More beds built

Even though it was almost too hot to work yesterday (I put on SPF30 before heading out the door, but forgot about my back and now have a sunburnt strip just above the waistband of my shorts - ouch), my husband and I got out there in the garden and finally finished levelling it. Today we got two more raised beds made and filled. That brings the total plantable area of our vegetable garden to 16 square metres, which should be plenty for two people. And that's not counting all the tubs of tomatoes and peppers, the fruit trees dotted around our whole property, or the plastic bags with potatoes growing in them.

Here's how things look today:

 

I know you can't see all the beds properly, so here's the layout that I use in my Excel spreadsheet. Yes, I am project-managing my garden using Excel. And no, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Just as a reminder of how far we've come, here is how the garden looked in August 2008:

Here's how it looked in September 2008, after a hard day's work and vast amounts of help from our friends Fi and Rich:

And here's how it looked a year ago, as we attempted a traditional garden:

I can't help but be pleased with the order we imposed on the jungle that was there originally, and how much easier gardening is this year compared to the row-style gardening we were doing a year ago. Okay, so it's been a lot of work setting up all the raised beds, and not particularly cheap either, but now that we have that done we should be good to go for the next few years with only the addition of compost to keep the beds fertile. No more muddy feet, as we now have lovely paths between the beds, and no weeding to speak of either.

As far as results go, it's a bit early to judge for most things but I can tell you that the strawberries are doing very well indeed. We gather a couple of handfuls every day at the moment, and everyone who's tasted them has commented on how they "taste like proper strawberries!" compared to the bland watery supermarket offerings. Next year I'll be doing two square metres of strawberry plants rather than just one.