Permablitz Altona
On Sunday 29th May we permablitzed Altona! Our lovely host Tarius is a skilled gardener and runs the lush kitchen garden at Altona Meadows, but sadly had little time for her own garden since they moved into the rental property. But with the blessing of her landlady and an excellent design from Very Edible Gardens, we were all set for some blitz magic!
Did I mention the front yard was a train wreck before we started? Yuk! These stones were hard work to remove and everyone on the blitz resolved to never, ever do the plastic-and-quartz-stone treatment to a garden. Ever. We paused to acknowledge functions of plants that were being removed, including grasses, buckshorn plantain and dandelion.
By lunchtime most of the stones were gone, plastic was removed and the soil aerated and ready to receive layers of compost and mulch to bring it back into health and productivity.
After some warming pumpkin soup and sandwiches, there were workshops on food forest design, no-dig vegie patches and vegie patch planting design. Then it was back to work for the finish composting, mulching and planting stages. Did I mention that we also built and planted some lovely raised vegie beds out the back? Thanks for the lesson in bush carpentry Matt!
And what a result! Here’s Tarius, Matt, Savannah and Xavier in their food forest.
A massive thanks to the great folk over at The Green Centre who donated mulch and Back to Earth who supplied the compost for this blitz.
Thanks for a great day everyone! See you next time
Kat @ Permablitz Decentral
PS. This blitz was made possible by the My Smart Garden program at Hobsons Bay City Council – see www.mysmartgarden.org.au for free workshops and events in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
