RIP

Rest In Peace or Rip It Out!

The vegetable garden has gone. It flourished during summer producing enough food to feed a family of 20 (there were lots of give-aways!), and in autumn it supplied twice-weekly meals of broccolini and Swiss chard, weekly fennel bulbs to snap off and enjoy, a (dwindling) supply of skinny beans, and all the chillies, salad greens, edible flowers and herbs I could ever hope to eat. But the time had come. It had to be ripped out. Not just all the growing stuff, but the raised vegetable beds, too. Everything had to go as the diggers are coming in next week and will show no mercy. The digger drivers, nice as they are, won’t have time to pussyfoot around saving the precious soil (all that has been trucked to the side): They want the ground made flat and even because THE HOUSETTE is coming! YES, final ground preparations are being made for my PODULAR home, a made-to-measure gorgeous little structure that will be craned into place in a matter of weeks. HI-HO-HI-HO! How exciting!

Out of respect to my garden, I thought it appropriate to look back on things so far.

And over the ensuing weeks, I will chronicle the journey of site preparation, the Podular build (it is being built in Rotorua), its journey here, the craning into site, finishing off of the deck and louvres, then moving in and my new life. And the rebuild of the vegetable garden. It’s going to be busy! I will share it all here, including which brands of appliances, surfaces etc, I chose and why, in the hope that it might be of use to those of you mulling over building versus choosing an off-site build, and those of you who are considering a kitchen or bathroom reno, and those of you thinking about starting a garden from scratch. AND for those of you knowing it’s time to downsize but don’t know where to start. Seriously, who wants to dust 10 rooms when you live in just four!

This week, the vegetable garden that was!