Creative weekend projects: getting crafty

Project 1: The veggie garden for small spaces

Decking frame plus polythene sheet provides tray for bucket plant pots

Thanks to an Urban Pantry talk (highly recommended), I learnt a great tip for getting veggie results even in the cosy corner of my deck which I like to call my "garden".  Square buckets.  That's right, it's time to clear up the eclectic mix of terracotta urns and quaint milk pails.  We waste less space and less water if we pack our plants in cubically.  Well, maybe I won't get rid of the eclectic mix just yet - I get sentimental about my plants and their unusual collection of pots!  But I was determined to try out the environmentally friendly approach as well.
The buckets were cheap (much more so than plant pots) but the challenge was working out a tray to hold water beneath them.  My low-tech solution is a frame of decking timber and polythene sheet liner.
Buckets 10 @ $2.50 = $25
Polythene (much more than I needed) = $7
Decking timber (cut into the lengths I needed in the shop) = $6
Basic power drill to put it all together and drill holes in buckets = $40 (but who's counting?  It's about time I owned more power tools...)
So my pea seedlings are happy, I'm happy and kitty is certainly happy!

Project 2: Cute cushions!

Piping and ties on the left, and on the right, laboriously quilted by moi!

Some have bold pattens on one side and ties on the other 

I can never quite find the right level of quirky colourfulness in bought cushions.  Or if I do, they cost a fortune. I was convinced I could do a better job myself.  If I'd known how much work it would be, I might not have started!  My darling and very creative sister has been an invaluable tutor and partner in crime.
I now have four cushions pretty much finished and two to go.  I just need to finish before Ross' mum comes back to NZ and wants her sewing machine back...
Fabrics, piping, thread, etc. = c.$60
Cushion inners = $30
My sanity while learning to quilt = priceless

Project 3: The worm tower

Installing the worms - bleurgh!

Actually, I can't take credit for this one.  But I have watched enthusiastically as my ex-biologist boyfriend has brought it to fruition.  It all started with Ranui Community Garden and Ben Cheah's passion as he told us about all the good worms can bring to your garden when you put worm towers in.
This is a little different than an above-ground worm farm - the tower is part buried in the soil and the worms are free to come and go through large holes.  It's a lot more difficult to get the "products" of worm-farming with this method - the casts and tea tend to end up going into the soil or are only gathered periodically.
However, it's practically free to create and they process all your compostable waste for you whilst also improving your soil - not bad, eh?
We're waiting to see if we've got it right - if the worms are happy, they'll stay!
Buckets = $5
Worms = gift of Ranui Community Garden
Garden fork to get through the solid clay which passes for soil around here = $11
Old egg cartons etc for bedding = free!

Project 4: a bit of greenery

Life needs a bit more pistachio green, don't you think?

My walls were bare, I needed some cheering up and fast!  Luckily Ikea came to the rescue.  I started with some cheap-as pine frames and then added green paint, green silk, some flowery green cotton, sponges, beeswax and a fair bit of PVA glue.  Ta dah!
It also helped that the nearby dollar store was having a closing down sale (Headline: Sue takes Ulster thriftiness to new levels - waiting til the dollar store is closing down before making her purchase...) and was selling beautiful green mounts at 60 cents each.  Bargain!
Frames and clock = c.$40
Printing my fave photos / maps / etc. = c.$4
Mounts and paint = c.$5
Everything else = scrounged!

Disclaimer
Before you think I'm superwoman / a liar, I didn't achieve all of these in one weekend!  The worm tower and the planter are probably feasible one-day projects.  The cushions I wouldn't recommend to anyone who has a full time job!

Which is your favourite project?

L'Orto! - The Veggie Garden

I hope to start work at the new job in 3 weeks' time.  3 weeks to keep myself busy without a salary...  Time to plant a veggie garden!
Before you ask, I've never done a garden of any kind before, but they say ignorance is bliss, so I wasn't going to let my ignorance stop me trying.  The veggie garden isn't at our house in Auckland, but at Ross' parents' large plot in Warkworth.  They've been planning a veggie garden for a while, so it'll be a help to them too.
To clue myself in before all the dirt and digging, I did a little web research.  What I read convinced me that raised beds are the way to go.

The plot: :it doesn't look like much now, but it's gonna be great

Raised beds, my research tells me:

• help to protect the plants by keeping path and bed separate
• deter rabbits
• are easier to reach and less back-breaking
• deter weeds
• give the gardener control over soil and water

They're also ready quicker (despite the set-up work to make a raised bed, ordinary soil should be left for months longer after tilling and improving) and I've never been a patient person.

Here's what I did:

1. What plants?  I found out what would grow in Warkworth (it's subtropical) during autumn and winter.  With input from my veggie-eating customers (i.e. Ross' parents!) I settled on broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, beet, onion, spring onion, leek, garlic, carrot and parsnip.  There were a surprising number of other possibilities too.  I'll be doing some from seed and some from bought seedlings.
2. Layout?  Raised beds should be no more than 1.2m wide with access on both sides do you can always reach your plants!  Also, some plants go well together - onions like strawberries and beets for example!  Generally it's good to keep plant families in blocks so when you rotate crops next year, you can easily avoid putting the same kind of plant in one area twice.  I had great fun planning this in GrowVeg.com's free trial - they colour code the plant families and also space the plants for you correctly.
3. How?  Raised beds can be constructed out of many materials.  But when you've just arrived in a country, you don't have a lot of scrap wood or brick lying around.  Freecycle has some good stuff, and lots of greenie points, but not having tools to cut wood to size, etc. I decided to get cheap planks from thw wonderful Bunnings.  I tried to get untreated wood, because treated wood seeps chemicals into your veggies, and I'm painstakingly rubbing raw linseed oil into it to protect it from moisture.  It won't last for centuries, but it should last a few years.  I also got galvanised nails and some short pointy posts to attach the planks to.
4. What soil?  Ross' first question was what are you going to fill raised beds with?  But, I discovered, it's a bit like making compost - you can use lots of waste materials to layer up your bed - no need to dig or fork out lots of cash.  I just have to layer "brown" carbon materials like newspaper with "green" nitrogen materials like grass clippings.  I bought a couple of bags of compost to put around my seedlings, and one of lucerne/pea hay, which is supposed to do wonders for plants, but the rest will all be recycled material.  The best bit is that washed seaweed is great for plants, and we're just half a km from the beach, so I'm now washing bucketloads of the stuff.
5. What about the bunnies?  Stumbling block number 1.  I hadn't thought of rabbit control.  In theory, they should be discouraged by the height of the beds, but I'm not convinced this will be enough.  So I've started making a rabbit-proof fence.  This involves digging a foot-deep trench and burying the mesh underground as well as 3 feet above ground.  I'm down about half a foot and now have blisters.  Will get back to the fence tomorrow.

Bladderwrack type stuff - washing off the salt in a bucket

So that's where I'm at now.  Still got plenty of wood to oil, and plenty of trench to dig, but still enthusiastic.

6 planks oiled, too many to go!

I look forward to hearing your comments, even if you think I'm a nut (as I've already been told!).

In Italiano!: L'Orto
Con una pausa di 3 settimane prima di iniziare il mio nuovo lavoro, ho deciso di fare un orto nel terreno dei genitori di Ross.  Non lo mai fatto, pero' non mi scoraggio!    Dalle mie ricerche su internet, ho capito che ci sono certi vantaggi di un orto rialzato con muretti di legna o mattoni.  Limitano il danno dai conigli e riduce gli erbacci, e sono piu' comodi di lavorare.  Ho deciso di fare un orto di questo tipo con tavole economiche di legna.  Sto impregnando la legna con olio di lino - protegge la legna dall'umidita', ma non contamina le verdure.  Pero', ci metto molto tempo!
Mi piace molto la programma per la progettazione da www.GrowVeg.com - i colori ti dicono di che famiglia sono le piante che ti aiuta con la rotazione delle colture.
Ho deciso di piantare verdure che approfitano dell'inverno mite in questo clima subtropicale: i broccoli, i cavolfiori, i porri, le cipolle, l'aglio, le rape rosse, gli spinaci, le carote e le pastinache.
Il terriccio si puo' fare con tante materiali riciclati, ho scoperto - con strati alternati di materiali secche (es. i vecchi giornali) e materiali umide (es. erba tagliata).  Posso anche utilizare l'algae dal mare - a solo 1 km dalla casa.  Sto lavando un mucchio!
Fammi sapere che ne pensi con un commento!