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The Ashton food garden Overlooking a valley of vineyards from the Ashton property, we agreed we had the best job on earth. When starting this job in mid March the weather was still warm. A few early sun-‐scorching days reinforced our assumption that the seasons are getting later and later each year. By the time we’d finished this garden installation at the end of April, the cool of autumn had started to settle in, mornings were crisp and the rain had come twice. The location, shape and slope of this garden site gave us scope to create something special. With driveways down each side, the oddly shaped area needed to provide an attractive entrance to the property while maximising productive food growing space.
What would you have done with this site??? Design Down the side of this property, Brian and Lani have established a private vineyard that extends into the valley. Closer to the house, on the northern side they’d established some veggie gardens and fruit trees but nothing was growing very well. We discussed extending the fruit orchards on the north side, installing chicken runs and fish ponds, composting areas, renovating sheds, and revegetating other areas. Some of these ideas are now bubbling away in a longer term design plan. For now, we would focus solely on the triangular shaped veggie garden site at the southern entrance to the property. Run off from the road down the steep driveway had to be managed, as heavy rainfall regularly inundates this area of the hills. We couldn’t have the food garden flooding, so directing the flow of rainwater down the hill and away from the base of the garden was a prime consideration during the design stage. Brian was looking to build a retaining wall at the base of the garden to prevent soil and runoff from turning the parking area at the bottom into a mud pond. Roger’s suggested building a hardwood garden bed at the bottom of the site with the upper side of the bed acting as the retaining wall. Behind this would be a wall of
rocks on top of a perforated drainpipe that could direct the flow of water away from the garden base and out onto the driveway where it would flow over the hill. For the pointy top end of the triangular veggie garden site, we suggested a pond surrounded by moss rocks. Yes to that! Not long after the go ahead, Sally suggested a flow form could be a lovely feature in the pond. To convince the clients of this (they’d never heard of a flow form), we got a video of one in action, kindly sent to us by Kosta who has one in front of his Yoga Cycle studio. Flow forms are a biodynamic invention; not only do they energise the water by creating vortexes, they are beautiful to look at as well. Our clients didn’t need much convincing! Yes to that as well! So at the top we would build a pond and install a flow form. At the bottom, a retaining wall garden bed. The middle section we divided into two parts: the upper part with four large raised garden beds; the lower part with mounds in the centre (think rambling pumpkins, zucchinis and melons in summer) and pretty blueberry bushes lining the driveway edges. A line of rocks down each side would help redirect water flow away from the garden.
Can you envisage a pond in the top corner, 4 veggie garden beds in the upper middle section, mounds and blueberries in the lower middle section, and a retaining wall garden bed across the base? Roger is pondering… It was going to be an exciting and challenging job. AND a beautiful, productive food garden when finished. Given the steep slope of the driveway, it would not be without challenges, both technical and physical. But boy, do we love a challenge! Work begins – clearing the site An important first step was to clear the site, level it to an even slope and determine the fall of the land. Not only does the site slope from top to bottom, it also has a slope from one side to the other! Luckily Brian had a grader so he and Roger worked together on a Sunday to clear the site, grade it and excavate the top section that would eventually become the pond.
Roger pondering in the pond area. The gradient of the slope determined how high to make each side of the four main garden beds. Crikey. Each one would be individually made to fit the slope of the land and they’d each sit at different horizontal levels. Laying irrigation lines Our first job was to map out where each of the garden beds, mounds and blueberry bushes would be placed so that irrigation trenches could be dug and pipes laid. It had to be fairly exact right from the start and you can see the labyrinth of irrigation lines in the image below.
To water four sections of the garden independently of each other, four separate irrigation lines are laid down prior to placing the garden beds. They are all connected to an automatic controller on the tap. Retaining wall garden bed The next step was to build the retaining wall hardwood bed at the base of the slope and fill it with soil to stabilise the base of the garden and ensure rainfall was directed away from the garden. Behind the retaining wall side, we installed a perforated drainpipe at the base and filled the area on top with rocks to help with drainage.
This bed will be in shade most of winter so not much will grow here (we’ll try some broadbeans), but it will be a productive growing space with plenty of sunshine throughout spring and summer. Four Ecowood beds Time to build the four central garden beds. As you can see below, placing them on a slope meant that the front side of the beds had to be higher than the back side. To break up the front panels, we built in our little strawberry beds -‐ they are becoming a popular choice on our 80cm high beds. As each bed was made, it was carried over to the garden, positioned, and filled with soil. Roger had great fun manouvering the digger on the slippery slope and as you can imagine, we were grateful to the weather gods for holding off on the rain during this part of the installation. Before filling with soil, inground worm farms were positioned in the centre of each bed – another feature we like to include to keep the soil fertile and healthy.
Two beds have been constructed and Roger is filling them with soil. Notice the in-‐ground worm farms waiting to be placed in the beds during filling. Once all four beds were in place and filled, we installed a few central steps down the middle, then covered the pathway areas with sawdust. Instant pretty!
The four Ecowood beds are completed, sawdust laid on the pathway and a line of rocks put on each side to assist water flow down the hill. On to the next section – blueberries and mounds. The weather gods were not so kind for this stage. We got two galvanised beds placed and filled with soil, with some compost ground cover surrounding them before the rain came down. What was hard clay ground turned into an enormous expanse slushy mud. Roger tried numerous times one morning to drive the digger up the slippery slope, but it slid sideways and down the slope every time. He reluctantly conceded defeat.
Our view of the muddy site while sheltering from the rain. The ground dried out a little over the weekend so when we returned the following week, we covered the still muddy but not so wet clay with a layer of compost and the digger tyres were able to grip enough to get up and down the side slope with Roger’s clever driving tactics. The remaining round galvanised beds were installed and levelled horizontally. As each one was placed it was filled with soil and a heap of compost dropped over the surrounding ground. We worked from one side of the area to the other, raking out the compost as we went. With the solid ground of the driveway under the digger tyres, Roger was able to dig the four holes on each side of the mound area for the blue berry bushes. The holes were filled, not with our special soil, but with Azalea acidic soil. Irrigation was connected and eight sweet little blueberries were transplanted into the soil. At the end of the day it looked a picture!
Finally the piece de resistance…the pond and flow form. Brian and Roger had dug out the pond area at the start of the job. We then draped an underlay and a rubber pond liner over the hole and secured them with heavy rocks around the edges. Being on a slope, the water level had to be established around the diameter of the hole, based on the lowest point of the hole. With the water level established we could then identify the height and position of the three flow forms. Next we built the three layered base on which the three 35kg ‘beehive’ flow forms would sit. Further excavation at the tip of the pond was required to insert the base into the pond area so we enlisted the help of Brian and his excavator.
The pond liners were pulled back and more clay excavated to allow the flow form base to sit level at the top of the pond. The three bases were then inserted, levelled and concreted in to ensure stability.
Two of the three bases are in and Roger is connecting pipes for the flow form pump. To connect up the flow form water pump to electricity, we’d previously dug up some of the driveway pavers and laid an electrical cable from the pond to a power point in the adjacent shed.
Roger dug up a diagonal line of pavers and made a trench to lay the 12 volt electrical cable from the pump to the power point. A bell float connected to the water inlet on the other side will keep the water level consistent. After positioning the three flow forms onto the base, moss rocks were carefully placed around the entire pond to enclose it and to cover up the base. Soil was strategically placed around the rocks and some fine greenery planted. Brian was relieved to see the large rocks at the tip that would ‘prevent visitors from driving down into the pond’. Hopefully this will never happen.
The three beehive flow forms One last thing… Nearing the last days on the job, Roger looked at the huge wall on one side of the driveway and imagined it covered with greenery. He suggested to Brian and Lani that a simple trellis here could accommodate a grapevine or passionfruit. That evening we got the ‘Yes!’ so on our final day, we installed it all for them.
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This massive expanse of wall will soon be covered in greenery. Can you spot the little passionfruit at the top amongst the newly planted agapanthus? And can you see the trellis wires waiting for the tendrils to drop down and find it? All yours As Lani is an enthusiastic gardener, she is keen to take full responsibility for buying and planting out all the seeds and seedlings. We have given her some suggestions and advice, plus a few seedlings from our nursery and left the beautiful new food garden at Ashton in her capable hands.
The finished food garden With a few bottles of Brian’s lovely wine in hand, we left the garden at Ashton. Although the work added up to 15 full working days, with our other commitments, it had spanned 6 weeks. We create food gardens as if they were our own, and we do get very attached to them. Brian and Lani have promised to send us updates on the progress of their garden and we will probably drop in to visit them when the Pinot Noir is getting low.