What did and didn't work...

Here's our what did and didn't work, through the garden. The strawbale bed is a good idea for many reasons. The downside is that it does breakdown after a time and the bales need replacing and I guess, it's more to sweep up if you have it on paved area like we do, especially with children riding bikes and crawling. Now, below we have started dismantling the edge ready for the new bed (I wasn't quite quick enough to get the 'before' pic) but you can see just by looking at the right side of the strawbale bed (or what's left of it) that compared to the original pic, it has broken down a lot...
Of course, being a natural material you do expect it to break down... I knew that... I just hadn't thought about how fast it would be, and the cost to replace it... To replace the bales at however many bales we had, would work out to not really be a cost effective option, each year.

So we're trialling one of these colourbond planter tub thingos
(what DO you call them?). So far so good. We chose the 400mm high ones as the 800mm high ones, though better perhaps for keeping things out, meant another $100 on the price, plus harder for the smaller kids to reach to help.

So a couple of courses of bricks laid dry, and the planter on top. Old hay round the 'joins' to stop sand getting out (I was thinking wet newspaper would work too). Filled it with garden sand (we have natural sand here, not soil), stuff from the compost (more on that in a minute) and the worm farm (going great guns but we need about 4 or 5 of them to keep up with our f&v scraps), and a half trailer load of vege soil from the soil place, plus some straw here and there turned in with it all.
on the compost, we're getting rid of our square/tall one and hopefully one day getting one that has lids and you turn because this will hopefully mean (a) no army of cockroaches like that that came out when we tipped the compost into the new vege bed (b) less bugs and fruit fly (note to self: do not set up compost near fruit trees, der yes I know) and (c) more air getting in with it turning.

Oh and our lettuces do very well in part shade - contrary to the 'everything must have full sun' and I find they benefit from it, even if they grow slightly slower, it means they don't cook in the middle of summer. We just plant extra to allow for the slower growth, especially in winter in the part shade.

So that's things that didn't quite work how we planned and the new things we're trying, or will be trying. Any hints and tips on how you made your things work, or what didn't work, appreciated :) oh and one very cool thing - the first plum Quinn ever tasted was from our tree :) nevermind it was the ONLY plum we got (second year of fruiting so not expecting too much + a bit heat when they missed out on water)

update on the food gardening with pics.

Righto. Well... updating from the 'What's in the garden/yet to come list' post, the garden received two more fruit trees today, namely an apricot and a plum (to pollinate the other plum). I'll put the full names down shortly in case anyone is curious. In order to put those in (a very abandoned garden bed lol) the soil needed turning over, okay the sand and it also needed all the cooch removed (grumble mumble cooch) and the assorted non-gardening items that seem to find their way outside - lids, spoons, a Lego block or two etc. Also the soil level in that bed needed to drop considerably so that we could fit the fruit trees + the compost/poo and then mulch without it being higher than the actual 'wall' of the bed so the water and sand wouldn't do a runner.
Here's a pic, hard to tell exactly what you're looking at so I'll try a better one later. The large fence you can see in the background behind the old boundary one is the reason why our old vege bed just wan't gonna keep working - you can see the cubby is there now and we're working on that garden as well.
I did help de-cooch or is it 'couch' and do a little bit of dirt moving but nothing major. We found the old (still busy) ants nests as well ;) which I don't mind coz they keep any termites in check round this area - another bonus of not being quick on the 'kill it if it crawls' nasty sprays. (NB for how this bed is doing 2 years later click here)

Now, for some weeks I'd been thinking about a straw-bale garden bed, initially from Len's Garden site, then from The Crone's garden that I had the pleasure of visiting last week, and then school has done an edible garden as well (Steiner school) and one of those beds is a straw bale bed. So it was gonna happen. I had it in my mind how and the opportunity presented to get hold of the bales. It also meant somewhere for the excess sand from the beds for the fruit trees, to go.