Summer 2008

The first summer it was amazing to see what popped up in the garden. Eventhough it was incredibly overgrown and nothing had been pruned or fed for years, the garden still produced some great colour and flowers in unexpected areas.

Looking up into the oak tree

1st Harvest

I started out planting seeds, mostly root crops as they're know to be relatively easy to grow, but also squash, baby pumkins and cucumbers. We ended up with a huge harvest in January 08.

I didn't realise the fine seed from radish and carrot would be so successful, nearly every seed took, meaning a massive harvest!

The deck

As the weather started to improve we really wanted to open up the back of the house and have somewhere to sit outdoors and enjoy a meal or just a beer at the end of the day. Spending most of our time in the city, when we get down to the country we want to take in as much of the outdoors and fresh air as possible.

The southern highlands weather is always unpredictable too so to have a covered outdoor area is really handy. At this stage the deck is open air, but we will enclose it so it's more an extension of the house and another large area for entertaining.

Watering

After constructing the veggie patch my next step was to get some water up to the beds. During the subdivision there had been pipes laid in various spots around the property. I created a new tap off one of the existing lines so I had an outlet withing the veggie patch. I then drew up the rough plan below and emailed it to a local irrigation supplier.

The quote came back really expensive and the guy had included many more components than I actually needed. I took my irrigation plan into the store and spoke to someone face to face. I got everything I needed including a battery operated timer it came at about 1/4 of the original quote and it was really easy to install.

Finally ready to plant some seeds.

Phase 2 - The vegie patch

I'd always wanted to grow my own vegies. In our first few months we started building the vegie patch. We allocated a north facing corner of the yard, conveniently this space is visible from the kitchen, real cooking inspiration!

Lots of digging, a bit of hardwood, corrugated tin and a delivery of juicy topsoil…voila!

The proposed location

The beds

Phase One - Inside the cottage

We started on the interior of the house wanting it to become the cozy country getaway we had dreamed of. Surprisingly with some gap filler, a coat of paint and new carpet it transformed really quickly.

Master Bedroom - Before, during, after (L to R)

Dining Room view 1 - Before, during, after (L to R)

Dining Room view 2 - Before, during, after (L to R)

Where we began

We bought this little patch of land in Bundanoon Nsw in the June of 2007. Originally searching for a weekend getaway of about 100 acres we soon came to realise that not only was something this large not in our price range but it would also mean loads of work.

We found our 2400sqm patch of Bundy. Our block is part of a 5 acre subdivision. On it we have the the original brick cottage, gardens and an amazing oak tree that creates a green canopy over the driveway during summer. The house was a great starting point with real potential but cosmetically it hadn't been touched for abour 40 years. The gardens were also old and established but had really been let go, many amazing plants were hidden under self seeded, overgrown shrubs.

The back of the house

From the house looking up the driveway

Looking from the front boundary - and the big Oak