Moss house is owned by my friend Margaret Mossakowska. it is a deceptively spacious 1460 m2 property in Denistone, a northern suburb of Sydney, NSW. It has a very small font yard but a capacious back yard which slopes steeply up from the road frontage. The garden has an ideal north easterly aspect, ensuring year-round sun access and the steepness ensures good drainage. The soil is mainly brick-quality clay, which has required considerable work to make it suitable for growing fruit and vegetables.
The property was originally developed in the late 1930’s. There was just a patch of thicker topsoil at one section of the garden (covered with weeds) and using the aerial photos from the 1940s she worked out there was a veggie patch there then. In general the garden was neglected and dry, and the upper part consisted of 600 sq m of overgrown, weedy grass, with a few mature native trees left near the western fence.
She has four water tanks, two x 5000 litre tanks by the back fence (higest part of the property) filled by pump from the house runoff, which is can then provide pressure due to the large amount head obtained to provide water to the rest of the property. There is a 1000 litre tank fed from the woodshed roof, also near the back fence and a 2,250 litre tank filled from the roof of one of the other sheds. The water fom both of these smaller tanks is used on the garden.
She has been living there for 12 years but has only been working seriously on the garden for the last 7 years. You can see the large amount of work carried out from the following photos.
Lovely places to sit, and sculptures too!
She has two native bee hives
Three swales (two shown below) run across the block to harvest water running downhill.
Wildlife means crops need protection
Compost area!
Top tanks
Bunnies and Chooks!
State of the art chook laying boxes
Beautiful and productive
