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The project:
Our suburban veggie garden was created to make growing fresh food simple, practical and enjoyable. Designed with block work raised beds, espalier fruit trees and seasonal vegetables. The space is used every day to harvest ingredients for home cooking. It includes a chicken yard, berry patch and vegetable garden. Built over 18 months.
The garden produces regular food for us, while the chickens recycle kitchen scraps into compost for the beds. What began as an messy suburban yard has become one of our favourite places to spend time. We are working on growing more both across the seasons and hoping to add more to our vertical spaces.
- Materials:
Raised bed bricks
Compactor hire
Posts rated for in ground use
rapid mesh
Fence paint in charcoal
Treated pine rails
Lattice panels
Exterior screws
Rapid Set concrete
Crusher dust
Compost
Sugar cane mulch
Gate hinges
Gate latch
Plants and seeds
Hammer
spacers
root guard
- Tools:
Drills
Hand made water level
square
level
concrete mixer
bolt cutters
clamps
drop saw
wheel barrow
compactor
rack
shovel
Paint brush
- Step 1:
We had a restricted foot print to build the garden.. The width of the path up the middle is wide enough to fit a wheel barrow. The beds were made wide enough for easy access from either side of the beds and the height for comfort. First up we prepared the ground we used with compactor that we hired details here this provided a solid stable and level base to lay the bricks.
- Step 2:
Laying the bricks…. The bricks are great as they don't require mortar and are a good DIY project. They wont rot and because they are not concreted together they are reusable if we decide to change the space. We filled the core of the bricks with blue metal, with about 15 cm of dirt at the top I used a grinder to cut down the inside of the brick and then knocked it out with a hammer so we have more growing area in the bed. We used Adbri bricks.
- Step 3:
After filling the garden beds with soil we continued to concrete posts into the ground and we used treated pine posts for in ground use. We also painted the timber with Fence paint in Charcoal You can see the tubing (water level) in the bottom photo which we used to make sure the top of the posts were level. The posts are set apart the same distance as the length of the mesh to prevent wastage and ease.
- Step 4:
The goal is to grow vertically as much as we can so we used Rapid Mesh between the posts for plants to grow up.. We have grapes on one side and use the other sides to grow beans, pumpkins, cucumbers and other squash. We fixed the panels to the post with roofing screws.
- Step 5:
Bespoke curved doors were made for the berry patch. These were then sealed and spray painted with monument spray paint and brass fittings were used to fix the doors. The doors have made such a difference to access to the berry patch and with mesh fitted the whole way around the it was our first season with out the issue of birds. We have raspberries, strawberries and blueberries in the patch. We also included a root barrier around the berry patch to contain them.
- Step 6:
Our chicken run is next to the veggie garden and this means i have easy access to give scraps from the garden to the chickens and can feed the chickens and collect the eggs from outside the chicken run. We used treated fence pailings for the sides of the chicken house and painted them with the fence paint.
