BUY THE SIEVES!!!
omg they are making it so much easier to do this...
make a plan... there is lots of double handling of stones...
keep on top of leaf matter in stones early.. sigh.. they make a mess when they compost down and make nice lovely soils.
AROUND THE GARDEN TODAY
A view from the back today so you can see the proximity of the gardens to the house... the lawn we can't touch as it is actually a drive through to the shed behind the lawn... so no gardens there...
The stones are a right mess. I won't need to do all of them as the garden beds will be covering a large portion... but i do need to do quite a bit of them really. especially the ones at the front near the pool
also... the concrete around the pool needs a jolly good pressure wash as well. we have the huge water tank off to the right there so that will help lots.
bugs -- we had lots of critters today
cries... all the photos of the tree frogs and golden orb spiders WON:T LOAD.... grrrrr.... they are the wrong files... nevermind will post another day
Conclusion
anyway i will be doing the creation of the garden bed video a bit later on, perhaps when we have the completed beds to show you the layout.
we will continue working on the area and turning it from a wasteland into a food producing area.
i can't wait
Anyway thanks so much for stopping along and reading my posts I am just loving my HIVE experience so far. Such a fun platform for sure.
For those that don't know my i'm currently focusing on Daily painting and somewhat amusing my self and my family with Acrylic pouring.. lol.. i wish i had a separate studio for that as it is so messy.
My other HIVE interests are:
- cooking
sunset photography (i take photos of the sky every night)
Art
Graphic Design
Gardening (just a smidgion)
Ballet
Sewing - I make Tutus and ballet costumes too...
Here are a couple of snaps of some of the stuff i do outside what you see up in the posts above.
