Chookie wrote:

Frankly, I'd just bung in what you have. I'm sure all that lucerne, straw,
sheep poo etc is wonderful but it's just too expensive for a Sydney gardener
to manage, especially considering there are cheaper/free materials that will
work just as well without requiring further greenhouse gas emissions to bring
in!

Geez, I can remember when lucerne hay cost a mere $5 a bale! I'm afraid
if I had a source of cheap hay, I'd be handing it to my sister to feed
her horses with! It seems like such a waste to chuck good clean hay onto
the garden when there's gobs of grass clippings going begging.

If you are building the bed on grass, put lots of layers of newspaper at the
bottom. Right now is a good time to do this as rain is expected along the
coast all week. A few *years'* worth of rotted grass clippings is probably a
beautiful friable soil by now, under the top 10cm. Use the top bit for the
mulch. It's good to have manure in there as well.

You're right! I dug down a few inches and sure enough it's all blackened
and composted! I thought it'd be a heap of nice shaggy mulch, but I
think the compost is going to be more useful! Hooray! ;-D

The centre of the heap is quite hot to the touch. Is that OK?

And probably a good
sprinkle of lime. You will see people say that dolomite is "better" than
builder's lime; for our purposes that's nonsense. We just need to raise the
pH a bit, and if builder's lime is cheaper than the garden one, go for it.
You'd need maybe four cups for your little bed.

I see you are starting with a 2mx1m bed. That's good to start with if you are
unsure of yourself, but I can guarantee that you'll have started a second bed
within the next year unless you literally don't have any land to put it on.
Growing vegies is addictive!

I'm already planning and plotting the shape of the extensions, but I
want to get something in and growing before I commit any more energy etc
to the project. AND, I've promised my son he can have a flower bed. (NB.
My son is 32 and autistic and he *loves* gardening and flowers. What's
easy to grow that makes good cut specimens?)


Oh, and have the long side of the bed facing north/south and the short sides
east/west. Northern sun warms your vegies; western sun cooks them. Pop a
trellis on the southern side of the bed and put in your peas (snow peas or
sugar snap peas if you'd rather, but ordinary peas are easiest to grow).

I've got a bit of reo hanging on the southern fence and the ultimate
plan is to do peas and beans. You put those in during spring, right?

You can see a nice free list here, updated monthly:
http://www.global-garden.com.au/plnttemp.htm

Hey, thanks for the info and especially the positive reinforcement! The
bed is built and waiting for a rain-free day for us to fill it. I've
weeded away all the grass and have plenty of fridge cartons and
newspaper for the base. My sister has ploughed up three rooms of quarry
tiles (!) and has promised to deliver them during this week, so that'll
be my 'drainy' layer. After that, nice garden soil and some grass
compost, after that, my purchased soil and the grassy mulch on top. I
guess it'd be sensible to wait a week or two to see how things settle
before planting?

Sydney, and, I imagine, Newcastle are temperate.

Bloody frigid at the moment! Brrrr! ;-

--
Trish {|:-} Newcastle, NSW, Australia