We had a fairly productive weekend.

Continuing to make lots of plans for creating permanent areas in the garden which should give it a bit of height as well a sense of shabby, organic and productive.

In the upper area next to the kids sandpit which is mostly sand-based soil we made a raised bed for 20 strawberry plants. With a mix of homemade compost, surplus soil from digging the sandpit a year ago and organic fertiliser we rolled it all up in some weedmat. Cut holes and planted strawberry crowns in.

Simon then set about constructing a frame next to the strawberries up on the retaining wall to put some grape vines in towards the end of August. We found some wild blackberry growing once we'd cleared all the weeds away so draped the tendrils over the edge of the retaining wall to do their thing down the other side (NO idea where they came from!). We should be able to chop them back if they start to get out of hand, but they are also positioned in a place where the garden is of no use (ie. the soil below the retaining wall is "dead" and it also does not get very good sun).

We bought an apple tree (to add to our other tree we bought last year) and should have a staggered harvest of apples. I then discovered today while pruning back our wild hedge that the apple tree that fell down last spring has sprouted from the trunk. I'm hoping that they will also start to produce fruit this year.

I have noticed blossoms on our plum tree already. Last year we had no plums, but this year should be a bumper again.

I have been given an archway to go over one of the garden paths to put a couple of passionfruit vines up towards the end of August.

I put up a tray of seeds (broccoli, cauli, onions, spinach, ruby silverbeet and leeks) and they are living on my bed during the day which is the warmest in the house and then at night they go under my bed lol.

We decided on where to put a garden shed. This will be where we house our emergency food, camping gear, bicyles and garden equipment. At the moment they are all in our (very old and rickety) garage which is positioned under our deck, so in the event of an earthquake they may not be accessible. We have plenty of corrugated iron from when we replaced our roof a few years back so Simon is keen to design and make one over summer once we have the garden all sorted.

I shifted and sorted a pile of branches, mulch and weeds from below the retaining wall so Simon could shift the soil around and level the ground out. I then rebuilt the two compost bins - they were a disgusting, stinky, slimy mess that really hadn't broken down well. I have really been very lazy about adding in plenty of brown material, but hopefully with my mulch pile now positioned next to the bins it will solve the problem.

The coming weekends will see us pruning back overgrown hedges and shrubs to create plenty of mulch material (will borrow my parents mulcher) so I can continue on with digging up the paths and then make the terraced steps leading down into the garden.