It all started in July 1999.  When we moved here, the area was already fenced.  The first step was to mow inside the fence, then cover it all with the boxes used to pack our stuff from moving.

 

Next was a good layer of pea straw that Mum & Dad brought over – Mum unloaded it all from the trailer.

 

I spread it out on the boxes – Jill the dog helped.

 

The last thing was to “build” a compost bin

It turns out that the weeds just grew straight through the cardboard layer and all through the beds.  So more work was required to reduce the weeds…

In October 2000, Dan came to stay.  We put him to work on the vegetable garden.  First he created a grass proof edge to the garden area – this involved removing the fence wire, digging a trench around the entire fenced area, placing black plastic around the inside of the fence and inside the trench and finally standing corrugated iron strips (the he had to cut from roofing sheets) in the trenches before replacing the fence wire.

Next he took the top soil that was removed when we built the garage and piled it in mounds, laid black plastic between the beds as a base for paths between beds and covered the paths with sawdust.

 

The last step was to cover the beds themselves with black plastic in order to kill off any weeds that would grow from the soil mounds.  When it was time to plant, the plastic was removed and the partially-rotted pea straw laid on the beds.

These are the beds that I continue to use today!  Thanks, Dan!