The devil is in the detail-No Dig Beds

No Dig Beds
In the front of my garden and in the back I have improved the soil and created raised beds using the No Dig Method developed by Esther Dean in the 1970's in Sydney.

It's fairly easy to build a No-Dig bed and try to use materials already in your garden.
I am fortunate enough to have a beautiful Liquid Amber in my back garden , a large deciduous tree that produces a mountain of leaves every autumn. So the bulk of the organic matter comes from the tree.
It is important when building a No-Dig Bed to try and use a variety of materials, this makes for better soil.

This garden bed was built using eco timber a pine not treated with arsenic, but a non-poisonous treatment. Some of my garden beds are made using treated pine, but because I have a very healthy soil and lots of bio-active compost full of fungi and microbes and am aware that they will 'lock' up the heavy metals in the soil and make them unavailable to plants and therefore me.
As you can see in the garden bed, it is full of straight kitchen scraps grass and other organic material.

I then top with a layer of composted mixed manure from Mr Poo, then straw that has been shredded by my 'gals' in the chook house and added with extra nutrients.

How to build a No-Dig Bed

Step 1
Mark out the area and edge it with bricks or any material that will contain the soil when it is built. Four square metres is a good size to start, but this can be expanded later.

Step 2
Cover the entire area with wads of newspaper a good 'herald sun' thick to smother any weeds. Overlap the pages so there are no gaps for weeds to grow through, and avoid using as much coloured print as possible. Water the area newspaper well so that it starts breaking down immediately. I find cardboard is a good barrier too. DO NOT do this on a windy day or you will be driven mad with the blowing paper.

Step 3
Cover the area with high carbon organic matter, which will break down easily. This could be by pea-straw or crop-straw like rye or canola, grass, leaves whatever is cheap and available. Crop-straw is usually less expensive than lucerne or pea-straw, but is lower in nitrogen. Water the matter lightly.

Step 4
Next apply a layer of organic fertiliser. Chicken manure is excellent because it has high amounts of nitrogen, which helps the breakdown high carbon materials, but any farm manure will perform the function.

Step 5
Add a 20-centimetre layer of high carbon material.

Step 6
Add another layer of manure and again water lightly. Of course you can create as many layers as you like.

Step 7
Finally, you will need some good compost to plant the seeds and seedlings into. If there is enough available, the whole surface area of the garden could be covered with compost to about 10 cm. Alternatively pockets of compost can be created for planting so that it can support a new plant while the new garden is breaking down.



The same has been done out the front, but in a more free form way.

Long time no see, too busy in other peoples gardens

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she remarked that she was getting 'bothered' that I hadn't written anything in my blog for a while so it has been a while, I have been REALLY busy.
What have I been up to since I renovated the chook house?
1. Project Worker for Green It Grow it at Cloverdale Community Centre-check them out on Facebook`this invovled teaching edible gardening at TWO neighbourhood houses
2. Doing my Mast of Urban Horticulture, phew, FULL TIME
3. Being Chair of Geelong Organic Gardeners
4. Being President ofGeelong West Community Gardn
5. Talking to Workskil about my new and exciting project
so excuse me I haven't had time to write in the blog

But since I took leave of abscence from my Masters resigned the two gardening orgs, I not only now have time to write in my Blog, but I have been working in MY garden, yip yipee.

Chicken Coop Renovations

I have had some time off studying and less work with the holidays and decided to renovate the chicken house.
The old one was too shady in the winter and didn’t provide enough cover when it rained it was basically an old shade house, and it meant the chickens had to be allowed to wander the garden for a few hours a day. This means they ‘poop’ by the back door, eat all the strawberries and destroy the garden. However they do eat all the slugs and snails.

After much thought, I decided to leave the frame of the old shade house, it is solid steel and all welded together, and its in a good location near the London Plane which provides shade and cooling in the summer, but being deciduous lets more sun in the winter.

Nesting box

The roof is built out of corrugated iron that was left over from the last garden, all fixed using screws, then it can be used again, I found a large piece at the tip shop, and only had to buy one piece new. I canabalised the shade house for their ‘run’ and plan to plant two fruit trees in there. The girls like to hide under shrubs and eat the leaves and generally play underneath trees. Also they will eat the dropped fruit and prevent pests and diseases.

A friend gave me some old fencing wire which I plan to grow Chinese jasmine up, beautiful scent and will cope with the shade. There will be a garden bed around the house, and the water from the bathroom, will run into an agi pipe under the bed. I found an enormous roll at the tip shop.

Brown leghorns and Old english game birds, getting into the camera

The chickens like a bit of privacy and it is easy to access the eggs from outside the coop, this old cupboard is perfect. The boxes are lined with newspaper easier for cleaning and bedding is sugar cane mulch , holes are drilled in the bottom for ventilation.

The chickens are three different breeds, old english game birds, very feisty they were bred as fighting birds and can be quite noisy, they ahve survived two dog attacks though. A good old isa brown, she is getting on a bit, but is wise old thing. Three brown leghorns, these are great one is a survivor of the dog attack and the other two were recompense from the dog owner. Why cant people control their dogs, ugh, they bark all night and then attack my animals. They now have    new security.


A friend of mine wanted to keep bees but had nowhere to keep them as his wife objected to Bees. I was more than happy. Apparently they produce up to 90kgs a new. I think the end of sugar in my house