Hands up who remembers the post about paying my right kidney to get a 400mm concrete slab removed from the back garden? What a drama. It had to go if we wanted our raised bed garden dream. Then, once it was gone, we had Christmas, and then in January, Jamie braced himself for the job, and got on with it because he's a good husband trying to keep me happy. I really, really needed a project to focus on, given my hip. So long as I could see progress, and help plan, and source materials, and offer moral support as I sat and knitted, I felt pretty happy.
The idea was to use food safe treated pine for the beds, which are meant to last years as well. Hopefully they'll last til I'm dead in the ground or composted. We wanted a clear walk through area from the side of the house to the gate, hence the config we ended up with. This view is from the deck. They are half filled in a hugelkultur style at the moment - branches, logs, lucerne, coffee grounds, sandy dirt, chicken straw, bokashi waste. Soon we'll top them up with a garden blend.
The fence was made out of cypress pine that was left over from building the deck, and was left under the house, so we didn't have to pay for that - only the gate and the wire. It's really to separate the two parts of the garden, and keep the chooks out of the vegetable growing area. There will be more food grown in the deeper back garden eventually - but we have more infrastructure to complete first, like a run for the chickens up the side of the fence.
I love the pot above - my Mum gave it as a gift and it's kinda a lava look stone look earthy texture. I planted a dwarf tahitian lime in there that is getting full sun.
Against the house there's another big pot we got at a knockdown price at Bunnings - we knew the guy from surfing so he wrote a good price on the side for the cashier. We have planted a mandarine in there, a dwarf Imperial. We will move the pot eventually as that's where we will put the outdoor shower and I'm thinking of making a mosaic splashback there to pretty up the ugly brown brick.
You'll also notice the ugly hot water service that will soon need replacing. We're going to get a smaller more squat one that'll go under the deck, and run some stairs up the side of the house where it sits so we can wash off after a swim and go straight up the stairs to the back door where the kitchen is, or I can go down those stairs to go collect herbs.
On the fence side, we have created a espalier frame for a lemon and a cara cara orange, that will be a kind of messy espalier to hide the fence. Hopefully they'll get enough sun - certainly from about 11 am til 8pm they get the sun, but it's more dappled in the morning.
When they grow high enough they'll get more light I expect. As they are deciduous, they'll form a green wall all year round. Below that I've planted comfrey along the edge - a variety that doesn't spread, and some sage and marigold. We also put a corten steel edge round instead of bricks as eventually we'll put some topping down and bricks can hold weeds and bugs and allow garden to spill over, so it was a neater solution. We went to the local metal works to get it rather than Bunnings as it was better quality and cheaper.
I should mention the house next door can't look into our garden, and they are super nice paramedics that only holiday down here occasionally. On the other side we have neighbours that are into sustainability and permaculture too, and across the road are mainly holiday houses, a friend's place, and a old guy who's a local conservationist with a bush block and chickens. Across the back are two holiday homes and an old guy who's lived in the area for fifty years and is super nice. It's a really quiet street with hardly any cars so we have proper lucked out for suburbia after five acres in the countryside.
Along the side of the house we used the last of the sleepers for a herb garden - thyme, chives and oregano where there is more sun, and parsley toward the back. I put the lovage and mint in pots to keep them under control.
Beyond the herb garden is where the magic happens - compost bins, worm farm, a seaweed rinsing and storing area, seaweed tea, and bokashi buckets. The bokashi rots down excess veg faster than the compost, and the liquid gets strained off daily to put in the compost as an activator. I've also scored coffee grounds on a weekly basis from a local kiosk which gets layered in the raised beds and the compost. There's also a local food charity that has boxes of scraps for chickens and livestock, so what they don't eat I layer in the bokashi or compost to rot down, particularly when the weather is warm. Jamie's not allowed to touch any of it as it's a system I hold in my head and I don't want him to ruin it!
In the back garden beyond the fence are two apples, netted against king parrots and cockatoos, and a nashi I planted, and a double grafted cherry (two sorts of cherry) specifically for warm temperate/sub tropical climates. There's an existing olive, and of course my chickens.
I have two raised metal beds too - Jamie wants to get rid of them after the season ends but I want them for crop rotation so I think I've talked him into it after he saw the community garden (I'll post on this soon). For now, the beans are coming on strong, cucumber, zucchini and lettuce and basil and jalapenos. I spent some time cleaning it up andputting compost in there today as I think it was a little overworked.
Don't worry, I do get chance to lay down - with my hip, I have to. Jamie strung me a hammock between a grevillea and the olive for reading and surveying the garden daydreaming.
I've honestly known since the moment I walked into the garden that this is the backyard I wanted to build my little permaculture suburban paradise in. It's not the prettiest house on the outside and certainly if I had a spare two million bucks I could have a big house with a seaview, but to be honest I'd be bored. I like to build and create and growing my own food is a passion, even if I'm not a genius at it.
It's something that gets me up in the morning. I love the connection it gives me - with the earth, with other people, with animals. It feels like an act of resistance in a world gone mad, and that I'm leaving something good for whoever comes next.
There's a lot of infrastructure yet to build, but the main part is now done which is absolutely huge.
With Love,
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