Moving Mulch

We were lucky enough to get a truck full of free mulch from Shayne's Tree Services two weeks ago, as you can see it is a large pile!

 We needed to move over 80 wheelbarrows full of mulch and topped up the banana grove area in the back garden and all of the paths. Then I needed to make multiple trips to recycling bins at the local shopping centre and furniture stores to collect carloads of cardboard. I layered this four boxes thick and then placed the mulch on top.

I left an edge along the verges and driveway as the grass will need to be dug out there and then filled with cardboard and mulch and sloped down so that it does not all spill onto the road, The mounds that are left are to fill these spaces.

After collecting more cardboard and a lot of digging Andy has managed to finish the area on both sides of the driveway and half way along the front garden. It looks great! We will now collect more cardboard and when he is back from work again hopefully the rest of the front verge section will be completed. The final step will be putting wood edges in on the edge between our lawn and the neighbour's lawns. So still a few steps to go but the bulk of it is done and it looks great.

Edible Food Forest Creation 2008 - 2015

Here is a post  showing the view of our front garden from 2015 - 2008 when we started transforming a lawn into an edible food forest garden. It has surpassed what we planned and continues to improve as we learn and grow.


October 2015 - This photo was taken today and shows the growth  the past 12 months has been far greater than in previous years for what we now fondly call the fedges (food hedges).  We think this is a combination of the plants becoming more established, the extension of the mulched area, and the greywater drip system from the Gator.
We currently have a massive crop of mulberries and our first crop of loquats ans still hope to get rid of all of the grass once we can get some more free mulch.

October 2014 - Here you can see the food hedge of fejoas and a mulberry tree that were planted in 2008. Then in front of that we have mulched and made a path that incorporates the olive, figs and loquat tree as well as rosemary, lavender etc.

 2011 -  shows the height/thickness  of the fejoa hedge  and that we still had lawn on the nature strip and around the veggie gardens. By placing down cardboard, newspaper and mulch we have significantly increased the health of the plants and reduced the amount of weeding required.

 

 2009 -  as you can see it was just lawn and the fruit hedge now has edges around each plant as we had realised quite how hard it was for the plants competing with the grass.

December 2008 - the hedge had just been planted in the hope that it would provide a screen from the westerly sun and wind which is so strong here. This series of photos show the incremental but substantial changes which have taken place over the seven years since we began.

We have learnt such a lot over that time and each small step has led to another so that we have now produced over 600 kilos of food from an average suburban block.  We are pleased with that and feel that by taking responsibility for growing some of our food, collecting and recycling water and using solar power we are making a contribution. I would certainly recommend it to anyone that can do it, just start small and learn as you go.

Growing Now

 This is the first time that this tree has had so many figs, they are a Brown Turkey Fig, but like the rest they get eaten very quickly.

This is the first time that we have grown broccolini and broccoli successfully and we are crediting that to the use of wood chips we have now layered across the grass and beds in the 'Back to Eden' garden method.

 The raspberry bush has flourished this year, as I cut the canes back much more severely, canes clearly benefit from cutting back.

 The blackberries are nowhere near as successful as I did not get around to cutting back the old canes, my guess is that this has reduced our harvest by about 75% so it looks like we will not be having a fresh blackberry trifle for xmas this year...

 We were so proud of this peacharine, it was a beauty to behold, until the parrots demolished it. Had to breathe hard and remember the Permaculture Principles of sharing.....

 

There are now more than a dozen flowers on the globe artichoke so now we have provided housing for hundreds of ladybirds, hope they move in soon.

 

 We have finally finished the next stage of the front no- dig garden. Once again we have used recycled timber, shredded paper, old leaves, card board, newspaper and clippings to make the bed. This time we have placed several inches of wood chips on straight away and planted into that thyme, capsicum, strawberries and eggplants. We have had extremely hot weather but by using the wood chips the soil has stayed cooler and the plants have not struggled like they would gave otherwise.

Front No Dig Garden - Mulch

 We are now putting in pine bark chip paths to cover the lawn and make new paths.

We used the old wooden beams from the pergola we dismantled to frame the one at the front.

 

 

Here you can see the front hedge, which is covered in fruit.

 We are now also building a new no dig garden and using recyled cardboard, paper and newspapers and recyled beams. Once we have that all done we can start to fill with grass clippings etc.

Here you can see the  new path between the beds.

Paths, Traps and Produce

 The front hedge is gradually becoming a hedge and now I have used newspaper and wood-chips to create a path to try and stop the grass continually growing into the garden.

 The mulberry tree is producing fruit and we are using the Mediterranean flytraps in all of our fruit trees. Hopefully this will be effective, and is less work than the exclusion bags we tried last year.

 Our kale and spinach has been very effective, now to find lots more recipes to use them in!

Here is the blueberry plant, lots of tiny flowers so we hope for fruit again this year. In the background is the fruit salad plant, we have not yet had fruit from this.

Front Garden - Sept 2012

 Last day of September and the tomato bushes are taking over, they look very happy in the front garden, cannot wait to start picking them again.

 We have had to move one of the peach trees as it appeared to be dying, hopefully we have moved it in time to save it. Meanwhile the rest of the garden is brimming with life and activity.

 The compost bins are having coffee , ash from the fire, grass clippings, food scraps, manure etc put into them and they just drop and drop. Hopefully the worms are just transferring all the good compost at the bottom into the garden, saves us having to move it!

Becoming Biodynamic

Yesterday I applied this Biodynamic mixture to the front garden, I bought it through Green Harvest and do hope that it helps my garden grow. However, i was in a rush and did not read all of the instructions so hope that will not reduce the effectiveness too much. We shall have to wait and see. They also send along some information booklets which reminded me about the importance of mulching so I have been in the garden again this morning mulching, feels great.

Composting Coffee Grounds

 We had read about the benefits of collecting coffee grounds and adding them to compost at the Coffee Grounds to Ground site. And have now made arrangements with a school canteen to collect grounds on a weekly basis.

 The ladies at the canteen have been very helpful and even gave me an old bucket to swap with the one that I dropped off. I have been doing this for about 2 months now and the amount of grounds has grown.

There are lots of uses, but at this stage I am adding ours to the compost bins that sit in the fromt vegetable garden.