The beds are ready to go....

After taking small steps toward creating a little ecosystem in our large Naremburn garden, I am forging ahead with my first attempt at growing herbs and veg (and who knows what else) in real garden beds. Inspired by my edibleurbangarden blogging friend LC  I am off and running with two 3m x 1m x 0.5 m deep beds fashioned by Steven, out of recycled timber palings. $3 each from some place that originally wanted $4. Onya Steven.... The garden section faces north and receives about 4-5 hours direct sun per day in summer. Beds were finished yesterday and with spring clearly upon us, it's time to plant.

It all started with my Greenie husband sourcing the worm farm and 5000 litre water tank, and then came the chooks. 3 gals from rentachook.com.au came into our family in early July 2008. The girls Ruby, Sandra and Emily produce 2-3 and sometimes 4 eggs per day. They consume 95% of our fruit and veg and bread kitchen scraps. When they have done their worst with their daily feed,  the worm farm gets their leftovers and so the circle turns. 

Thanks to a brief and very beneficial couple of visits to a Physio/Nutrition guru in Denistone that advocates a diet of 75% raw veg, I am now salad mad. The two fold effect of this was a very high consumption of salad ingredients, and a lot of kitchen waste in the prep process, hence the chooks came along to help with that.  After many many visits to Harris Farm Markets I started to think perhaps I should grow my own, so to speak. With an 800m squared yard to play with a spot was easily located about 2 months ago. Out came a dead frangipani tree (another story) and with a sunny space at the ready, the garden beds were built. Soil was too clay and rock ridden to plant directly in the ground, so the beds were the best option. Plus with a 7 year old boy, dog, cat and three chooks, higher is better. Of course, the chooks started jumping onto and in the empty beds the minute they were finished and vacated by Steven, so will need to address that issue.

Trying to get through to Materials in the Raw to order some organic garden mix this

morning got me nowhere. The Berowra number from the website was disconnected, and the Gladesville store played silly buggers with my call, she bypassed my call when she found I wasn't the customer on hold she had been dealing with... and never actually took my call in the end. Hung up after it rang for too long, will try again Monday. I need about 3 cubic metres of the stuff to fill the two boxes, and with very easy side access should be a doddle fillling them.