The garden consists of five 4' x 24' x 16" raised beds made from wooden hardwood sleepers obtained from the local sawmill and our friends at Illawambra. This area has a heavy clay based soil and naturally high water table due to both the soil and local drainage problems. Also, this block had been built on several times in the past and has been a butchery, a printers and a funeral parlour amongst other things. The topsoil was minimal and full of archaeological items from the 60's and 70's i.e. people had been burying garbage here for many years so raised beds seemed to be the only real solution. Other smaller beds have been added at the back and a raised bed at the side contains fruit trees.

A number of trenches have been dug to further facilitate surface drainage.  Sounds like a bad place to put a vegie garden but we have proved that you can do it - the locals are amazed at the transformation of this block from a boggy patch of weeds to a productive useful area in a few years.
The original method used to build the soil was done using the Esther Dean straw garden method. Now the soil is regularly enriched and topped up with compost, blood and bone, assorted manures, liquid duck droppings etc with mulched lucerne on top and large quantity of red compost worms (from our brother-in-laws' worm farm) have been added to aid in the work of keeping the soil in good condition. Companion planting methods are employed and some plants are let go to seed as trap crops for bugs. No inorganic pesticides are used as we'd prefer not to eat things covered in those substances so you have to get used to a few holes in things and remember to check for mini livestock before you bite into something.  Mostly however, there aren't too many problems with pests. It's great ...  a little Willy Wagtail bird and it's mate have moved in and eat lots of little insects.
The climate here is a big ask for some plants. Normally winters can get to -5 deg overnight and there are a number of nasty frosts every winter. So... you can't just grow what you like whenever. Summers can do 43 deg at times plus the weird weather that has been happening over the last few years is somewhat confusing to many plants.  We actually have a 3 1/2 year old Brussels sprout bush complex(?)!
The cold of winter is surprisingly OK to grow quite a few things.  Lettuce, silverbeet, broccoli, onions, carrots, leeks, garlic (we love garlic!!), cabbage and broad beans (ever tasted fresh tender broad beans with mayo? .. yum)  and, of course, snap peas (they're better than snow peas - sweeter).   The middle of summer is rather vicious so it's better to plant before it and after it or things will just not make it.  Eggplants are great and they are not bitter when grown in this organic concoction. We have experimented with lots of varieties of tomatoes and there's no way you could go back to eating those flavourless, chemical encrusted excuses that are sold commercially after eating the ones we grow.  Our favourite tomatoes, so far, are Green Zebra, Graf Zepplin, Coolagolite Mongrels (a local one), Verna Orange and Amish Paste but there's still lots more to try. We just save seeds every year as they're all open pollinated varieties. We discovered some great seed companies who sell all these and lots of different and unusual vegies that are fun to try. We discovered Southern European Spinach (a beta vulgaris) and it is so delicious that it leaves regular silverbeet (chard) for dead.  Bush Potato Pumpkin Squash is convenient as you can eat it at any stage of development and it is dry and sweet when mature. A good place to buy seeds is from Eden Seeds.  If anyone wants to exchange seeds or chat about vegies, please email.
We made a summer lettuce garden along the western back fence to shade them from afternoon sun and it's been quite successful as lettuces don't really seem to like too much heat.  But when lettuces start to bolt in the really hot weather there's always Malu Khia - a great lettuce tasting leafy bush that loves full sun and hot conditions.
There were a few old fruit trees when we first got here that are still going strong and have benefited from some rejuvenational pruning. One of the plums, a yellow variety, tastes like heaven and nobody knows what variety it is.  Along the fence and to the right side of the photo is a row of fruit trees that we planted.  William's Pear, Nashi, Gala apple, Golden Delicious Apple, Two varieties of Quince and a Peach. Quinces are wonderful tasting and versatile fruits and I've always been surprised that they're not more popular. Unfortunately, some unspeakably careless individuals brought fruit fly to the village a few years ago and now it's necessary to do things to prevent infestation of the fruit. (chemicals !!??)  We now have to cover all the susceptible fruit with individual cotton cloth bags with tie cords (you can make the bags yourself easily if you have our types of sewing equipment but if you don't: you can buy them cheaply from Green Harvest). The bags were a huge success - none of those horrible little maggots crawling around in your precious fruit. It wasn't all that time consuming and well worth the trouble. We also grow lots of garlic around the new fruit trees and they both appear to like each other.  The garlic flowers grow right up into the fruit trees.
Yes, a word about the little portable wire fences around the vegie garden. Well, that's necessary to stop the ducks helping themselves to things before we do.  Our ducks have gotten a taste for a large range of vegetables as well as insects and worms so it's not a good idea to let them have free access to this kind of garden.  Also, ducks feet can be a bit destructive to tiny plants. They have learnt to hassle us loudly whenever we go near an area that contains gourmet duck cuisine and they certainly get their fair share.
The revolving compost bin and compost heap are located left of the photo and near the fence and get shaded by our two mega sized Oak trees in the afternoons.
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