A BIG EFFORT IN THE VEGGIE PATCH

Spending most of this weekend in my patch has been bliss and a lot of hard work.  I got talking to my sister on Friday about some changes I wanted to make regarding the layout and functionality of the garden beds and it was decided that I would go back to beds on the ground.  You see I have used my raised beds for years now and over the last few years I have struggled to keep up a good quality soil in them, I find they just bake over summer and all nutrition is lost.  Even though it's relatively cool where I live, our summers are getting hotter and I think the plastic surrounding the beds is cooking the soil.

Feeling rather ambitious today, I attempted to remove 3 of the beds, not as easy a task as I thought it would be but with a bit of help from Hubby, we managed it.

A look at out raised beds before removal, up the hill towards our new back fence.  The new fence is a story on it's own, you see we had some really terrible neighbours for quite a few years and their home was taken from them.  Two couples on the street behind us bought the home and renovated it but when it came time to do the yard they realised it was a huge garbage pit, the previous owners had dug pits to bury used nappies and everything else you can think of in them, then covered them up.  When they put up the new fence they asked if we minded if they changed the fence line giving us an extra metre of land all the way across our yard.  While we were happy about that, in the future should the house sell and someone looks at plans, the fence will have to be shifted back.  What we didn't know was that one of the garbage pits is now on our side of the fence, I have a raised metre wide piece of land full of old nappies that I don't know what to do with.  I am thinking a retaining wall to hold up the garbage and soil as I don't want to remove it all and then have the fence shifted.  I'm still thinking about what to do on this.

A before look from the new raised land we now have.

Heidi being ever so helpful with the removal.

3 beds gone and a lot of weeding to do.

After a full day of removing rubbish and weeds with Agnus helping every step of the way, it was time for a rest.

During the week I hope to remove a couple more beds and finish off this shade house that was once my hot house before the plastic needed removing.

On a side note, we lost Cyril, Chia and Goldie to a fox this week, we have never had any trouble with foxes before so are devistated.  Poor Agnus and Muriel have been getting special attention and care at the moment as they seem quite stressed and timid.