The Garden takes shape

I'm pretty tired as I write this, having finished an exhausting yet really fulfilling day in the school garden during our busy bee. We had a great turnout, with about 25 parents, along with their children turning up. The big number meant we got a lot done but also meant we had to work hard at keeping everyone busy with jobs. There is nothing worse than giving up your time on the weekend and then standing around with nothing to do!

Dan Bakker, from Bournda Environmental Education Centre and Permaculture guru designed the garden and was busy all day explaining to people what his vision was. The sloping site will mean that the garden will have plenty of interest, but it also means a more difficult landscaping challenge to begin with. Dan had some great ideas, using recycled and cheap materials to create a really usable garden that has a key component in any school, flexibility. In fact, if you wanted to (we hopefully will not), your could pick everything up and place it somewhere else- it is all movable.

The three main jobs for the day were creating the main retaining wall, which allows for the terrace approach to the slope, setting out, lining up and digging in the sleepers used to mark out the garden beds and create a few simple benches for the students to use.

Using sheets of tin and star pickets covered with 2 inch polypipe, a cheap, simple and really effective retaining wall can be put together in an hour or so. And because tin can be easily bent and cut, we could use that to 'dig in' the steps down to the lower garden. We had three dads who decided this was going to be their job, and they did a fantastic job.

Many hands, light work

 Tin retaining wall, showing the 'bent in' step.

Job well done!

Setting out the sleepers really gave instant shape to the garden. The slope of the sight meant that getting levels right was pretty time consuming, but we made great headway, enough to be ready for the students next week.

 Top garden beds taking shape

Another one of Dan's great ideas was the use of brick pallets to create simple benches for the students to use to do things like propagate and sort seeds. Getting pallets of the same dimension donated meant that it didn't take long for a team to put together a few benches. Next step is to cut a couple of circles in the top for some basins and fill in the gaps with a bit of timber.

Recycled brick pallets make simple, easy to assemble benches

It was a great day and so exciting to see the garden taking shape. Next week sees the students putting in the layered garden beds, ready for the planting of some leafy vegetable seedlings the following week. 

Then this garden will really start to look special.

Outdoor Classroom