We are most excited to announce that you can now order Kitset VEG Beds online. Building your VEG bed or beds at home not only gives you the job satisfaction, but as you are supplying most of the labour, it makes them a lot more affordable too. Our kitset cypress veggie beds are fast becoming one of the most popular things we do, and we're delighted to have customers emailing us photos of the finished products dripping in veggies.
We have had our heads down in preparation the last few months, first fitting out our new warehouse and demonstration room space in Brunswick, and second setting up our online shopping cart. We don't outsource much here at VEG, so one minute we are dynabolting a saw bench onto the warehouse floor and the next uploading thumbnails onto the shopping cart!
Anyways, let it be known that you can now order yourself a Kitset VEG bed in beautiful, ethically sourced and untreated cypress for prompt delivery or pickup and for those of you wanting beds we really look forward to hearing from you and helping you in setting up your edible garden.
Note that whilst these pictures are of 40cm high beds, we offer 20, 40, 60 & 80 cm high beds in about any width & length you like, and all with the option of a fitted bench seat.
On Saturday (yes the Grand Final was on but that didn't bother us too much) we blitzed the backyard of the Wyndham Community and Education Centre into a garden for Karen (Burmese) refugees. They are a totally great crew and lots of them collect wild foods, ride bikes and are really keen gardeners: interests very close to our hearts. Some of them have spent 20 years in refugee camps so they especially love the chance to garden and grow food. We designed the garden together as a group about a month ago. How much lawn do we want to turn over to veggies, I asked? All of it!, was the answer. So that's what we did, using VEG's cypress beds, and planted a few fruit trees too. We achieved well, ate well, laughed well.
Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by for a chat at day one of the Royal Melbourne Show today. VEG was invited to set up a garden and one of our team will be there each day until October 2nd. We are very grateful to our friend and colleague Pete the Permie who supplied about 20 beautiful fruit trees which surround our garden and have been getting much interest from passers by. Thanks also to the wonderful Joe Gaffy from Apex Retaining Walls for all his help (if you need a retaining wall - Joe's your man!). Anyone visiting our garden can enter the draw to win a Kitset VEG Bed - if you were one of today's many entrants, then good luck. One of Dan's favorite visitors was a lady who had been looking at our chook houses on our website last night then when she arrived at the show this morning - there they were! Guess some things are meant to be ;-).
Dan's been doing some numbers and if we assume half the 500,000 expected show visitors don't have a garden then
if we can help inspire one in every 100 people to stick some parsley or
more in the ground that's 2,500 new edible gardens in the world!
With 650 students Edendale Primary School is one of Auckland's largest. About four years ago Dan from VEG consulted to the school to advise on suitable locations for new school veggie gardens and an orchard. Today Dan returned to the school and was blown away with what they've achieved, thanks in large part to a parent and unstoppable permaculturalist and food gardener named Karen who, with the principle's strong support has seen around 60 fruit trees planted throughout the school! Here are a few youtubes and photos Dan took today but do check out the wonderful project blog here. Dan was particularly impressed with the food forest ground cover plantings, including yarrow, chickweed, daffodils, comfrey, nasturtium, Californian poppy, bluebells, and tansy.
Through the rain and winds a hard core team of volunteers came together to implement a VEG design at the Holden Street Neighbourhood House in Fitzroy North on Sat 18 August. Together we built veggie beds for adults and for the childcare area, built some wicking beds in the neighbouring park (with the support of the Yarra City Council) and planted lots of fruit trees and berries. What a great day with team spirit only enhanced by the early drenching!
On Sunday we completed the four day and two evening Permaculture Teacher Training course than Rosemay Morrow came down to run for us. It was a special few days with an exceptional group of up-and-coming permaculture teachers, some of whom left with the confidence to start planing their own courses. It was great timing for Dan, who flies to NZ tomorrow morning to run the first week of the Koanga Institute's next two-week permaculture design course starting on Sunday. Anyways here are some photos from the course (thanks for your two Woz!) and then some photos of the beautiful suburban permaculture property that hosted the course (thanks again Kim & Clive!)...
This morning Dan popped over to part of the Yarraville Community Centre to help with some new wicking beds - it was great to see how lovely Helen has the garden looking, with a few donated VEG beds in the mix along with some lovely work by a local community group using recycled brick.
This afternoon, after a very enjoyable residential design consult in Northcote, Dan dropped by Auburn South Primary in Hawthorn to check in on a few little bits and pieces (including a nifty little automatic watering system for the chooks). It was a lovely afternoon and the place is looking so lovely that Dan shot a little movie of the new system, including 16 VEG beds and a good-sized chook system. Stephanie Alexander herself will attend the grand launch of the garden in a few weeks and much is being planted and prettied in all directions! The chooks arrive in a few days and we can't wait to see how they enjoy their new digs...
One of our biggest design and installation jobs last year was Julian & Linda's place in Eaglemont (see pictures here and a few youtubes here). Part of that system was a duck pond and hutch within the large orchard enclosure. We helped Julian source two beautiful Silver Appleyard ducks and he tracked down a most handsome male. They have all been busy doing their thing and now Julian has beautiful pure-bred Silver Appleyard ducklings on his hands. Here they are and if anyone is interested in getting some by all means get in touch.
