Raised Garden Bed

Early in September at the beginning of Spring I decided I wanted to try growing our own vegetables in a raised garden bed. I spent hours doing research into the different types of garden beds, what soil we'd need and what vegetables would grow best during the spring and up coming summer months.

 

 

So it's been nearly a month since Mr Opoes and I put the garden beds together, building them took us a couple of hours and then finding a spot for them took us even longer. By the time we'd finished we'd run out of time to get to the hardware store to buy all the soil and sugar cane mulch. So early the following day we rushed off to our local hardware store to purchase one bag of sugar cane mulch, seven bags of soil, one bag of manure and two bags of tomato and vegetable food. This was only half of the stuff we needed but as Mr Opoes had an event to get too we didn't have time to purchase it all. So our little gardening project had to be delayed another week.

 

 

As a few weeks had past since we'd put the garden beds together I made it my mission to get stuck in to having both garden beds planted out by the following weekend. Another trip to the hardware store was made, supplies were purchased, loaded into the car and bought home to be unloaded into the backyard. We were able to get both garden bed filled with soil and I then went about planting out one of the beds with my packet seeds and my tomato plant. I quickly came to the realisation that my little tomato plant would need some kind of support in order to grow better so I rushed back to buy a trellis from the hardware store.

 

 

The long story short is that my first garden bed had been planted out for three weeks and I was still to plant out the second on. I really wanted my second garden bed to look like the other bed which had germinated really well even though I wasn't looking after it as well as I should have. So on Saturday I went off to another hardware store and purchased a plastic pot, strawberry plant, carrot seedlings, celery seedlings and a capsicum plant. When I got home I realised that my plastic pot didn't have any drainage holes in it so I set about drilling four holes in the bottom so that the water can drain into the saucer that I also picked up. I got to work planting my strawberry in the pot because I'd seen on Better Homes and Gardens that you can plant them in pots.

 

 

So I am now proud to say that we have both garden bed planted out and all the vegetables are doing OK. With the hot temperatures we've been experiencing lately I'm going to have water the vegetables regularly so that they don't die. I wish that I'd taken the time and the correct steps the first time to get organised so that my veggie garden was done in a weekend, the best thing that's come from the whole experience would be I've had time to gain some more knowledge and understanding about every process involved.

 

 

The kids are super excited about our garden so I'm going to watch them when they're outside just to make sure I don't have things picked from the veggie patch. I'm also looking forward to continuing this next year and I'm hoping that Quinlan and I will be able to work on it together when it's just the two of us at home. So tell what are you growing in your veggie patch this season?

 

Megan

 

 

 

 

It's

Today's the second day of Spring, this means I have to start getting the garden prepared so that we're ready to grow some vegetables that the kid's will eat. I've spent the last few day's researching the benefits of using a store bought metal raised garden bed verses us building a wooden raised garden bed. After looking at various web sites I've decided to purchase a metal garden bed because we've a number of events coming up which won't leave us much time to construct the garden bed, plant it out and then wait for it to grow.

So on Saturday while the girls and I went off to Weight Watchers I had the boys go to our local Aldi supermarket to purchase two raised metal garden beds as they were on special and this meant that we were able to save $20 per garden bed by getting them from Aldi instead of the local hardware store. While the boy's were picking up the garden bed's my amazing husband discovered that Aldi were also selling packet seeds and 100mm tomato seedlings for really good prices so he picked up a 100mm tomato seedling and nine packet seeds. So when it comes to putting the garden bed together we will have something to plant in it.
 

Next weekend when the whole of Australia is at polling booths across the nation voting for the next Australian Prime Minister we'll be out in the backyard putting our garden beads together, purchasing soil, fertiliser and then planting my little seeds and my tomato plant. I can't wait to see how it all goes and in ten days up to sixteen weeks I might have something to harvest. I'm also hoping that Caelan has fun working on our little veggie patch together because when he did gardening club last year he really enjoyed it.

 

So if you have a veggie patch and you have any tips you'd like to share please leave me a message in the comment section as I'd like to hear how things turned out for you. Next week I'll show you how Mr Opoes and I went about putting the garden bed together and if time allows I'll also share how I planted my seeds.

 

Megan

Landscaping Part Three: Grass and Trees

 

 

So I thought I’d share the final part of our landscaping story with you, considering it’s been about six months since it was finished. The best part about completing this project has been that the children now have a yard to play in and they don’t spend their day’s complaining about how bored they are. Not long after the landscaping was completed by Barry and his boy’s Brisbane and the rest of Queensland was inundated with rain. This made our job of 'establishing everything' a little bit easier as we didn’t have to water the lawn and tree’s every day to make sure that they were getting a good start in life.

 

The front of the house and all our Lilly Pilly's

 

Due to the amount of rain we experienced we had to wait a few extra weeks before we fertilised or cut the grass as we wanted to make sure that the grass and soil had knitted together. During the first ten weeks Mr Opoes and I bought more timber stakes to secure the Lilly Pilly's more and to correct their positioning due to the increased amount of wind we'd been experiencing. Once all the Lilly Pilly's were straightened up everything was looking better and all we had to do was make sure that each planet had enough water BUT not too much water. Barry's parting words were very specific about looking after the Lilly Pilly's as they can die if they're under watered or if they're over watered.

 

We now have street appeal and we don't look like the new kid's on the block.

 

We are really happy with how everything is looking and the children have loved have green grass to run around on. It was so great that we had the yard all landscaped by the end of January as it gave us an entire month of Summer left to play outside and enjoy the grass. The other great thing about having the backyard completed was that we were able to set the trampoline up that Grandma and Grandpa gave the kids for Christmas 2011. The children have loved going outside everyday and having a bounce on the trampoline.

 

The backyard which the kid's LOVE.

 

Quinlan is now at the age were he's able to use the trampoline and he really enjoys playing on it with Viveca and Mackenna. The next step will be for the girls to teach Quinlan how to jump up and down, I can safely say that Quinlan will probably have achieved this by his second birthday and he'll be spending quiet a lot of time over the Summer playing on the trampoline and running around on the grass.

 

The back of the house (top row of pictures) and the side of the house (bottom three pictures).

 

Since the we've had the landscaping done we have realised that it's about 90 percent finished and we still have a few things that we need to do before SUMMER arrives. As a family we are really happy with the way it is now but I'm really looking forward to getting it finished and having it all complete so that we can enjoy it all year round.

 

With summer been only four and a half months away I've drawn up a To Do List which I'm hoping we'll be able to tick off as the months pass:

• install a garden shed so that we can free up some space in the garage.
• create a concrete, paved or gravel based floor for the shed.
• start planning and planting out a veggie patch and then harvest the vegetables.
• possibly get a few chickens in the backyard.
• install two side fences so that the chicken are safe when playing in the backyard.

Once all these things are completed I'll be able to focus on organising the outside patio area which will require us buying some furniture so that we could eat outside during summer but that won't be happening until the summer of 2014. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to be sharing more of the projects that I have planned for the yard.

 

 

Megan

Landscaping Part Two - Soil.

So the boy's are back on site today after the Christmas/New Year break and it's all systems go. We had a quick meeting with Barry to talk through the next stage of the job. He also explained when the various delivers would be happening. I've come to the realisation that things will be getting very busy around here during the next few days so I'm going to be taking the children out most days. One thing I've discovered since we started the landscaping is that we have a very dusty yard. I have dust all over the place and no amount of dusting helps. I'm just going to wait until the job's finished and then I'll do a major clean up.

So the deliveries arrived and can you believe it, its more dirt. We have had a small amount of fill delivered (this is just to build up the area's around the house that aren't the same as other places) and the bulk of the delivery was soil. This will be spread out evenly over the entire yard in preparation for the grass to be laid and the tree's to be planted. The boys had to move the fill and soil to the back of the house and when this was done we had about five separate piles just outside our windows.

Mackenna had a pile of fill right in front of her bedroom window so she wasn't even able to open her window at night time due to the possible dust factor. The other piles of soil were right in front of the windows to our dinning room. I arrived home not long after the last delivery and I thought that a heap of cow manure had been delivered because it smelt really bad. Barry assured me that it was just the smell of really fresh soil, apparently fresh soil has a strong odour. Lucky us we had the joy of spending thirty minutes getting use to the smell. What was surprising, when Mr Opoes arrived home his first commented related to the amount of soil sitting in the backyard. He didn't pick up on the smell until much later in the evening.

The children have enjoyed seeing things change in and around the yard. Everyday we are getting closer and closer to having a grassed area for them to play on. One thing that I've come to realise is that Mr Opoes and I would never have been able to have pulled this landscaping job off ourselves. I think that if we'd gotten some help from a few family members and tried to do it over Christmas, I'm sure we would have gotten the retaining wall built. Once the wall was completed, Mr Opoes and I would have spent many weekends each months trying to complete the job. Mr Opoes and I were pretty sure that we still won't have finished it by the end of July. One thing I really didn't want to do was to work through the summer, especially as the temperatures that we'd already experienced were quiet high. Mix in the humidity and I would have not been able to Mr Opoes at all. So with all those negative aspects I'm glad that we employed Barry and his boy's to do it for us.

So I thought that I'd share a few progress pictures with you.

Before: the driveway and our street appeal.

The soil that arrived today.

More soil and in the back corner that's going
 to be my vegetables patch.

Looking out towards the street from the lounge room

Next week I'll share more of the progress pictures. With more things in place you'll be able to get a better idea of how we've used the area to best suit the needs of our family. When its all finished I'm hoping the kids  can have hours of fun running around while I'll also have the opportunity to develop a vegetable garden and maybe a chicken coop.

Tomorrow I'm going to show you a meal that I created in the hope of having the kids to eat more vegetables while also trying an Asian inspired meal. So I'll see you tomorrow for another Try Something New Tuesday.

Megan

Landscaping Part One - Retaining Wall.



Back in December we celebrated 6 months in our new house and we got to thinking that it was about time we got the landscaping done. There were a few reasons for why it was important for us to start on the landscaping. The children spend too much time inside, so having grass means that they can get outside and play. Secondly, I could start creating a vegetable garden in the hopes that it would start producing vegetables that I can use (thus saving us money) and lastly it will finish off the house while also providing street appeal.

Originally Mr Opoes and I wanted to do the landscaping ourselves but after getting a few quotes we quickly realised that it wasn't as simple as we had initially thought. We needed to build two retaining walls which we would have to get someone in to do due to the fact that neither Mr Opoes or I had the confidence that wed be able to do it correctly. However, what was more of an issue was that with four children finding the time to do the job ourselves was humanly impossible. The other issue we faced would be the weather, especially during summer when the temperatures and humidity can get really high. So after doing some calculations we realised that it could take us anywhere up to 6 months to do the job ourselves and during this time we'd need to have the children babysit which would take sometime to organise.

With less than a week before Christmas our lovely landscaper Barry and his boys arrived at 6.30am to start doing the prep work for the retaining wall. I was a little shocked especially as I'd only just woken up, I was still in my p.j's and I hadn't had my morning cup of tea. So Barry ran us through what they'd be doing in the two working day's left in 2012 and they got to work. We have opted for a concrete retaining wall as it'll last longer than a timber one. The timber retaining walls need to be replaced every 10-12 years and I don't really want to have the grass and vegetable patch driven over with a bobcat so using concrete was a better option. However, although the concrete lasts longer cost wise its more expensive.

So at the conclusion of 2012 we had the retaining walls completed and from here we could see how much backyard the kid's would have to play in. As we live on a battle axe block the majority of the landscaping will be happening at the rear but we are also making a few little improvements along the driveway so that we can add street appeal to the property. Here are a few before and after pictures for you to see.



All the supplies for the retaining wall.



Before: right hand corner of backyard.

After: right hand corner of backyard

Before: left corner of the backyard near rain water tank.

After: left corner of the backyard near rain water tank.

Before: looking towards the front of the house, left side.

After: looking towards the front of the house, left side.

I will share some more pictures and details with you next week as things progress a bit more. I'm hoping that everything will be finished by the end of January so that the kids can spend some time playing outside from about mid-February especially as summer will be coming to an end. Who knows to celebrate we might fire up the BBQ, eat sausages and Mr Opoes might even have a cold beer as he looks over Barry's work.

Megan