Free things

Peekaboo...

David surprised me last week, when he came home from work. The aged care facility he's employed by, had some plants and containers to discard. Or at least, no-one wanted to look after them any more. There were some mature specimens, inside the pots, and even a metal owl companion, found it's way with some succulents.

Meaningful exchanges.

The cooler weather has settled in, recently. Although the daytime temps are still nearing the high 20's (Celsius). This particular change in season, can only mean one thing. The return of the retaining wall project...

Setting up

We were fortunate recently, to remove some volcanic rock, from a local Toowoombarite's yard (hello, Amy). They needed them gone, and we needed rocks. It was the perfect arrangement. We have them roughly stacked for storage, so this is not their final resting place.

David took out a dead, acacia (black wattle) with nothing more than an axe, and some grunt. It had to happen, before we started laying rocks. So now we're ready to get back to work on the wall again. Slow and steady, will get us there.

I was thrilled to receive an invite, to collect the rocks. Because I get to share a part of someone's yard, and they get to share, part of our wall.  I also shared some of my sourdough starter, Griffin, so even our kitchens' have a special affiliation. Thank you Amy (and husband) for thinking of us.

Shady places

Continuing the theme of accumulative work, there's a relatively new project we've been working on lately. It does involve a retaining wall, but not building one! Thankfully. It's the retaining wall, below our hugelkultur beds.

During the warmer months, those blocks, heat up something terrible. Hardly anything grows in the beds. While the avocado tree sprouted near the wall, is helping reduce SOME radiant heat from reaching the blocks - it's certainly not enough to cover the span of wall, during the day.

Avocado (left) shade sail (above)

So we installed some treated timber posts, and a single, 3.4 x 3.4 metre, shade sail. During sumer, when the sun is high, it will shade approximately 3 metres of wall. But it will always creep in, on the east and west side, as the sun rises and sets.

To mitigate this, we're building screens on half the sides. You can see the lattice, installed recently. It was a gift originally, and I was tired of storing, instead of using. While it's not entirely big enough, I intend to add some mesh above it, with a pot underneath, to grow climbers over. That should provide better shade cover. I will do something similar on the west-facing side.

While it looks kinda junky right now, everything in the image above, has a purpose. The styrafoam boxes under the lattice, are shading a couple of pots I have potatoes and jerusalem artichokes, growing in. The plastic pot, on the styrafoam box, has a rock in it, to stop the box from blowing away. The white buckets in the middle, catches the rain which drops from the shade cloth. I then ferry that water, to the hugelkultur beds.

Best pepinos I've ever grown, over the retaining wall ~

now receives morning shade from the sail

The goal here is to create more micro-climate, for growing plants. Mostly edible ones. Also, to use the man-made infrastructure, as a means of capturing energy where I need it (ie: water harvesting) or deflect energy where I don't - radiant heat.

It's another work in progress, as funds and time become available. I intend to use more recycled materials to complete this shady area. In the meantime, we make do with boxes, buckets and other bits and pieces we can find. It's kind of ugly, but progressing us towards meeting our goal of more food production. Which is kind of great!

Accumulative work

While I've been away from this blog, I've been working on a building project. A very old project. It won't be news to those, reading this blog for some time. I'm talking, retaining walls again. Yes, my friends, we're still building them. Nine years, by my count.

 May 2008

We started our first drystone retaining wall, back in 2008. Which was more like a rock veneer. It wasn't designed to hold any weight, just stop the soil from rolling down the hill more easily - into the areas we wanted to use for compost bins. It was just a tiny prelude, of what was to come!

Terrace block walls

Our very first "prefabricated" block wall, went up, early 2008. Oh boy, we filled in about 7 years worth of work, on prefab block walls! Which gave us a lot of FLAT utility space, on our many slopes. We purchased cheap land, but the cost came later, in constructing retaining walls.

We've found cheaper ways to build them however...

 Log walls

Like using the enormous trees on our property, as wooden retaining walls. Total termite fodder! As they're not treated, at all. But at least they keep the little sawdust munchers, less interested in the house. Being hardwood trees too, it takes many years to make a meal of.

Tyre walls

We've even used free tyres to build retaining walls. Anything to keep costs down, as we attempt to hold the earth from defying gravity. Because when you've been doing this for as long as we have, you have to find ways to trade "time" for "money". Meaning, you use more of you time to gather, free materials, than you use money to purchase them.

First, large, drystone retaining wall

Where we really came into our own though, was in discovering the ability to build drystone retaining walls. The mega variety. And the fact, our local council  (or Main Roads, I'm not sure which) would dump dirt from road reconstructions, after the flood, just a few streets down from us. We'd grab a trailer full of dirt, and inevitably find a hoard of rocks. Home they came with us too!

We have not managed to reduce that pile, because roads keep getting built. More resources keep being added. We're barely making a dent.

 Upper and lower walls -2013

We actually started fortifying this side of the house, with drystone retaining walls, after the 2011 Queensland floods. Work started on the lower wall, early 2012. Why did it take us a year to get building? Because it takes that long to acquire resources. We were working on the walls in our spare time, between raising kids, going to paid work (in my husband's case) and generally managing a property.

The last time we left off this particular drystone retaining wall, was back in 2013. That was the year our son was due to be born, so it wasn't long before all work on this drystone retaining wall, came to a halt.

February 2013

This is where we left it, and four years have passed, since. Having babies and building driveways, are important time commitments too. Honestly, I can't remember everything we did, in those four years, but I don't remember much resting. Opportunities were seized, but not for this particular drystone retaining wall. Not until recently...

 Click to enlarge

The new section has been cobbled together, much like the rest - as resources became available. We like the big rocks for the base, but they're not so easy to come by. So we wait until we have enough to build the next section. And so it has been going, for these drystone retaining walls, since 2012.

It takes time, but it costs less.

Backfill opportunities

We're not particularly picky about which materials we put in our walls either. Backfill (behind the wall) is for hard trash, really. David found some old besser bricks, from someone's old project, at the local tip. They have been used and partially filled with concrete. The one above, also had a beer bottle embedded into the concrete. Someone's celebratory contribution, perhaps?

I topped it off with some blue-metal, available from the local landscape supplies. Blue metal, is what we purchase for these drystone retaining walls. Because no matter how hard you try, there will always be a small gap to fill. Which brings me to the next thing about building drystone retaining walls.

Size matters

There needs to be plenty of different sizes of rocks. Because when you're putting a wall together, with non-uniform pieces, there is inevitably a gap to fill, requiring different sizes.

We try to stack our incoming rocks in different piles based on size. There will always be those rocks which don't fit into the small, medium and large categories, but they end up in one pile, or another. Eventually, they're all used, until it's time to go searching for more material.

The base

The biggest rocks are reserved for the foundation. Make sure these are solid, and without imperfection, as they will be holding a lot of rocks on top. In Queensland, regulations state you're not allowed to build a wall, higher than a meter, without an engineer's certificate. We're sure to keep under a metre, but even low walls, can be heavy.

Chinks

Always have on hand, a lot of smaller rocks too. These are great for chinking into places, larger rocks won't fit. It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Return to your stack of rocks, regularly, to find the pieces which look to fit the best. If that fails, you may have to use two smaller rocks to fill the one space.

The aim is to fill in all the spaces, so none of the rocks will move. The ingenuity behind drystone retaining walls, involves filtering any water through the entire rock face, without the soil! So small rocks for chinking, are just as important as large rocks are, for the foundation.

Blue metal, is that glue for us - filling in all those spaces we cannot find a rock for. So it's worth the investment in purchasing. We want these walls to last.

Depth

The thickness of the wall is important too. We aim for 40-50cms. The nice facing rocks go down first. Then ugly backfill, goes behind. We've been able to find a lot of petrified wood on our property for this purpose. We find petrified wood and sandstone, but quality can vary, in the latter.

With sandstone, we've found it's best to let it soak in water and see if it breaks apart. Lower grade sandstone will, and eventually disintegrate over the years. You don't want that in your wall. Especially in the foundation. Any sandstone we're not entirely sure about, goes in the upper section of wall - just under the capping stone. That way, it's easily replaced, if they do prove to be inferior.

 Angle

An important design feature, of a strong wall, is tilting the rock face back, by approximately 10 degrees. This has to do with the angle of repose. It's a bit technical, and each wall will have a different angle: depending on the location, the slope and material the wall has to hold back.

As a general rule, we keep to 10 degrees. So as we're stacking the rocks, up, we place them further back, than the rocks below. This helps to resist the weight of the material packed behind. It has worked wonderfully over the years.

 Old section, observed recently

This is a section of the original wall, which is approximately four years old. It hasn't moved in that time. As for which rocks we choose, I read in a landscaping article, they should all be the same. Apparently it's meant to look more professional.

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of uniform rocks, so we use whatever we can get a-hold of. Blue stone, sandstone, river stone, petrified wood, and even, good old concrete!

Concrete capping stone

We've found a lot of concrete, pulled from the road, in various soil collection journeys. They have a flat (enough) top, which makes for a nice top layer. We've even used concrete from the pour of our house slab - builders always dump the excess somewhere; which has been good for back-fill too.

We use every possible rock-like piece of the puzzle, to build our drystone retaining walls. If it's going to be dumped into landfill anyway, it might as well be in our own.

 Up close

I actually like the different tones of rocks we collect. It's like a patchwork quilt, using what we have available at the time. I can certainly see the appeal of a uniform rock wall, but I haven't found our cobbled together ones, altogether unattractive, either.

Besides, over the years, they tend to grow moss and fungi which blends them all together anyway.

This rock is not rolling

A large chunk of concrete we used in a wall, just down from our current project. (I'll demonstrate what I mean soon) has been in shade, for most of winter. Which has caused it to grow moss, all over it. Making it blend into the greenery, all the more perfectly.

I love seeing nature, take over our endeavours, by adding it's personal design touches. Shades of green, abound!

Lower rock wall

This is the lower wall, just down from our current project - and it came together last winter. It's actually where we first use to dump the rock, when building the original drystone retaining wall, back in 2012. Seeing that pile of rocks, become invaded by weeds, as the years passed by, kind of inspired us!

So we removed all the old rock (and the weeds) and built a very low wall. Really, it was designed, to hold back the soil for the plants to grow. You can see the Spanish Iris (grass like) which we broke up the wall with. There are other plants behind the Iris, but they're still very small.

I call this our green, rock wall. It's a fusion of rocks, with plants - working together to hold back the soil.

In perspective

This shows the lower green wall, in relation to the upper drystone retaining wall, we're presently working on. In between, we've created an access path. The wheelbarrow is taking up some room, but that's what it's meant for. Access!

When designing retaining walls, always plan for an appropriate access path. If you can have it before construction begins, it makes for a safer working area. There's nothing worse than hauling heavy rocks around, only to have your foot land in a dip in the ground. Ask me how I know this?

 Access is essential

In the five years, since this project began, we've been working on a site, with MANY dips and ruts. When we constructed the lower green wall, last winter however, it showed us the line for a pathway. As we dug out the soil, for the foundation of the new wall, we finally filled-in all those dips and ruts, in the pathway. It's heaven now!

Seriously, I must have goats knees from the many years, navigating less than perfect terrain - on slopes. My brain, somehow knew many of those holes and avoided having mishaps in most of them. But if you don't have to do that, don't!

Every time we make another piece of flat land, we lament why we didn't do it sooner. But, gosh, we've been so busy doing other important stuff too. Collecting resources, doesn't happen on it's own! So everything has to wait it's turn. But consider those access paths, as the MEANS to doing things. I'm glad we decided to perfect that pathway, the second time around. It's made such a difference to working on our project again!

Down tools - but not for long

So this is where we are at, presently. We dig down, about 10-20cms, for our foundation rocks, and build up a section of wall, as we find the resources. That's how it's been for 5 years, and that's how it will be, for however many years to come. Time. Painstaking to wait, perhaps. But has saved us anywhere between five to ten thousand dollars, purchasing materials to date.

We've acquired materials from dump sites, our own yard, they've even washed downstream, in our gully - and even collected rocks from my mother's house. She brought a few in her boot, a couple of times a year, when she came to visit. They weren't desired in her yard, but went to a good cause in ours. Oh so gradually, we found the resources, and built a wall.

 Getting there

When I think about what we've achieved on our landscape, it was really TIME that needed to be invested. We found precious little "spare" time, but what we had, managed to be cobbled together (like our wall) and accumulated gradually, to be something more substantial.

When I think of how we felt overwhelmed, or the toddlers who didn't cooperate with our building plans - the times I worked alone on the wall while my husband worked off site. When I think of the exhaustion, and the near misses too, well there's quite a lot of imperfect living, packed into those walls.

My husband has a saying, and I guess it's entirely true. We are packed into those walls, and they signify who we are. Superheroes, we are not. The physical reality of a busy life, constantly feeling like there's not enough time in the day. Goodness, but doesn't it amount to something more substantial, when work accumulates over time?

You can be weak, AND strong, so long as you have a degree of health and mental dexterity, to keep forging through those little pockets of time.

Is there a long-standing project, weaving through your life? I'd love to hear about it.

Time for...

David and I, had the luxury of pottering around the garden lately. Although pottering, usually involves moving large tree trunks, copious amounts of dirt, and breaking up bark, by hand, to use as mulch.

To that end, we've been dealing with two enormous trees, we had cut down, over nine months ago. Our plan was to incorporate their natural decaying process, into the landscape. But where do we put two, 30 meter trees, so we could still access the land they were felled on?

First felled, August, 2016

We intended to build some retaining walls into the landscape, which would help us garden more effectively. Because it's hard to garden on slopes, with gravity taking water and nutrients down hill. By using terraces however, we get a more manageable landscape. The tree logs would help us in this endeavour.

Downside, is the short term, intensive work involved. Upside is, it should last as long as the landscape does. So a more longterm pay-off, for the short term sacrifice.

Being more organised

David rolls logs now, like some people roll yoga mats. But we weren't always so comfortable, working on this scale or intensity. As former suburbanites, a lot of the perceptions which gave us security, revolved around ready-made solutions, on demand. Without those solutions on our acreage, we felt subject to it's scale. Believing it required more from us, than we were capable of giving.

Compost, mulch and plants, could always be purchased in large quantities in suburbia. How could we make it happen ourselves, on the scale we were working with, just involving the two of us?

As we pottered around the garden, I was reminded of our former selves, compared to who we are now - dealing with tonnes of carbon, like we were taking a walk in the park.

March 2016

What is the difference between rocking up to a landscape supplier, or nursery with your trailer - and moving tonnes of carbon at home, by hand? It sounds simple enough, but it's, time. Time is the difference. However, it's a little more involved than that.

Obviously, we worked on a time scale, which enabled us to get the job done in stages. David had to clear the area, by removing lantana, other weeds and decaying wood, we left earlier. You can still see some of them, around the tree.

Time was not just important on a physical level, however. As the passing of time was also working on "scale", for us. Evaporation over time, removed moisture from the logs - making them lighter to move. But evaporation also, shrunk the wood, prying the bark away from the logs.

 Tree bark

Time also allowed the seasons, to transform the bark, so we could use it as mulch. Several bouts of rain, combined with a little heat and the organisms drawn to such conditions - and even our 4 year-old, could get into the action, of breaking up tree bark, with his hands. He reveled in it.

I'm not attempting to discredit the benefit of having landscape suppliers and nurseries. But I do believe we become unnecessarily intimidated by nature, and all it's raw forms of material, when it's not pre-prepared - or packaged in a way we understand.

We're not use to seeing time, as a component of large scale, resource management - or that we (small as we are, compared to nature) can manage through a different understanding of using our time.

Natural resources

The above picture, looks organised, so it's less intimidating - but there are several vintages of raw materials, we had to gather and prepare. First, the large tree logs, moved into place, to build a retaining wall. There are large sheets of bark, sitting on the logs, which came off the tree too. We broke it up, by hand, into the mulch you see on the ground. There are wattle prunings, we put down, just to cover the soil quickly. As breaking up the bark, takes a little longer.

Last of all, are the older and smaller tree trunks which had aged in this area formerly. They weren't finished decomposing, even though they'd gotten a head-start on the new logs. What those olds logs were doing, were acting as a soil conditioner for the plants we moved in.

Starting to plant area

Talk about instant foliage effect. Only it's not so instant. I've been nursing this Philodendron Xanadu, in a pot for years. It started as a small plant, and outgrew it's pot regularly. So even though it now looks like it's always been in this landscape, it's still took "time" to grow to the size, it has.

Which is something we don't always get to appreciate, when we have the luxury of buying nursery plants, for that immediate head-start. I personally love nurseries, and glad there are businesses (large and small) dedicating their time to growing so much plant material. I wouldn't want there to be no plant nurseries.

But as our economy winds down from the demands of our time, fossil fuels, freed up for us (ironically) we have to become re-acquainted with the scale over time, equation again. We have to see a way for ourselves to work with tonnes of carbon, moving through our gardens. Rather than feel like it's beyond us, because it is so big.

Lower retaining wall

After preparing the site, David moved the logs into position - burying some, so the tops were (more or less) even. He laid two, on their sides, to use as stairs. This wasn't just a retaining wall. It was going to be a place for kids to explore as well. Peter loves this area. So does the cat!

It also served as extra seating, when we had the kids' birthday party, recently. We swung some piñatas from a nearby tree, and spectators came to our new seating arrangement (complements of 12 years, or more of stored carbon). All to watch blindfolded children, wave a stick, in hopes of hitting the target.

So this labour of ours, was not just for the purpose of improving soil fertility so plants could grow. It was also about making this site more accessible to people.

Stairs

To this end, we also used some of the branches as steps. Nothing fancy. Just a practical purpose, for the raw materials we had available. The goal was to use all the trees. Which we still, have yet to do.

When I work on a scale like this, I wonder why myths about food scarcity for the world, perpetuate. Nature is putting this stuff out there, in more amounts than people can handle. But it's not as simple as rolling up to the nursery with a trailer, or the supermarket with a car.

I don't feel as nervous about food security, with first-hand experience of the fertility being dropped in my backyard. I'm not feeding our family on the stuff we grow yet - but I am developing a better understanding of the resources being accumulated by nature, for that purpose. I just haven't worked with them as much, as I've worked with nurseries and trailers. It takes a bit of adjustment, to be comfortable turning so much raw material, into something you can use.

Upper retaining wall

This is the upper level, being put into place. The walking track created, to move the materials, will remain the access area for the garden. This track snakes from the upper level, down to the lower level.

Flowing areas, create better access - especially on slopes, where terrain can be more challenging to navigate. Our design reflects what we are capable of achieving in our younger years, so we can use it to our benefit, in our older ones. Succession is nature's original trademark, and it has taught us to appreciate all the stages, over time - to use them for future benefit, as well as, the present.

  Backfill, come walking track

This is the continuation of that flowing track. Or rather, where I'm standing to take the photograph, is the end. Plants under trees, grow better at the drip-line, or where the canopy of the tree ends. As they don't have to compete with so many tree roots, robbing them of nutrients and moisture. 

Building a track, was a better use of area around the tree trunk, than planting foliage. We will be planting other advanced specimens, from my container collection too. But they will be vines, designed to grow up trees. So being close to the tree trunk, won't be an issue for those particular plants. But the track will remain clear for access.

Natural designs

What I love about using these large trees, as retaining walls though, are the stories they tell. Like insect trails, caused by beetles, who spend their larvae stage in the tree. Boring into, and eating the trunk, is how they reach the beetle stage. We have an integral, endangered species of bird - the yellow-tailed, black cockatoo, which helps control the numbers of beetle larvae in our trees. 

Without those migrating birds, we'd probably have an infestation of beetles, and a lot of dangerous, 30 meter trees, threatening to fall over.

Signs of life

You can see where the beetle bored into the wood, and where the larvae has traveled. It's so beautiful, and part of the indigenous life-cycle of the tree. It plays host to a food source, for a migrating bird population.

I expect to hear the cockatooes' cries again, come June and July. Which is when they take their new fledglings, on a hunting lesson. And in so doing, those birds will leave their droppings behind, to fertilise the trees again.

There's a lot happening in our bushland, which plays over time. But then we come to utilise some of the resources, to make our lives a little more functional again. The lesson here is, what we end up removing, should be balanced by what we return. Because it is only time, which makes up the difference. If we squander what we return, we only squander our time, playing catch-up again.

Mostly done

Because only time can take resources, grown on the property, and let the seasons prepare them for use. Then there is the time we choose to work outside, moving those resources around. So much of my understanding of how plants grow best, started from that limited view of immediacy. How quickly, can I get what I need, and bring my vision into being?

Yet so much of what's important - the building blocks that give life to people, requires a lifelong devotion to doing without. What we have achieved, only happened because we went without, while nature was busy, growing the means to provide the rest. Then we went without rest, and time for other things we wanted to do, when it came to putting the new area together.

I'm not against bringing inputs in. They can help too. But the danger is when we become entirely dependent on inputs - that we feel deprived or insecure, when we cannot acquire them, in a timely enough fashion. That scarcity mentality, and all the fears that go with it, can cause short term decisions - instead of planning for the long-term. And we are all in it (I hope) for the long term.

Feeding people and eco-systems takes time. So how are you spending yours, and what have you enjoyed learning along the way? I imagine there are quite a lot of stories about who you used to be, compared to who you are now.

End of summer review

Goodness, summer was a bit of an adventure. So was spring. Now its autumn, and as everything starts to wane in the garden, its the time for David and I start to evaluating the property, reviewing what we've achieved. Namely, so we can figure out, what to do next, how to do it better, and possibly even what we should be dropping.

Not everything we try in the garden, works. In fact, a lot of what we try, doesn't work to its full potential. But as David likes to say, "we're doing the right things, we just have to do more of it." So autumn is the best time to see how the garden performed, against our well intentioned, efforts. So what did we do?

 August 2015

Back in late winter, I resurrected our old vegetable beds, which hadn't been managed for several years. I created four new growing beds to plant out. August was a busy month, because I also made a new sweet potato bed, away from the main vegetable area, they were attempting to dominate.

The sweet potato bed was a failure, because we didn't get the rain that would fill the swale next to it. We also had ground, around the bed, fully exposed to the sun. Moisture was quickly sucked out through evaporation. It was just another reminder, gardens work best with many functioning parts. Some parts, landscape water storage, some parts water retention strategies. Other parts, climate modifiers by the use of foliage cover.

We had one part right - the landscape water storage, via swale. But it failed when the rain didn't arrive, to fill it. In the end, it was just a huge sponge, sucking water I could cart by hand, to keep things alive. When I got busy elsewhere, our sweet potato bed, went into decline. If I know sweet potato though, it may well bounce back, next rainy season - but it won't be feeding us this season.

 Mid September 2015

The next job we completed in spring though, was the raised bed, built, around the newly renovated, Hilltop chicken coop. It was designed for several purposes. To grow strong scented plants, to deter pests: to grow greens I could pick for the chickens; and to create a screen to help block the Western sun in the afternoon.

The choko I planted, died. But we successfully grew Sunflowers and a a few beans up their stalks. I collected the seeds and will plant more, next year. We ate a few beans, like maybe 10 in total.

 Sunflowers, as a living trellis for beans

Mostly, we grew tall grass, really well though. Which helped shield the chicken run from the weather extremes, in the end. The kale I planted, fed the chickens, until the heat of summer, and lack of rain, made them too tough to eat. We got some tomatoes, which I threw into the chicken coop - a delightful (if infrequent) treat for them. And several spaghetti squash grew, which were enjoyed by us. I saved seed for next year too!

But it was not enough to say, this production area was successful. Saving seed is great and all, but we really needed to eat from the fruit of it. It gave us some things, just not enough of what we needed. And this bed, also went into decline, without regular watering and the heat of summer.

Vegetable production, early October 2015

How did the vegetable garden perform over the growing season, though? Well, it took off with Spring and the warmer soil, which gave us some delicious treats to eat from the garden. The guinea pigs were fat and the chickens happy, with what I could throw in too. I was thrilled with how everything was growing. It made the effort, to water daily by watering can, worth it.

 Yacon growing (centre) late October 2015

If the truth be told, it was a milder spring and summer, temperature wise though. We had many overcast days, which helped keep things a little cooler. I suspect if this hadn't been the case, my manual cans of water, may not have been enough to keep everything hydrated. So the weather worked in our favour, at the start.

Harvesting ~ November 2015

By early November, we were starting to see some harvests. We were never overwhelmed at any point, but it was enough to feel the difference between store bought and home grown. I was looking for ways to use our scarce offerings in our meals, rather than have them go to waste. That's what happens when you spend the time nurturing a crop. You want to see everything used. Plus they taste better than anything you can buy.

Finished retaining wall ~ February 2016

As the vegetable garden chugged along, in November, through to December, we were busy erecting a new retaining wall, opposite it. This was intended to expand our growing area, as the soil and passionfruit vines above, were constantly threatening the crops underneath. We hadn't used the area for growing vegetables in a long time, because of this constant invasion.

Now we could look forward to planting something underneath. What format would we settle upon though, when I didn't want to compromise the footings of the wall? More on what we came up with, at the end.

Christmas 2015

I was delighted, for Christmas lunch, however, to be able to make a peasant loaf, with fresh tomato and basil, picked from our garden. It truly felt like a luxury to have fresh food available, thanks to all our efforts. While we hadn't managed to harvest a lot from our garden (I keep repeating this) it was still memorable enough, to keep wanting to do more.

But then things changed in the garden, by mid summer. Between January and February, David left for five weeks, to boot camp. Where he would become...

March 2016

...A Private in the Queensland regiment of the Australian Defence Force. During his sustained absence however, it meant all the running of the property and our dependents, fell to me. It meant our garden, filled with so much promise at the start, stopped being watered by hand. I tried to keep up with the task, but I was quickly inundated by the rest of my responsibilities.

Those remaining months of summer were not kind to the vegetable growing areas. We didn't get much rainfall either. And it has been mostly dry all the way, into autumn too. Little showers, here and there, but not our usual amount to soak the soil properly. So my vegetable growing area, went from looking like this...

Main vegetable beds ~ February 2016

...to eventually, looking like this, today. Notice the difference in the grass, on the pathway, when the rain vacates for a sustained period of time?

 Main vegetable beds ~ May 2016

It goes to show, two very important things. Firstly, we were on the right track with starting the vegetable growing areas, we just weren't able to keep up momentum. Had we been able to, the garden would have severed us well and yielded more. Secondly however, and more telling is, it demonstrated how utterly dependent our growing systems are, upon us.

Which is why David and I are going to develop a new growing system, away from our existing vegetable patch. One that harnesses the natural forces which enter our property, and use it to our advantage. More on that later though. We're just getting the ball rolling, as autumn and winter are prime months for physical labour.

We aren't leaving the existing vegetable area, though. It will receive some upgrades. Especially, when we went to all that trouble, building a new retaining wall. We had something in mind, which shouldn't compromise the wall footings, and will actually improve the watering situation.

May 2016

We are building a series of Wicking beds. Because a can of water, received straight to the base of the plants, via the wicking bed system, won't have to contend with surface evaporation. This is especially important in summer. But more on our wicking beds, in another post. They deserve their relevant details expanded upon, rather than glossed over.

What David and I learned, after assessing our end of growing seasons notes, however, is that we need a more strategic approach. One which doesn't rely completely on the weather, or completely on man made systems. We actually need both, with many different variations in between.

Might I also add, we need imagination during this process too. It keeps our minds engaged, with exploring what's still possible, rather than focusing on negative feedback from what has failed. I can see the success we had at growing seeds for saving, and the small windows of production for us and our animals to eat - but it showed shortcomings, when tested. It makes sense to diversify and try different things.

I look forward to sharing our new developments, as they eventuate.