Garden plans coming to fruition

I was just reading a post on http://wifemothergardener.blogspot.com.au/ about a hedge they've just put in place and I was thinking just how important your long term plans for a garden are. It's the long term plans that help shape what your garden is to become and give your garden it's structure. When we started our garden journey we knew very little about gardening, we watched, fascinated as grass seeds turned into lawn in just six weeks and thought, "wow, let's try a garden". There was no real planing involved, we just bought plants and put them in a sat back and watched. Needless to say, our inexperience led to a lot of frustration and failures, but it was a great learning curve.
Luckily along the way we have made some good long term decisions. Our fences took a lot of our time and money to put in place, but have protected our garden and chickens from neighbourhood dogs. Our wicking beds were a well thought out and planned project to slowly replace vegetable gardens on the ground that baked dry in summer and washed away with the rain.

Our first wicking gardening bed, showing the initial wicking layer, the hedge growing behind it and the fence. All took a long time to put in place but well worthwhile

Our chicken coop, designed to fit our wicking beds and integrate our gardening system has made light work of turning over and replenishing those same beds. Our first hedge along the roadside was planted to hide the untidiness of the original garden beds, but also offers protection from the coastal winds and helps to create a micro climate the plants in the wicking beds thrive on.

My niece retrieving eggs from the chicken coop situated on the first wicking bed we built 

Our next hedge is on the house side and will help enclose the vegetable gardens, and give us a prettier view from our newly built pergola. The pergola was a long yearned for structure,marked out countless times with stakes and bits of timber, grinding through the think tank. It now gives us the perfect spot to entertain friends and family, and grow a much wanted grape vine, which will give us shade in the heat of summer and let the warming light in during winter.

The pergola under final construction, surrounded by four mini wicking beds which now hold grape vines. You can see my potting area over the back, not the most attractive thing to look at, so new plan now in place

My potting area eventuated from my desire to have a place where everything I need is in one spot, now sheltered behind our next great plan, a screen with our first flower garden situated in front. And so the planning goes on...

My parents and niece making the most of our new pergola area. Well worth the wait!

What are your long term gardening plans you're working towards or what plans have you already seen come to fruition?

My July to do list

Welcome to the first day of July! (Well it was the first day, but then I got busy doing other things!!!)

I've been sitting down thinking about everything that needs looking at in the garden and thought I'd share my to do list, maybe it will inspire you too.

* Asparagus need attention. At this time of year a lot of the fronds on the asparagus have died down. Now is the time to chop them all back and re pot or feed them for the coming season. I discovered last year that they respond well to a good layer of new composted and composted manure. I also build up the soil level over them as it tends to drop through the year and they grow thicker growing up through more soil.
*The bananas are looking a little untidy, the wind is up and the dead leaves are blowing the trees around. It's time to prune off the dead leaves and have a look if there are any excess suckers coming up that need removing. Ideally I try to keep just one leader in the group and two followers, any additional take to much energy from them. I've also got a bunch of bananas on one cluster. Removing the flower once the bunch is established also helps conserve energy and prevents visiting bats attracted by the flower nectar. I normally hesitate to do this as I love watching the birds that come daily after the nectar as well, but there's a new flower about to open so the old one can go.

Banana flower needing removing to allow bananas to put their energy into the bunch.

Spring bulbs I'm hoping to get planted early this month.

*I'm a bit late for spring bulbs, but I haven't yet missed my opportunity. We'll be putting them into the small wicking beds around our new pergola for a bit of colour.
*The jerusalem artichokes have had their flowers die down a while ago now and have been awaiting me digging them up for eating. This is my first time trying these and I'm excited to see how they've gone. I'll eat some of the tubers and keep some for replanting which can happen now.
*The ginger plants have died down last month, and that's the sign that they are ready to harvest. They can be left in the ground for a while, but they get 'hotter' in flavour the longer they are in, and come spring they will shoot again. As I'm not a fan of really spicy, I tend to dig them up sometime in July. Again, some for me and some for replanting.
*The turmeric is beginning to die down now as well. Related to the ginger family, I'm going to treat them in the same way. Harvest this month and keep some for replanting.
 There's probably a whole heap more that will get attention this month, but I figure that's a good starting list.
What's on your to do list this month?