Our first Bed!

 

A little while ago we were very lucky to be visited by Rosemary Morrow. Rowe is one of the leaders of the permaculture movement around the world. She generously managed to fit her visit in whilst she was preparing to leave for a lengthy stint teaching permaculture in Afghanistan.

Rowe had many suggestions in regards to the design of the garden, and I will discuss these things in a later Blog. However her advice in terms of what we should do in the short term was typically practical. “Grow food”.

Taking Rowe’s advice, the team got cracking on our first raised bed. There will be a bit of experimentation with our beds in terms of heights and sizes, but the first was designed as a ‘standing bed’. That is you can stand in an upright position and work in the garden.

We used the corrugated iron that was laying around after we pulled apart the old beds that were hidden under all the blackberry and we took a trip down to a demolition yard where we picked up some nice chunky seasoned hardwood for the frame.

After much sanding, planing, cutting, drilling, screwing and oiling, our first bed was completed. With help from Jack, Chris, Rod and Sean we had our prototype bed completed. Thanks to Jack who helped me fill the bed with a couple of cubic metres of soil the other day. We deserved that iced coffee mate!

Ready to plant it out next week!

The Secret Garden

Due to the hot weather that we were having at the time, we thought that it might be a good time to have a break from working on the garden and go and visit another project that is doing something similar to what we would like to do.

After a morning coffee, Chris, Jack, Sean and myself drove down to Richmond to have a look.

The Secret Garden is located on the grounds of The University of Western Sydney off College Drive. It is a not for profit community garden and nursery. It sits on 5 acres of land, so in terms of size, it dwarfs the size of Blackheath. However in terms of philosophy it is very similar. It is very much a sanctuary space where you can get in and get your hands dirty with all the usual gardening tasks, or you can relax under a shady tree or socialise in a beautiful space.

There are trees laden with fruit, fresh tomatoes to pick, paths to wander down and even a goat to feed.

We all really enjoyed the day. Things that we noticed on the day included the beauty of the place, the presence of animals, chickens walking around, places to relax and keep cool on a hot day, the raised vegetable gardens and the food that was available to eat, the community feel of the space and how welcome we all felt when we arrived.

Whilst we don’t have the same amount of space in Blackheath, we can recreate the same core elements that make the Secret Garden such a lovely place to be.

http://www.nwds.org.au/Our-Services/Locations/Secret-Garden/Secret-Garden-

No Sweat Gardening!

The goats took about 3 weeks to eat the majority of the blackberry, out of control Logan Berry and other weeds that were in our way. They also managed eat a few things that were not weeds! But you always have to expect a little bit of collateral damage when you are working with goats. Nothing was eaten that won’t grow back though!

The goats don’t quite eat everything though. They are fantastic at getting rid of the foliage and small blackberry runners but don’t really eat the very course thicker canes. Maybe this is because there is too much other good stuff to eat. They also don’t touch random plants that you’d think they would love!

The stuff that they don’t eat was left to Chris and myself to get rid of but it was all so much easier to access now. We chipped away at the blackberry canes with secateurs over a couple of days and before you new it we had a space that we could start making some plans with!

Goat Magic!

Day 3   18th January

Goats are not the easiest things to move. They don’t just jump into the trailer like a dog. They need a bit of encouragement. They are very stubborn, they smell and they are heavy. However with a bit of help from my neighbour, they were loaded and ready to move!

When we arrived at the garden, it was a different story. They were eating the leaves off the trees before I even got them out of the trailer!

 

When they saw the mass of Blackberry and weeds that were available to eat they fairly jumped off the trailer and got straight to work. Chris helped to put them on a temporary tether while we set up the fence. I was worried that the whole process might be a bit stressful for the goats, but they were not phased in the least. All they seemed to be concerned about was what they were going to eat next! Whilst they are pretty difficult to work with, you can’t help but love them.

Once the goats were safely set up inside the fence it was time for Chris and myself to sit in our new chairs, have a cuppa and watch the goats do all the work that we had previously thought we were going to have to do. Smart gardening….

 

A temporary pen for two hungry goats

A New Year

Day Two 12th January

Well, between day one and day two, we had the interruption of Christmas. So we haven’t been on site for a while.

How has it changed? The Blackberry is about a foot higher and the days have gotten hotter!

The idea of getting the goats in to help us out is looking even more attractive. Chris is with me again today and our aim is to find some chairs that we can use to do our resting and contemplating on. We discussed the idea of going to the hardware store and getting some of those cheap white plastic chairs but we decided that this didn’t really feel like a good fit for the sort of project that we were embarking on. They would probably be heading to landfill within six months and they were wanting $25 each for them!

We are hoping to keep the project as sustainable as we can. There are elements of the property that are already a good fit with this. The “French Provincial” dwelling that is on the property has been designed with some great sustainable features including hydronic heating which heats the main slab using hot water. The water for this process is collected from the roof in a rainwater tank and circulated through the system. A great idea for the mountains with its cold winters. The Federation house also has a number of sustainable features including the laundry and toilets being plumbed to the rainwater tanks. I’ll talk more about these features in later posts.

So with a re use, recycle sort of mentality, Chris and myself went for an Op Shop Crawl and eventually found four aluminum chairs with cushions and a small glass out door table for $35 bucks from the Cancer Help store in Katoomba. They are a great organisation that is unique to the Blue Mountains and well worth finding out more about. We also found an old bar fridge in the garage behind the Kirinari office which works a treat and will help to keep a few things cool for us on these hot days.

Once we had unloaded and set up the chairs and the fridge we tested it all out by having a cuppa. They were perfect.

Our next job was to prepare for the arrival of the goats. Luckily, there had been a similar issue with Blackberry at my house and i had recently purchased a mobile electric fence and borrowed a couple of goats from a friend. They had eaten everything in my yard, so it was good timing to move them up to this project. The main thing that we had to do was to clear some of the vegetation so that the fence could be set up. Chris did a lot of this work for us and before long we were ready for the next step, the arrival of the goats…..

Let’s get some goats!

Tuesday the 15th – Day 1

Tuesday the 15th of December marked the first day of actually getting on site and having a good look around. What we have is effectively 3 separate blocks of land. Two of these have dwellings on them, one with a beautifully restored 3 bedroom federation home, one with an architecturally designed ‘French provincial’ style building that is built from recycled brick and timber. The third block consists of a park style landscaped garden with a number of established ornamental trees and fruit trees and garden areas.

Kirinari are hoping to develop some of the garden block with a number of one or two bedroom units that will offer some much needed choice for people with a disability in terms of the sort of place that they live in. The opportunity for people to have an alternative to living in a group home will be very attractive and refreshing for many. We are hoping to save as many of the existing trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs by transplanting to new garden areas.

What we are left with is a pretty considerable space that can be used to develop a productive garden and sanctuary space that can be used not only by the people that Kirinari directly supports, but also members of the local community whether they are living with a disability or not. One of the aims of this project is that people who are living with a disability can have real meaningful connections and roles within the community. A productive sustainable garden is a great vehicle for bringing this sort of change. But more about this in later instalments…

For the moment it’s all about where to start!

With me on the first day are Chris, Rudolph and another person who would prefer to remain anonymous. These guys were the obvious first people to call about getting started on a project like this. Chris has always been interested in gardening and has been involved in maintaining the gardens in his home in Blackheath. He has also grown a few vegies in the backyard. Rudolph is not very interested in gardening but loves the space and would like to hang while we are gardening. Our mystery man has similar interests, helps to look after the veggie garden at his home in Katoomba, likes to be busy and generally just loves to help out. They are also just genuinely nice guys to be around and spend time with. We are hoping to get some others involved down the track, but for the moment it is just us.

Chris pruning

Supervising

Off for a coffee

So what did we do on the first day? Well…. we got out the secateurs and started clipping away at the Blackberry that is going wild right in the area that we are hoping to develop. We did this for about 15 minutes before we got overwhelmed and decided to stand in the shade and have another think about how we were going to tackle this. (It was also pretty hot!)

 

The first thing we decided was that we needed to get some chairs from somewhere because it wasn’t much fun making plans while we were standing around. We also realised that it was going to involve a lot of hard work to clear the block and that we should probably include going into Blackheath for some refreshments in our day. A coffee or maybe even a beer! We also decided that getting rid of masses of blackberry and out of control Logan Berry was just to big a job for three men and we might be better off getting a couple of goats …..

“from a small seed, a mighty tree grows”

Kirinari Community Services is proud to announce that The Blue Mountains Branch has begun a new Garden Therapy project. The Garden Therapy  project has been a long held ambition for Lifestyle Services Coordinator Daniel, who will be sharing his journey in this blog. Daniel and his team will be supporting people with a range of disabilities to bring a federation style garden back to life and to create new gardens.  Along the way Daniel will be involving the community in recycling projects and vegetable growing and selling.

In the next blog, Daniel will share with you the names of the well know gardening identities that will be mentoring the project as well as outlining some of his plans for the future.

The garden is in Blackheath NSW and needs some TLC to bring it back to its former glory.  Attached to this story is photos of our two goats, Banjo and Cinnamon that we have borrowed to chomp their way through some of the undergrowth ( they are making great progress). We have photos of some of the group members – Greg, Rudolph and Chris – coming to the first day of work at the Garden.

Supervising

We look forward to sharing this journey with you throughout the year.