What a crazy week we're having!
We're moving to our new piece of paradise on the first weekend in March so over this growing season we've eased off, not knowing when the move would be, and for the last few weeks we've been slowly taking apart our garden system. I'm so sad to see my little piece of Eden disappearing.
For those who don't know, I'm currently 24 weeks pregnant. Thanks to the constant (and horrible!) morning sickness I haven't been able to get much done in the garden but I did learn more than ever what a little oasis it is. I'm not sure how many times over the past 24 weeks I felt too horrible to do anything except merely survive. I'd take a cup of tea out to the garden, sit under the Jacaranda tree and watch the leaves in the breeze and the chooks cluck about the yard. I miss my little garden already.
We have decided to leave the garden beds intact so any potential tenants at least have the option of enjoying homegrown food, but we've cleared most of them and taken down the fences.
I'd love to give everyone a tour of what we did at this place and appreciate some ideas of how we can improve on our techniques and design for take number two!
This was our yard before we started...
This is me digging out the grass with my baby watching on, as well as the dogs--great help dogs! (I think the white one was having a little sleep in the dirt).
Here comes my fab hubby with another barrow-full of soil.
Finally getting there with the first three beds.
All planted out and appetites waiting!
As you can see, everything went crazy--and fast! Within a matter of weeks we were harvesting left, right and centre!
This is spring 2011 (the following year from the photos above). Unfortunately I didn't go camera crazy as the whole process unfolded but I'll keep that in mind for round two!
To cater for our two chooks, who arrived in September 2011, we installed a fourth garden bed closer to the garage and fenced off each bed with about 1.2m of chicken wire, using star pickets to hold it up. There was a little access lane along the fence and a gate at either end of each enclosure. The idea was to use the chooks as tractors, so we could move their pen to access a new garden bed each month. Their job was to eat all the leftovers and turn over and fertilise the soil ready for replanting.
It worked a treat but we underestimated, and were advised incorrectly, at the jumping capacity of Australorps. Our girls spent about a month in their pen (the door was always open for them, they were never locked in) before they decided it was time to start exploring! Luckily they planned their escape at a time all the other beds were established enough to withstand their exploration! They free-ranged around the whole yard, eating snails, digging up the lawn, eating fallen tomatoes and just generally having a merry chook time. What a total delight they are! I'd never had chooks before and I just love them!
Next came another adventure in our move toward self-sufficiency! Meet our aquaponics setup! For those who haven't seen one before the tank is the ultimate in food production! A small pump cycles the water from the tank up through the grow medium where the plants grow. The plants in the top eat all the fish poo and clean the water for the fish--brilliant!! The best part of course is that you can eat not just the vegies you grow on top but also the fish! We currently have about 40 Silver Perch growing and they range from about 10cm to 20cm in size. We're not sure how they will survive the move, but even without considering the fish themselves, it's going to be one painful little number to get to the new house!
It's now time to start round two but where to even begin?! For now it's more packing and cleaning (if the rain ever stops!)
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