The before photos are approx Autumn/Winter and the after photos are Summer. (Before/After Spring)

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After:

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This instructable will show you how to make a natural looking raised garden using only small branches, a few thicker logs and some straight timber sections. This design was the product of clearing up a garden and not wanting to dump or burn the branches.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Natural-Wood-Raised-Garden/

Congratulations on the successful completion of the 102 course and now also the SIT Certificate in Organic Horticulture.

Overall your work has been excellent as usual and it has been a pleasure having you study. Your work is always well done and great to be completed ahead of time like this (much appreciated at this end) – I wish you well for the future.

Kind regards
*muh tutor*

Looking good now for the next wee while… Study finished which means more spare time to work on the business side of things

The instructions that come with them say to use a cup of soap nuts to a litre of water and simmer for 20 minutes, which I followed. Oddly enough, the result was a liquid that looked like dirty water (and smelt like concentrated mulled wine).

I poured it into a bottle and tried it in the shower – the liquid was way too runny for shampoo, and the bubbles from shaking it up did nothing much either. After the shower, however, my hair does feel a lot better

I then put half a dozen of the used nuts into a calico bag and put that in the washing machine with a load of clothes – the water felt extremely soapy, which I hadn’t expected, and the resulting greywater was a lot blacker than normal.

Overall, I recommend Soap Nuts for in the washing machine and that, but am yet to find a good way to use it as shampoo. I also think that the liquid, when well diluted, could be a really good general garden spray (soapy water can kill some pests, discourage others and in some cases help stop fungi and diseases).

I’ll update later when I have played with them and the “recipe” a bit more..

I moved the boxes around so they are up against the north-facing end of the garden – in front of the herb garden and up the steps to the side.

Uprooted the beetroot that was a decent size and pickled it – that should be yummy eventually.

Planted some carrot seeds over the area where the tomatoes were, and thinned out the carrots next to them.

Got a couple more bags of compost (we don’t have a trailer or a tow-ball so getting a cheap scoop isn’t feasible, but maybe when spring rolls around and I build up the sides of bed 3 and 4…)

Repotted the 2 unknown plants (they are pretty so I wanted to keep them). Found out they are both bulbous and had a fair few bulbs underneath them, so split them up in the pots and replanted them in compost. Shored the leeks up with some of the compost too, and since there wasn’t much of a bag left I put it on the compost bin with come worms I found – hopefully this will help to kick-start it again and get it cooking before I turn it over later this winter…

I forgot to get any photos of it, but I’m still proud of the amount of work I got done!

Silly little diagram of the garden how it is at the moment. Not to scale

Brown = vege beds
Yellow-brown = brick bed. currently with borage and weeds….
Red = compost bin
Blue = shed
Green = tree
Grey pentagram = Washing Line
Grey = path
Pink = herb/little bed

So much I would love to do to this if the house was ours…

Not so pretty frost:

And after it’s planted and covered with leaves for warmth (the tomatoes are long gone now)

This year I am going to try growing my seeds in pots like these (after I run out of my stash of plastic post saved from this year!) http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/

Also, I am going to try the native american practice of growing corn, squash and beans together. The beans fix the nitrogen in the soil feeding the corn, the corn serves as a host to the bean as it grows up the stalk, and the squash leaves shade the ground and keep it cool, allowing water to not evaporate so quickly in the hot summer sun. Except that it will be corn, pumpkin and beans. Mmm… beans…

Soon, I will try see if GardenCad works in Wine. If so, soon there shall be pictures, diagrams, dreams… all uploaded to here! Woo!

And finally for today, I have now got a set on Flickr for my garden. It’s at http://www.flickr.com/photos/walker_whanau/sets/72157618993026651/ I’ll post photos to there when I can, but till then, here’s a sneak peek!

Leek closeup