We got stuck in again on 20 September – Holly, Wayne, their kids and ‘roped in’ parents went with Andrew and Joanne to QE Park to collect horse manure, while Chris and myself built a big planter along the fence. The Thomas’s returned later in the morning with a full trailer load and four much more palatable sponge cakes, courtesy of Mandy at Stables On The Park, who was very happy with their efforts cleaning up her field it would seem! Then at 1pm, Chris and I had finished the planter, a more people turned up and the next stage began. We had to shift soil out of the way of where our potato patch was going to go. While we managed the get half of it into our new planter, we still had to ‘double shift’ the rest out of the way, which was a bit annoying but a good work out. The slide show below shows the sequence of building the ‘no dig’ bed, which basically involves supercharging the spuds with fertilser!
We put in five rows with an alley to walk down. The whole thing (4 x 4 m) took only 30 minutes to do once the area was clear. There are several different varieties – I will add a ‘map’ of what is located where later.
So we’ll see how well this method works – watch this space. Thanks to Hannah Zwartz the idea (from this You-Tube video) and for all her help including bringing many of the materials.
Other achievements include planting the raspberry canes – kindly donated by Marg Sweetman – and a fine compost bin put together by Chris. Next up – a water supply, even more planters and getting the summer crops in.
Matai Community Garden Group 