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Tuesday 23 October 2012

Spring...means gardening and new vegie beds.

Vodka would still prefer her bucket - and with her long fleece, she gets 'bucket hair'!!
Spring is definitely here, and with the mixture of warmer weather, wet weather and still some cold weather, we have been busy in the garden.  Not neglecting the Alpacas, they have been coming into the back garden and trying to keep the grass down!


The shearer will be booked in November so the Alpacas will have some relief from their immense fleeces, the warmer weather and we will see exactly what we have! :)
In the meantime, we have been trying to recycle some old metal sheeting and wooden railway posts.  Our existing veg garden needs an upgrade, and I have been looking wistfully at the beautiful raised veg beds on the internet.  So husband and I borrowed Dads post-hole digger and attempted to make our own with what we have...

View up to existing veg patch complete with compost 'bin'
Daughter, Son and I have cleared and fenced  some of the overgrown beds
We have planted snow peas, silverbeet and spring onions..
broccoli
cauliflower, brussel sprouts and loads of popeye spinach
These beds are not the best for planting in, there is a high clay content in the soil so water runs over the top and the ground forms a 'seal' unless we have a lot of rain.  So I talked Husband into the raised beds.  First we needed to move the compost further down under the tree...
hmm, the ground here is clay - the post-hole digger needed water to soften the clay, the operator swore loudly as the digger nearly tore his arms from his sockets! LOL
the metal sheets were not in the best condition, and many split as we tried to cut and nail them (so there was more swearing)
Looked good from a distance!
Filled with compost and worms :)
Filled with confidence, we decided to build our first veg bed, just like the compost one.  Hmmm...the ground is on a slant here LOL...

and the swearing starts again, the ground is so hard...
this is the clay that has come up to put the post in - I can't believe anything grows!
almost there...
Ta-da!
maybe not as square and level as I would have liked - but they didn't cost anything (just lots of hard work :) )
Now we just have six more to go!!!! I asked Husband to keep the posts high rather than cut them to size, this way I can drape netting over the beds and keep the insects out.

In the meantime, we have been weeding the gardens every other day - until I had had enough and asked daughter to plant some forget-me-nots as ground cover.  I know, I know, this is also a weed but it is a very pretty one!  so our gardens went from this...
Lovely weeds, clay and poor Agapanthus!

Much better!



Of course, 2y.o was out and about with his new gardening gear from his birthday LOL



2 comments:

  1. Aw your new raised beds look lovely! So deep too! I think recycled items look far better than new ones in the garden, hehe. And I love blue forget-me-nots! I always remember when I was very little my Gran told me..."one day when God was naming all the flowers, he had just finished when a little voice peeped up and said 'please Lord, forget-me-not?' and he didnt, because God said..."my dear sweet child, I didn't forgot you - because that is your name." I've loved them from that day since, lol. Yes, that was silly, but that's how Ive always rememberd them. Keep up the good work!

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  2. Awwww, that is so sweet - I do think they are very pretty and much better than the 'clover' type weed that was there. I think the recycled look is better, but I think I will paint them - I'm just not sure what paint to use, do you know? :)

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