Our first (unofficial) wwoofing experience

While staying with Rosie's Mum & Dad in Bundaberg I took on the task of creating some gardens for growing organic vegies. I figured it would be a good way to toughen up my 'chiropractor's hands' and get used to a bit of manual work. I thoroughly enjoyed having a project to keep me busy! Here's how it panned out...

Deltry prepared the area a few weeks before our arrival by laying down some black plastic to kill off the grass. This turned out to be only moderately effective and probably needed to be done for a lot longer to really make a difference.

It took me a day or so to remove all the grass and level the area as best I could. That earned me a few blisters!


We decided to make 3 garden beds each 3m by 1.4m with a 90cm path in between each bed. Now we needed the wood for the edges. I did some research and decided that the best wood to use would be untreated hardwood. Treated pine is easier to use but the chemicals from the pine can leech into the soil, which is not ideal for growing organic vegetables! I phoned around and managed to find a second-hand timber yard that had some fascia board that was perfect, and so much cheaper than buying new timber. In total the wood cost $70.

I cut it all to size by hand and enjoyed using some 'elbow grease'. I secured the corners by screwing the fascia board to some square hardwood beams I found with stainless steel decking screws ($20).

Elijah kept a keen eye on things and seemed to approve of the progress.

Now that the edges were in place we needed to fill them. On the bottom I laid some cardboard to deter the weeds. We had plenty of cardboard from all the boxes we used to move out of our house. I had some soil from where i had to dig to level the gardens but we needed quite a bit more. I bought a trailer load of organic mulch from a guy at one of Bundaberg's local markets and also bought some soil/compost mix from the local landscape place. All up the soil cost $120. I also decided to cover the paths with some woodchips to stop the weeds and make it tidy.


And here is the finished product! Deltry has planted a range of different vegies and they are doing well! I'm looking forward to sampling some of the produce in a few months time.

Now we're ready for 'real' wwoofing!