Permsteading.com

I'm biting the bullet here and have enquired about doing a PDC at the local "community house". There is an intensive course in June/July which I can't do due to family commitments and study, so I'll have to wait until later on this year to do it part time. The location of the course is only a 40 minute drive away so they deal with the same issues that I have here and it's "hands on" which should jolt me out of my bad habits! I took pa_friendly_guy's advice and chipped away at the rock-hard clay to make little depressions in the ground and then filled them with a mixture of homemade compost and the dug out clay (after I smashed it with a hammer to break up the big chunks) and it seems to be working pretty well (I started some more raspberries in them). We've had cooler days here for the past few weeks but we haven't had much rain at all.

I would love the opportunity to take a PDC somewhere close to home. I hope you enjoy the experience, Boo.

I got a lovely surprise today ......I've been working in the garden today (moving stuff around, weeding etc) after we had a couple of rainy days (finally) and I've got almost black soil! Real soil!!
I'll post a picture here of the untreated pale brown clay that is in the unworked area (just to refresh your memory)

and tomorrow I'll post a picture of what my soil looks like now (my guinea pig is earning her keep )
(dirt that I made!!)

Garden update.......work in progress!

New garden beds


Protected banana


Winter greens


Baby orange tree producing

Good work Boo, nice to see our friend the banana tree doing so well!

Yes Matt, it makes a nice change doesn't it! I've found that the frost cloth works really well (held on to the thin polypipe by a technical device called a clothes peg) because it's so light. I felt so guilty every time it looked like the banana has "expired", but I've had some excellent advice from this forum on how to protect it

Wow, great work getting that banana happy
Who's the PDC through? If Ballarat's not too far away I hear good things about the permie group there.

Congrats on the Banana Boo, that is really great work. The soil improvement is startling as well. It is really starting to come along nicely. Keep up the good work,

quick update on the (very slow) progress.....


plus a little indulgence - a native frangipani