Wicking Garden Beds Completed and Seeds Planted

Not only have we now finished building all six wicking garden beds but also completed planting them with seeds – all heirloom edible food plants (more on this with another post).

In hindsight?

*  Wish we had placed the legs of the garden beds (metal legs) on pavers to start with.  This way the beds wouldn’t have sunk unevenly when filled and hence we wouldn’t have wasted time excavating.

*  The grass still keeps coming back, so as you can see from the first photo, black builder’s plastic has been layed on the ground to kill the grass (then we will remove the plastic and add stepping pavers and plant country cottage, edible ground covers).

*  One wicking bed has a leak in the recycled builder’s plastic.  More care should of been taken to check this –  buying brand new in this instance would have been better.  Therefore this bed will become a normal garden bed (we will need to water the plants with a hose as per normal).

*  I have used an old metal arch that we inherited when we purchased the house.  It’s legs sit on two beds.  Sugar snap peas will grow up and over the arch (which I covered in mesh), making it into a cute walk way.

*  I have been collecting numerous trellis frames from the side of the road (it’s our local chuck out day time).  These recycled items will soon have tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peas and beans climbing all over them for support.

*  Building wicking garden beds are easy (although I didn’t feel confident in the beginning).  Just one of those things you have to ‘give it a go.’  This video from Gardening Australia really helped.

Do you think we should paint the beds or leave them natural?