apple boxes

Last week my bloke and I skived off work for a road trip to Camden, we were picking up a couple of old apple boxes to convert into raised vegie beds. We'd been waiting for a local garden supplies place to get new stock of these, but in the end bought them straight from the grower.

On the way back we drove through Mount Annan Botanic Gardens where I photographed this striking blue tree. Its a lovely big bushland setting with stands of different tree species. Unfortunately we had the dog with us and couldn't get out for a wander, next time.

You may remember we put some vegie beds down the back of the garden last year. While they started off well they have recently struggled with the number of tree roots in the area so we're hoping that raising them up like this will get them more sun and less competition to their roots. Its also nice to have them raised for easy access, and don't they look nice!

I've showed some of the process, we lined them with weedmat and filled the bases with recycled polystyrene to cut down on the weight and the amount of soil used. Then we filled them with a compost mix from the local nursery. I say we but it was mostly done by the boy crew, Miss A and I were out so missed most of the heavy work. The worm towers were reinstalled for easy composting. I'm hoping these work better in the new situatuion too.

The surviving vegies were transferred to their new spot and are so far thriving. These include some stunted rainbow chard, four broad bean seedlings, eight small broccoli plants and four pea plants. None were very happy and it will be interesting to see if they continue to do well in the new beds.

I have a few winter vegies still going, a couple of healthy kales, some broad beans and beetroot grown from seed and some cherry tomatoes which have held on in their sunny side spot through this mild winter. Last weekend it certainly felt like spring and the heralds of the new season, the wattle, the magnolias, the jasmine, the daphne, the jonquils are all out in force.