The pieces of my life's mosaic are many.... family, parenting, unschooling, social justice, community, faith, ethical issues and the environment. This blog will reflect a bit of everything, I imagine, all mushed up together, just like life is. The "glue" in my mosaic is the bit that's not always visible, but definitely holds it all together: the love, joy, peace & faith without which life would pretty much fall apart. The spiral signifies the ebb and flow of life around a central point, which for me is God.



Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Backyard Wasteland to Edible Food Garden

We recently had to move house (3rd time in 2 and a half years) because (again) our landlord sold our house. This time we're in a long-term rental with a wonderful landlord who wants us to use the yard for chooks, vegies etc. Yes, that's right: he WANTS us to! This is a dream come true for us, because we've wanted to do something like this for SO long, but it's usually difficult when renting.

The challenge is that the backyard currently has a massively overgrown weed problem, coupled with plain grass on top of hard dirt! The weed problem has been overwhelming & getting us down a bit, and as we've started to get rid of them we've discovered an even bigger problem: huge root systems (as in, TRUNKS!) that we're going to need to get rid of too!

Whilst feeling overwhelmed and disheartened about that, we figured it might help if we actually PLANTED something! So today we did it. Weplanted a passionfruit vine!! We chose the one part of the yard where there actually ISN'T weeds, which made it heaps easier.

It took us so long to work out the best way of doing that (and in the end we've pretty much just bunged it in), that I'm a bit worried how long it's going to take us to do the rest LOL! I tend to read LOTS and plan LOTS and do LITTLE. My ideas and planning can paralyze me. I tend to spend so much time planning and learning, that I hold back from actually "doing".

So yeah, it's going to be a huge learning curve for all of us. But fun along the journey too, I hope. And in the end?  Well, you never know, we just might end up with some food to eat! :)

3 comments:

  1. You've got to start somewhere, well done!
    How's the soil quality?
    I love the photos, looks like you had some happy helpers.

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  2. Yay! I keep meaning to plant a passionfruit vine - one of these days!!!

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  3. Butterfly, the soil quality is pretty poor actually, but we're hoping for the best. We added some blood & bone (gross!) when we planted it. I had planned to put a liver in the hole (not mine!) cuz I'd heard that's the old fashioned thing to do, to add nutrients etc, but just didn't get around to it. I figured it would be gross, but the kids would be fascinated by it LOL!

    Oh, I did find some chunks of coal in the soil! Not sure if that improves the quality at all! :)

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