Projects 7-8: Quick and easy

After the weeks and weeks it took to finish the storage bench, I was keen for something that delivered quicker results!

Project 7: Chickpea’s Arabian birthday tent

Yes, you can make an Arabian style tent for your daughter’s 10th birthday party with a cheap gazebo frame from Bunnings, 60 metres of white muslin, two elastic bands and a couple of packets of safety pins.

Delay the tree lobber who was due to remove the palm trees on the day of the party. Throw down some carpets and cushions on the grass. String up some fairy lights inside the tent. Make houmous, felafel and an Arabic honey cake. Hire someone to do henna designs. Happy 10th Birthday Chickpea!

 

Project 8: A wheelbarrow garden bed

Bugsie investigates...

 As the next post will show, we have been busy building a wicking bed. I wanted to transplant some butternut seedlings that had grown in the compost AnoneeDad used to plant a couple of grape vine cuttings in. Butternuts take up lots of space though, so after some investigation (and a very brief look at the finances), I decided to make a cheap raised garden bed for the two seedlings.  

I picked up a wheelbarrow for $5 from the Balcatta Recycling Centre (more descriptively known as “The Dump”).  At home I drilled half a dozen large holes in the base of the wheelbarrow, and threaded lengths of muslin through the holes. (You will recall the 60 metres of white muslin from the previous project!) The bottom half of each “wick” is left soaking in a bucket of water, the theory being that the water will wick up to the bed as needed – butternut are thirsty, and I am a lackadaisical gardener. The top halves of the wicks where spread inside the barrow, buried in the soil. I filled the barrow with a mix of compost and manure, and sent AnoneeDad off on a mission to find the old clothes drying rack I had noticed outside someone’s house in advance of an upcoming bulk waste collection day. That was added as a trellis for the vines to grow along.

Frugal wicking wheelbarrow bed

I am very interested to see how this experimental bed works. Some issues to consider:

• Will it actually wick?
• Does “likes manure rich soil” mean “use 50% manure 50% compost”?
• Will the plants survive transplanting (umm, no – one has died already)
• Will the extra butternut seed I planted germinate?
• Is one wheelbarrow enough room for two butternut plants?
• Will the rusty barrow lead to iron poising?

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