Our Dream Permaculture Vegetable Garden (Before and After!)

Ever since I was in school I had been begging my parents for a veggie garden. I have always been fascinated with growing my own food and the whole idea that a simple seed designed by nature could bloom into something so incredible. One day, our family moved into a house with 15 veggie beds which had been set up by the previous owner who used to be a permaculturist. The owner previous to her, also had a keen eye for gardening and so the actual garden space was an incredibly beautiful place. It was so unassuming yet beautiful, brimming with insects and little critters. It wasn’t anything particularly special, but to me it was the most beautiful home I ever lived in. Actually, I was the one who came across this property when my parents were looking to move, so I guess that’s why I loved it so much.

Anyway, this vegetable garden at my parent’s place was an absolute dream. It was incredible on every level and I used to spend many mornings and afternoons in the gardening literally just wandering to the veggie beds and admiring the view. I was always trying to influence what we’d be planting each season, bringing seeds home. My dad however was the one that did most of the hard work! I’d just go in and water it, admire it and harvest it. In hindsight, I got the really good end of the deal. From this garden I’d harvest kale, broccolini, zucchini, broad beans, green beans, snow peas, spring onion, garlic chives, potatoes, strawberries, baby spinach, regular spinach, rocket, lettuce, bok choy, cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes… the list went on and on. To me this was heaven on earth. And for any friends who came over and had the patience to listen, I’d force them into a tour of the garden every single time.

Here are a few pictures of my parent’s garden:

I had always dreamed of a space to have a productive garden like my parents. About 3-4 years ago Tom & I had tried to bid on a property that was filled with raised beds and established fruit trees but we did not put in the winning bid and I was totally devastated, as I had fixated on it as what our dream home would look like.

Two and a half years ago (how time flies!) Tom and I surprisingly won the auction to our property. When we went to a viewing of this property (now - our home), I remember staring at the mulch-filled backyard and in my mind, all these fruit trees and veggie patches would bloom turning it into this incredible food forest. I thought, if we were ever so lucky to put in the winning bid to this property, how amazing it would be to completely transform this backyard into something my parents had, and more.

It took me a year of preparation and planning to design our garden. I wanted everything in it and more. A beautiful and energising space designed with permaculture principles. I even went and studied for my permaculture design certificate which was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done for myself - something I have always wanted to do but never thought I would have time to. But I’ve since learnt that you need to make time for the things you’re passionate for, or else you’ll fill it up with things that don’t matter.

There were countless hand drawn plans, books read, articles read and videos watched. I spent a year buying all my veggies from the supermarket which I was so not used to as previous to this, my family would grow most of the veggies we’d eat. During this time I was so sick of buying my veggies wrapped in plastic and unnecessary packaging, and produce that looked like it’d been sitting on the shelves for weeks.

On Boxing Day of 2018, with the help and encouragement of a generous and experienced family friend, we put our first shovels down into the earth and started digging.

Around November 2019, everything started to come together! A manifestation of a dream I never thought would come to us so soon.

Check out the before and after pics below and how incredibly different the space now looks!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It took us almost a year to build all of this. It could definitely have been done a lot faster but we we’re just two regular people with regular bank accounts. We weren’t in the position to call in a big landscaping team, and we couldn’t buy everything in one go or hire a bobcat for some of the digging we needed to do, so we decided to just do it in little bursts and take our time. And we also ran into a few difficulties and surprises as well which slowed us down!

But here are some progress shots of the journey, which I took on my phone to document the process to look back on.

This is around the first month in, when we removed all the existing landscaping and started mapping out the size of the garden (with the existing landscaping bits and bobs that we removed).

Once we removed everything, we were able to start implementing the design I had sketched up. The first few posts went in - each post took almost two full days to do, with all the measuring, digging through clay soils and more.

We finally started bringing in the sleepers and building our first raised bed! This was so bloody exciting, to see it finally come to life!

Fast forward many months - it was so exciting to see it all slowly take shape when I look back at these pictures. The sleepers are almost all in, the posts are almost all up.

One of the most exciting parts of this project was the day we finally got to start filling in our raised beds! As you can see, at this point, the left boxes still weren’t finished yet as we were trying to figure out how to build the entryway (whether to use stairs or a ramp). However, we enthusiastically went ahead and filled in the rest of the boxes first so that we could begin planting in time to harvest in summer.

I ordered 3 cubic metres worth of product to fill in these boxes and the day the gardening supplier came and dumped it all in our driveway was one of the most exciting mornings ever! I remember posting a picture of it on Instagram Stories showcasing my ‘shopping haul’! Everything was all coming together.

I was so exciting to lay down some hay - it really made the garden look and smell a bit like an urban farm.

This super exciting day below was the day we got our first seedlings in! We got our seedlings from my parents, a permaculture course friend who came and helped us and the rest of them Tom and I raised from seed in little seedling trays. On the day we planted them, Melbourne poured with rain. But I couldn’t be happier to be out in the garden!

And below, is our vegetable garden now.

I’m so incredibly excited to see our project come to fruition, Finally, we can begin eating from our garden again, to save on food miles, to not have to buy veggies wrapped in unnecessary packaging. I love being able to know how the food was grown and where it came from, and having it fresh from the garden-to-table.

A little step towards looking after our environment better, and the first step towards a bigger and greater dream to turn our home into a more sustainable place to live. I can’t wait to share more of the gardening journey with you and am excited to blog more about our journey and share more about growing our own food. So do keep an eye out for more posts coming soon!

PS. Hope you LOVE my new website. I’m so excited to be celebrating the new look for 2020 and to also be celebrating with this monster post that I know you guys have been waiting for as my first post for the new year!