Newsflash: Perth gets rain!

It's raining!!! Hopefully with a bit more on the way :)




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Raised garden bed: reinforcing the sleepers

reinforcing the sleepers a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Stage 2 of our raised garden bed construction is reinforcing the sleepers. This seems especially useful in the sandy soil, given the plot is on a slope. Simon used large galvanised coach screws to keep the sleepers in place and set the reinforcing stakes at the joins of each sleepers to minimise any movement and water run-off (we hope).

With the sleepers now in place we are ready to constructt the layers of our no-dig garden. First off, however, we will do some minor pulling out of grass (that you can see by the fence/retaining wall) just to minimise regrowth, as the bed is not as deep as we had first envisaged. We should get approx 30-40 cm depth with the no-dig layers, probably higher at first until the layers settle over time.

Next: no-dig layers! :o)

Setting up a raised garden bed

Setting the garden bed a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Stage 1 of our raised garden bed is in progress. Simon laid the old sleepers reclaimed from the vacant lot behind us. The whole lot gives us approx 10-12 square meters of garden which should be ample space. Now for the fun bits in pulling out the worst of the grass and getting the layers happening for our no-dig garden!

Stay tuned!

Perth's sandy soil

Welcome to our new gardening blog! We have travelled across the continent from Canberra where we enjoyed pottering about in our garden there, to take up residence here in sunny, sandy Perth!

We are currently renting so there are a few things we are thinking about in terms of how we go about setting up our new garden here. Firstly and most pressing is the very sandy soil. Perth literally sits on a sand dune, making gardening a real challenge.

Being a Gardening Australia viewer, I always enjoy Perth-based presenter, Josh Byrnes's advice, and he shares some tips for dealing with sandy soil as well as his ideas for those who live in rentals. Josh reckons the sandy Perth soil is "gutless", especially for fruit trees, which we'd love to grow (probably in pots though):

"To fix this type of soil add some key ingredients. Bentonite clay helps retain nutrients, compost adds organic matter to the soil, rock minerals provide trace elements, pelletised manure adds a slow release fertiliser, and blood and bone."

Basically, Josh says to use four basic ingredients to help build up sandy soil:

1. a surfactant-based wetting agent, to beat hydrophobia
2. organic matter, like aged sheep manure
3. ground rock dust (for trace elements and minerals)
4. mulch to minimise evaporation, something like pea straw, for example.

For vegies it's also good to add a finer type of compost and use seaweed and/or fish emulsion to boast growth.



We are choosing to put in some raised beds along a north-facing fenceline. This way we avoid much of the sandy soil and can contain the garden in an otherwise large open space in the backyard of the property. We also have an opportunity to do these in "no dig" style - great for me as I'm 6 months pregnant! Again, there's a good step-by-step how to guide via the Gardening Australia website.

We have a compost bin going already and will also set up our worm farm once more, so just a matter of spending a small amount of time on these preparations and we are underway! To start, we have put in two large planter boxes for herbs - it's nice to have just that little bit of green (Clancy has a pot of flowers too).



I can't wait - we've only been away from Canberra for about 4 weeks and I miss my gardening heaps!

Anyway... happy gardening!