Raised garden beds made from treated Pine sleepers for growing vegetables on an old tennis court.
The project
We purchased our final home in the Hunter near Singleton in early 2019. As the cook in the family, I was always keen on growing my own food and wanted a serious vegetable garden. It needed to be fenced (to keep out the kangaroos) and netted (to keep out the birds and large insects). We had a half-sized tennis court and after a few games realised that the game wasn't for us.
So, I decided to transform the space into a kitchen garden. Work began by ripping up the synthetic turf and leaving bare concrete.
Next, construction of the garden beds began in four stages in December 2021. Most of the garden beds are built with eight H4 treated Pine sleepers 2.4m x 200 x 50mm and eight sleepers 1.2m x 200 x 50mm. These sleepers are stained and secured with corner posts with final dimensions of each bed being 2400 x 1300 x 800mm.
The beds are lined with builder's plastic with a layer of Ekodeck top and bottom. They are braced with some stainless steel rope (to stop spreading on the long side) then filled with layers of compost, soil, manure etc.
I thought long and hard about drainage and in the end, excess water just leaks out of the bottom between the Ekodeck and the concrete base, so the timber doesn't touch the soil and doesn't get wet "feet". I have some erosion control matting around the bottom inside of each bed and the first layer in the bed is just plain sand.
I have recently netted the existing fence and just installed framework to support the layer of mesh over the top of the enclosure. The next step is the netting over the top of the enclosure.
So far 16 of 22 beds have been completed and growing crops is well underway. My aim is to grow just about every type of fruit and vegetables that we eat inside this enclosure. Currently we are self-sufficient with about six different types of winter and year-round vegetables.
My favourite vegetable to grow is eggplant and they are great to cook with, so I can't wait for spring to get planting. Asparagus is fabulous once it gets going, and lettuce is very useful as it grows all year round. If you have the right varieties (not Iceberg) you can just pick individual leaves as you need them.
We're harvesting lettuce and perennial spinach all the time. We have just started harvesting kale, bok choy, broccoli, and snow peas. The asparagus has started early (it was supposed to wait a couple of months) and very soon we will have cauliflower and broccolini.
Before and after
