A New Start

 

As mentioned in a previous post, we are looking at making a transition to a newly renovated house and creating a new garden between the existing house and a new house on the back of the block. Our goal is to feed our growing family of four plus two grandparents with as much produce from the garden as possible.

The picture above is the block that we are starting to clear. It will one day become a new house for my In-Laws and a new garden that will be used to feed us all. It is a very peaceful spot. Lovely and shaded. Loved by birds and possums and loads of insects. This will all go. To do what we plan to do we need to remove all the trees that run down the fence line and are in the way of the future house. This means everything has to go for a new start. There is going to be a lot of wood and in keeping with my philosophy on this kind of thing I really don't want any of it to be leaving the block. Once cleared however, we will set about putting something just as magical in its place.

There is so much that either wood chips or small logs can offer that I really want everything to stay on the block as it will really get the garden off to a great start. This land is really close to the coast and the soil testing results show that it really is just sand. No large granite boulders or rocks hiding anywhere close to the surface. Great for building on and from previous experience it will have a huge appetite when it comes to organic matter. It will just swallow it up. For this reason I am keen to have some of the sand removed from the garden bed area for use further up the block - then focus on building soil through a few strategies I am keen to put into practice.

This is the first of what is likely to be many, many posts on our preparing for the transition to the new place and the decisions and choices we make along the way in the planning stages. In some ways it is probably going to mark a bit of a departure point for my blog records also as we make way to leave our small garden area for one with bigger possibilities, challenges and potential. So the current blog will slightly change from what it originally started out as, as a matter of natural progression.