Pallets.....and other recycled materials

We wanted to have a backyard vegie garden for a few reasons -

• save money - I was sick of paying stupid prices for some of the easiest things to grow eg lettuce
• to encourage our youngest non vegie eating child to be interested and try things he helped to grow
• spend time together as a family doing something that benefits all of us - health and money wise
• learning how to preserve or freeze our produce so we have for the months its not in season
• to share with family and friends

 What I didn't want was to spend a fortune on setting it all up, it seemed to defeat the saving money part or the idea. Of course some things you have to spend money on there is no choice but where there is a choice, another option we have tried to do that. 

first pallet garden

The original garden bed was built with wood from a couple of pallets and filled with the manure, straw etc from a big clean out of the chicken coop. We left it for months and months to see how it would go in the weather.

This is the latest photo of this garden from a few weeks back.

The next garden game pretty much ready made, a HUGE pallet that had garden written all over it as soon as I saw it!

We filled it with manure from a friends cattle property that had been sitting around for about 6mths along with straw.

This garden now houses the zucchini and cucumbers which are growing like MAD! 

It was about this time we started thinking about needing compost and how we could build a compost bin so we by next spring would have some of our own. This would save money in not having to take green waste to the tip and not having to buy additives to boost the soil quality. I started researching and found all sorts of bins some cost alot of money and some we just slapped together but the end product was the same. I found a website that talked about a pallet compost bin which given I had pallets on hand grabbed my attention. After a few hours work this is what we ended up with .......

 

Its just pallets, chicken wire and a few brackets. The brackets were the only thing we had to buy to build it and cost us $12! We are slowly adding material to it and learning what we can and can't put on the heap. 

We look forward to next spring having our own compost to add to our gardens when preparing them for the spring/summer crops.

The next two gardens made were from another idea I'd seen and knew we had the materials for in the yard. Both these gardens used old roof tin and timber a neighbour had given us a few weeks earlier when moving house.We had run out of soil so went and bought some garden soil for this lot from the local tip at the cost of $100, yep thats $100 worth of dirt your looking at!

Our newest garden beds were built just yesterday.....yep we had gardening day, instead of boxing day. The garden beds are similar to the first bed we built of pallets.

We decided to build one not as deep as the other we will just be careful what we plant in it. 

This is the shorter bed with a layer of straw in the bottom, we just need to get some more soil. I already have some seedlings ready to go in. 

If anything I've learnt there is no point direct sowing as the rate isn't nearly as good as having them in the mini green houses and then moving when big enough. 

These mini green houses are my favourite, I have 3 of them and have a much better rate with them than anything else I've tried so far.

                                                       I planted out this corn today.

The most expensive thing in our garden so far apart from the $100 soil has been the tomato stakes but we figure we will get our money out of them over the next few years. 

I still think we will recoup our outlay in 6mths or so, its amazing how quickly the savings add up, we haven't had to buy lettuce in 2mths, we get enough beans for dinner a few nights a week, we have had our first few cucumbers, bok choi for stir fries for the past 2mths, spinach a few nights a week for 2mths, aprox 8kg of zucchinis and a capcicum. All this in just 2.5mths not bad at all!

aus.keeys