Visit Max and Gaye 17 November 2019

After weeks of  horrendous winds and cold weather, the wind finally died down when we met at Max and Gaye's place in Rose Bay. The sun came out and we enjoyed a great garden visit.

Max and Gaye's suburban garden is a brilliant example of how you can fit a very productive garden into a small space.

Here is Max, explaining the lay-out of his garden and how it all fits together:

There are four main vegetable beds, and Max explained that he uses crop rotation, alternating the beds between greens, legumes, root vegetables and tomatoes/potatoes. Max finds it easy to keep track of what to grow where this way, and it prevents the soil becoming tired or prone to disease. Apart from the vegetables there are many fruit trees that fit in seamlessly: a big row of raspberries, several apples, peaches, cumquat, lemon and grapes to name a few.

Raspberry lane!

The garden receives a lot of wind all year round and is also in an area with little rainfall, so watering is an important part of the gardening work here. Currently, most of this happens via two large overhead sprinklers that cover most of the garden, but this does not provide enough separate treatment of the crops he grows. So Max is in the process of changing to a drip watering system to each bed separately. It will run off watering computers, making the daily job a lot easier.

Watering computers

He also has a wicking bed that is watered via a pvc pipe (note the nice ceramic covering):

Strawberries in the wicking bed

Max has also found a place for a glass house, which he constructed from recycled materials, saving himself a lot of money in the process. He now has a delightful space full of character for growing tomatoes, capsicums and other warmth-loving vegetables in.

A lot of people remarked on the joy of seeing so many flowering plants incorporated into the garden. Max calls them his 'volunteers', plants that sometimes choose to come up in a path or a garden bed. He works around them, rather than weeding them out. Not only do they add to the amount of bees and other beneficial insects visiting the garden, but it clearly works very well in making this garden such a delight to be in. Gaye's beautiful ceramics also add a lot of character. Here is a small selection of delightful vistas, small and large:

There even seemed to be room for some chickens!!

A compost heap or two as well as a mulcher to make use of any prunings complete the picture. Max uses the mulch under his berry bushes to great effect.

 As always, people brought delicious things for morning tea, which did not last long on the table. The seed box is also going great, with lots of people contributing as well as taking some home.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed!

And of course, a big thank you to Max and Gaye for opening their garden to us.

We had a great morning and many of us came away with new inspiration and ideas for our own gardens.