A garden is a place to relax.

My son now has his own corner of the garden to hang out in summer. One day it will be surrounded by fruit trees...but at the moment it's a cool place to relax and read a book.

The "fruit forest" has begun.

My vision for this land is to have fruit of all kinds growing as much fruit as possible in the space available.I mentioned before that I plan to have a hedge of fejoas and olives on the front boundaries. I'm planting them there because I like the idea of future generations of neighbourhood kids being able to stop and pick an abundance of fruit when it's in season. So the front garden will be the "community garden" and the back yard will be our private garden. At the moment there is only bare land in the front of the house. I'd like to plant an orchard there. One that kids can wander through and pick all kinds of delicious treats in. berries of all kinds as well as apples, stone fruit, citrus etc. We started with one lemon tree, in a small sheltered garden at the side of the house...that one tiny lemon tree has grown heaps with the help of leftovers from fish soup, ashes from the fire and compost mulch, and something that is either a grapefruit or an orange tree. I've added a mandarin tree to that garden. It's warm and sheltered and protects more sensitive fruit from harsh winter weather. Then a few days ago bought four fejoa trees for our private garden, and five little blueberry bushes and planted them out.I've discovered a wonderful and inspiring Indian organic farmer whose natural methods of farming are stunningly simple and effective.You can find out more about him and his work here: http://www.savesanghavi.com/
his work counters the myth that organic farming is more costly than modern methods and his results speak for themselves.

We have some new additions to the tyre garden.

I recently planted out leeks and eggplants, as well as some more peas in the tyre garden. As soon as I can get some more tyres, I'd like to plant more celery, and I have lots of seeds of all kinds that need to be started in trays to be planted out later.

Just one big happy family.

My little cat Mischa has been VERY busy

with her new family of four very cute kittens. She's a great young mum, and dad likes to get involved and helps out too

We're not only ones that've been busy though.

The Tomatoes have been growing and the first fruit is starting to appear on some of the plants.

And all that's left after Alli's done her work

is this :-) The Black & Decker Alligator lopper is a girls dream tool. It's so easy to use, safe and cuts through wood like a knife through butter. It does in minutes what used to take hours, and achieves in a few hours what used to take weeks or months. Cutting firewood for the potbelly has been the bain of my life, and our large power bills last winter were the result of the frustrations of that task. This winter we should be warm and cosy all thanks to Alli.

Which soon became this:

That's only the beginning, I still have about 90% of the hedge left to clear so it should supply firewood for a few winters to come.The wood, with Alli's help to cut it to size, is perfect for my little potbelly, which only takes short and relatively narrow logs. The Box thorn wood is very hard wood, so once it dries out it makes great firewood that has a long burn time.

Into this pile of firewood:

we then turned this pile of box thorn branches..

In no time at all...

Me and Alli transformed some of that wild, unsightly and very unfriendly hedge into this little pile:

Me and my Alligator...

I spent much of yesterday...at least the time I had available before I had to go to work :-( , trying out my new Christmas prezzie to myself.

In the past I've spent many hours, days, weeks and months trying to tame this box thorn hedge. It was put in by as the ill conceived idea by a previous owner of my little house. Box thorn hedges are great for keeping cattle in, a cheap form of fencing for farmers, but are potentially lethal for humans and shouldnt be anywhere near a house. Their long box thorns are known for embedding themselves in human skin and then causing some serious infections. I want that hedge gone!! and to be replaced by a much more human friendly fejoa and olive hedge, to act as shelter for less wind tolerant fruit trees. Anyway this is the hedge in its unpruned state:

I love my Alligator

This is my new best friend... my Alligator lopper...Alli for short. Alli has been helping me with all kinds of jobs around the house...and I'll blog some more about her tomorrow...with pics, cause it's way too late now. Have to get some zzzzz

Tomatoes

I bought two packets of tomato seed and planted them in a tray. Now, after giving some away plants away to my neighbours,there are still over 100 left. Most of them are now planted in the tyre garden, the rest are scattered around the house.

The abundance of nature amazes me. Those two packets of seeds bought for a couple of dollars, could keep my family in tomatoes for the rest of our lives if some of the new seed is saved every year, for the next years planting.

I've mulched around the tomatoes with grass clippings. as well as retaining moisture and protecting the soil, it also deters my cats who think any bare earth is meant to be a toilet made specially for their use.. Many of my plans have been dug up soon after planting by enthusiastic cats.

Home sweet home

You can just see my little 1890's cottage in the back of this photo.

In December 2007 I began my "Tyre Garden".

I've been feeling a strong urge to grow my own food to have a constant supply of fresh greens and home grown fruit for a while now. I live 30k from the nearest supermarket, and by the time store bought veges get to my table, (sometimes days after they were purchased) most of the nutrition is depleted.

Gardening with raised beds means I can garden more efficiently.making the best use of my 1/4 acre section, getting the best result for the least effort.

I'd already planted flowers in two old tyres that were lying around,since it was important to be as cost effective as possible in establishing my food gardens, a tyre garden was the natural way to go.

So far I've been to two tyre outlets that have been more than happy to let me take my pick of the old tyres they have lying around. The tyres I like, when lying flat on the ground are slighly taller than your average car tyre, with a narrower rim.

I've got my eye on a few tractor tyres, can see them housing my compost heap, and maybe a watermelon bed, and cucumbers perhaps?? One great thing about tyres is that they store heat and warmth the soil, which plants like watermelon love. Another thing? they are so easy to work with, no stepping on plants or muddy boots from working in the garden. Even the dog can work out how to avoid stepping on the garden.

It's only small now but my vision is to have a large semi commercial organic garden on my 1/4 acre block, growing fruit veges and flowers.

Another thing I love about tyre gardening is that I can mix my crops from tyre to tyre. Having a lot of different plant species in close proximity is a great way to deter the bugs that can be are attracted to large plantings of one crop. at the moment my first plantings have been of tomatoes, beets, salad mixes and sunflowers.

I want my garden to feed the soul as well as the stomach. Mixing flowers with food crops can have a beneficial imapct on the garden as well as the spirit of the gardener. Flowers encourage pollination as well as attracting friendly bugs that will take care of some of the pests. Sunflowers for example are preferred by ants as the ideal place to "farm" aphids, and they will herd aphids off your veges to the sunflower, while the sunflower being a large sturdy plant, suffers little damage from these sometimes very destructive pests.

Ideally I'd like to have fruit and veges available to pick all year round, and I'm working towards this.