Fayes' Botanic Obsession

Faye · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:08 pm

Well this marks the beginning of a new chapter. We'll call it chapter 46, which is about renovating the garden, starting with the vegetable gardens/ dirt gardens and chook enclosure. I am inspired by this forum and the office that buzzes with ideas about permaculture, fruit trees and edible plants, honestly some days it is like a bee hive in here with Joel and Mitch. Today I have started by ordering some raised zincalume garden beds. That may give me about three weeks to make compost and prepare a plan, ooohh but where to start. This was it around 3 years ago, things are evolving. http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2086129.htm
I guess since installing the aquaponic system 3 years ago, my life kind of took on a new direction and there was little time for playing in the dirt gardens, I am ready to look at what didn't work very well and why. I have far less time these days, but more than ever feel the need to reconnect with the earth.

veggie boy · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:43 pm

I'm with you there Faye. I love AP, but my dirt gardening will always be my first love. Now just to get my dirt productive again (at least it is no less productive than my AP, which is also producing nothing :lol:

).

Are you going to try and fill the raised beds totally with your own home grown compost? You do have some work ahead of you.

earthbound · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:24 pm

I guess you're going to want some days off to get your compost going.....

I think you should cheat a little Faye, the place down the road sells that bio organic compost.

Faye · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:04 pm

huh, I've got three straight days off this weekend remember Joel???
Just mowed the lawn and got hardly any clippings, so fertilised it again.
I can make compost in 2 weeks, with the right ingredients.
But I will be cheating and going the commercial stuff, I want it and I want it now, well when the raised beds come anyway. I am on a mission. :joy:

oldute · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:13 pm

A few years ago I filled up my new raised beds with compost in spring to grow vegies in.
By the middle of summer it was half gone. :bash:

earthbound · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:17 pm

Yeah I remember.....

Yeah, fill it with soil, then compost on top. I did the same with my raised beds out the back at one stage.

Granny Smith · **Posted:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 1:27 am

Faye, your garden sounds wonderful. I'm surprised you have time to re-organise it. You always seem to be so busy with your AP and your camera.

I'm looking forward to lots of bulletins about your progress.

dufflight · **Posted:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:52 am

Cardboard in a thick layer at the base is also good to keep the weeds out and hold moisture. I like to add blood & bone and dynamic lifter with the water crystals as I layer the compost into raised beds. Mix in some hay as well.

chillidude · **Posted:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:48 am

You know the mantra Faye - piccies, lotsa piccies !

Good luck. Can't wait to see what you do.

Food&Fish · **Posted:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:04 pm

Faye wrote:

Well this marks the beginning of a new chapter. We'll call it chapter 46, which is about renovating the garden, starting with the vegetable gardens/ dirt gardens and chook enclosure. I am inspired by this forum and the office that buzzes with ideas about permaculture, fruit trees and edible plants, honestly some days it is like a bee hive in here with Joel and Mitch. Today I have started by ordering some raised zincalume garden beds. That may give me about three weeks to make compost and prepare a plan, ooohh but where to start. This was it around 3 years ago, things are evolving. http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2086129.htm
I guess since installing the aquaponic system 3 years ago, my life kind of took on a new direction and there was little time for playing in the dirt gardens, I am ready to look at what didn't work very well and why. I have far less time these days, but more than ever feel the need to reconnect with the earth.

I hope your thinking of wicking beds :wink:

Faye · **Posted:** Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:13 pm

Funny you say that F & F. I was thinking about wicking beds this morning. I need to do a bit more homework first though. I've got room for lots of things.
Perhaps I'll do some homework when I am in Melbourne. :thumb:

Chillidude I would be too embarrassed to show you the pictures just yet. I started pulling down the old rusted chicken wire fences and the posts made from gum trees that we cut down 6 years ago. But soon!

Faye · **Posted:** Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:06 pm

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Oops! Did a Joel today and went shopping and bought things.
I used to have a rule that I had to say to myself "Only buy what you are going to plant today".
It kind of stops me getting carried away, I forgot about it at Bunnings today. I also confess that at one stage of my life I could not go to the shop without coming home with a plant of some description. Oooh I mean homework!
At the present moment I am planning, therefore I will collect the things I think I would like and then we can work out where/ how they can be themed or grouped and planted.
"He who dies with the most plants wins", yeah :thunbs:

So today we have added tropical fruits to the garden collection including William cavendish banana, cameron apple, strawberry guava, a red and as well as a gold passionfruit, Bowen mango, another Meyer lemon, rhubarb to see if it will go red or not, pink flowering strawberries and 2 planters, a few petunias and marigolds for colour plus 3 rubber weed/lawn barriers for my existing fig trees. Oh well off I go to plant.

dufflight · **Posted:** Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:08 pm

I always make a mad dash to plant the plants I got last time before the new ones arrive in the post.

chillidude · **Posted:** Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:30 am

dufflight wrote:

I always make a mad dash to plant the plants I got last time before the new ones arrive in the post.

If it works Duff, it's a totally valid techinique, in my book. I blame it on my subconscious :dont:

earthbound · **Posted:** Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:00 am

hahaha, so was it the $8 banana or the $15 one thats twice the size? I also bought one of those Cameron apples today, though I have always known them as pepino's.

Your mango is twice the size of mine, and half the price... :sad2:

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