The Alternative Lifestyle Site

Transition Projects #1: The Shade House (Growing Your Own Food)

Well Spring is attempting to poke it’s head through the clouds here in Australia – it seems to be a little bit shy so far, despite the equinox giving it the green light!

Needless to say I’ve been busy in the garden, well the enormous weed patch really.

We have a shadehouse that we constructed from timber that used to think it was a shed but now firmly believes it’s a shadehouse.

Pulling down the old shed was a real adventure – it was covered in ivy, jasmin and passionfruit vines… in the end we had to set fire to it to finally overcome all the greenery! I’m not joking, just check out the picture below.

We find that we need it in the summer to stop things getting burnt by the sun. The year we constructed it I went from watering twice a day (and feeling like I was losing badly) to watering about three times a week. A BIG saving in time and water and with Summer temperatures on the rise I think we may end up with more than one shady area around our food production.

The construction is very simple (like us really). An arrangement of star pickets (fence droppers), 2 inch poly pipe (which just happens to fit perfectly over the pickets) and a nice timber “spine” down the middle to keeps things nice and upright. We covered the lot in shadecloth with bird netting at the ends. We also had a door made up using some left over welded wire mesh and some corrugated iron.

We have a couple of raised beds in the middle and beds all around the edges. Right now they are without hard edges but our intention is to give them either hardwood or recycled brick edges and to put gravel around the pathways.

All in good time as resources become available.

I’ve already got my potatoes in.

There are also raspberries, strawberries, feijoa, blueberries, rhubarb, artichoke, currants and lots of different herbs. We intend to add an asparagus bed in time for next Spring too. In summer I’ll plant some soft herbs like corriander, basil and maybe some soft lettuce to have in salads.

The shadehouse has such a nice little microclimate for most of the season that it’s hard to go past all the yummy goodies growing inside it. Of course, they are all organic – I mean what else would you expect?

So what are you growing this season? Even fresh herbs can add a whole new dimension to your food, your health and your life. Go on – get planting.