A bit over two years ago we designed and installed a permaculture garden in the front yard of Angie and Dez place in western Sydney. It went well and has been very productive for them. The plan I originally put together can be found here, the implementation of that plan and how it turned out can be found here. This was not the end of things, however, and they wanted to take an area at the back of the site and make it into an area they could use to grow vegetables.
This particular area had been used as a pool area by the previous owners, where they had installed an above ground pool, but sunk it in so that it became a mostly below ground pool. Needless to say, this did not end well and by the time Angie and Dez moved in the pool was collapsing and had become an eyesore.
The area is a good size, about 9 by 12 metres with the long axis being roughly east/west in aspect. It is a raised area so drainage is just about guaranteed, surrounded by a pool fence which works well to keep their dog ( a husky) out of the area. At the eastern end is a decent sized concrete platform which has turned out to be an ideal space for a greenhouse, and at the western end (outside the fenced the growing area) is a pre-existing large garden shed for tool storage etc.
To turn the area into a productive veggie patch, the first trick was to remove the vinyl pool liner and the steel pool supports and shell steel sidewall. This was exactly as much fun as it sounds and took quite a while to accomplish fully. In the end they hired someone to remove the remaining rubbish from the pool, then fill it in to a certain level with rocks.
Once that had all been done, the gaping hole in the ground full of rocks had to be filled with stuff to grow the vegies in. They had a family friend with a backhoe load clean construction (clay, rocks etc) fill into the remaining pool area up until it was about 30cm below the top. It was left for a few months to settle down and compact a bit, but it started to grow grass and weeds so a chook shed was bought and installed, with a couple of chooks from us, giving the chooks the entire pool area to free range in.
They removed the chooks and covered the weeds and grass with a layer of cardboard and then had a layer of topsoil blown in. A chook run to fit the pen was purchased, with the entire shed/run being used as a chook tractor.
They marked out eight veggie beds with bricks to the same footprint as the chook shed/run (ie 0.75m wide by 2.0m long) and each area given a mulch of sugar cane bagasse. The chooks now spend a month on each patch, digging it up, mixing the mulch with the soil and including their manure as fertiliser. Once the bed is well dug over and fertilised the chook tractor is moved to the next patch, the original one is smoothed over, 8 ollas are dug in on a diagonal pattern, and it is re-mulched and planted out with vegetable seedlings.
They have installed a 2.4 m x 1.9m greenhouse on the concrete platform at the east of the area and between the rotating veggies beds and the greenhouse they have installed a long, narrow bed which is currently being used to grow corn at the southern end, and a pumpkin at the northern end. Bearing in mind that amenity is also a way of being productive, they have installed a table and chairs between the greenhouse and the fence, so they can sit and enjoy the garden while having coffee or whatever.
It has been quite bit of work but in the end they have a beautiful and productive space.
The first bed
Dividing the area up using pavers
Growing a green manure to improve the soil and feed the chooks
The greenhouse - outside
and inside!
The chookopolis
The original bed, a couple of months later
and now........ollas!
Water testing
