Lots of raised beds

The last time I posted about my garden, it looked like this...

And like this...

Now it looks like this...

My vegetable beds.

And like this...

This garden will get planted with dwarf citrus interspersed with lavender.

My brother-in-law, Ben, has been busy the last few weekends preparing reclaimed wood for these gardens, assembling and delivering five standalone raised beds, and working with me to build the raised bed that wraps around two sides of the deck.

Ben building my wraparound deck garden.

I continue to be blown away by his kindness, but he just nods and says that's what family does.

He and my sister, Mel, came out on Saturday with a trailer full of tools and wood. While Ben and I worked in the garden, Mel watched the kids, cooked us dinner and folded my washing. My husband was away in Nashville at the time, so it was really good to have her taking care of all that.

Mel and Ben brought a wood chipper with them, so I was able to chip up all my hedge clippings. My great big pile was reduced to a wee little pile, which looks much tidier and will come in very handy around the place.

Mulch.

Ben came back again on Sunday to finish up the wraparound deck garden. We almost got it finished before the darkness and rain set it. We've just got a couple of boards at the back to fit, once we can build some sort of post behind to secure them to.

Wraparound deck.

I also need to fill in the soil we dug away for posts and the bottom boards. It will look a lot tidier once I've done that.

And because they are ridiculously kind, Mel and Ben also gave me three Feijoa Mammoth trees, so I've spent the past couple of days preparing a place in my garden for those.

Feijoa Mammoth trees.

Of course, nothing is ever easy.

I thought I would just be able to dig some holes for the trees and fill them with potting mix and compost, but as soon as I started digging, I discovered the ground was riddled with ivy roots. The previous owners had pulled all the ivy off the fence, but then just covered the roots with mulch so it looked like the ground was clear too. *Grumble, grumble. Fist shake.*

I've spent two full days pulling ivy roots out of the ground, and I'm not even done. I've got about a metre stretch left to go. Today was really rainy though, and I'm exhausted, so I gave myself a rest day. Hopefully the weather will clear up tomorrow so I can finish this up and get my Feijoa trees planted.

Nothing like having fruit trees sitting in small black pots to motivate me to get gardening.

The other thing that's been slowing me down in this patch of dirt is a large tree stump. Fortunately it is mostly rotten, so I've been able to hack it up with my spade. There's just a little bit left that is still solid, so I've sawed it down to ground level and am going to leave it. I've managed to get most of the stump and it's roots dug out, so it won't get in the way of the Feijoa trees I'm planting.

Back to the raised beds...

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I've made a video about how I placed them in the yard and filled them for free with materials from around my yard and my neighbourhood. Unfortunately I'm having technical difficulties loading the video to YouTube, but as soon as I get that sorted, I'll let you know.

I had lots of fun making the video, and it's why I didn't do a blog post last week. I spent every evening figuring out how to edit in iMovie. I'm a bit addicted to making videos now though, and hope to make more for you.  

What would you like to see a video about? Let me know in the comments.