1st Draft of the Zones – PDF
From here I have set up everything in 9 zones.
Zone 1: The house and living area,there is some “white space” around the house and this is lving area, the place where I will have the extend balcony, the BBQ’s and gatherings. But it will also be productive eg I plan a pergola on the northern side of the house with grape vines growing. Also there will be a garage out back with awnings but really we will not be placing any car down here (well maybe under an awning). In the garage there will be the bar/brew setup, library, entertainment area and workshop.

Zone 2: This will be the main production ares for vegetables the space is approx 30 metres x 6. This will be made up of a series of garden beds most raised by rock logs (see previous post for explanation of rock logs) as while we do have some top soil you barely have to scratch the surface before hitting clay. Of course a lot of focus is currently here trying to get all the beds in before spring.

Zone 3: The orchard is also of focus right at the moment as we are trying to plant what we can now. Hopefully this will have the added advantage of getting some roots established before summer. But also every year we wait is another year before that plant produces fruit. Generally we are getting 2-3 year old plants most in pots from out local nursery (but some will be bare root stock).

Zone 4: Driveways and swales and natve cover. What does all the mean – well I guess this is really a bit of a “hodge podge” of stuff. In this area I will design where the car bay is or maybe as petroil goes up that will be bike bay! But around that I want the area to be native and also food producing natives where possible.
Now there will also be a series of swales here to catch and direct water away from the house. I need these as the house is 30 metres from the front fence and the land slopes down so when it rains we have the water directed to us under the house, so they will a collect some water and and more importantly direct water around the house. On the swales we will have natives. The paths will be forest mulch.

Zone 5: This is simply where the olive trees are – three already planted, but I do have fence space I can use and if I extend the zone slightly I will have room for sugar maples – now that is a long term project (30-40 years)!

Zone 6: Animals, probably the scariest of all the projects at the moment. We were planning chickens and pigs (love my bacon) but after doing some reading I think goats are the way to go (milk, cheese, and meat), maybe I will think about pigs after everything else is established.

Zone 7: This is generally undecided land or where we are still formulating idas, but down the back I have planeted a few nut trees, one idea we are toying with is creating a ‘creek’ of some sort down the side of the block that will run into the pond (zone 8 )

Zone 8: This is our water feature… a largish pond. Maybe some food producing plants. we will just have to wait and see Also this is where I am thinking of having the bees.

Zone 9: Dispersment Area, this is where out Biolytic unit disperses its waste liquid. We are not allowed to have editable plants here so this will also become a native vegetation patch, so far I have a few gum trees, paperbark and bottle brush tube stock there.

So there it is – that’s the plan at the moment.

It looks like some rabbits have tried to burrow in there and cut one of the underground pipes and a few metres away there appears to be a 2nd attempt to burrow in. I will hopefully get some photos later on and also some info on the way I fix the spraying liquid (at present I just put some straw over it).

Below is not the hole – but elsewhere and what looks like a rabbit hole.

So grabbing my trusty hoe I cleared a 3×3 metre patch. Layed some cardboard on the ground followed by sleepers and sugar cane mulch. Now to move the sleepers, of course they were no where near where I needed them. After trying to carry them (lasted about 50cm) I pulled an old dog chain out of the car and dragged them to where they were required. I stacked the sleepers two one top of each other. Then I used my wheelbarrow (Christmas present – thanx Santa) to place soil in the newly formed vege patch. And to finish it off a few bags of pea straw and blood and bone.

Here is where I cleared away the Patterson’s Curse

And here it is with soil and mulch

On the 6th Jan 08 I planted in my 2.4×2.4 metre patch. The seeds were nothing unusual just Mr Fothergill’s
Sweet Corn 12
Zucchini 4
Lettuce 6
Lettuce 6
Spring Onions 3 rows

Also in some containers I planted

Parsely
Broccoli 4
Cauliflower 4

The building company had also specified that where we do the cut that we create a slope so the trucks can roll out.

As it turned out the cut dug in approx 1 metre
- more than I expected. Also the width was a bit narrow and we had to get permission from the council to place the house 7.6 metres from the boundary rather than the specified 8 metres

The size is just over 1 acre approx 35 metres wide and over 100 metres deep with a slight slope to the south west corner.

Previously people had horses on it so they sprayed the Patersons Curse – Of course it just keeps on coming back. Here is what it looks like when we purchased it.

It is locate just behind the Yass Show Grounds (OK there is a block between) and it is close to the main town – the block is classified as rural but we are only approx 2kms from the main street.

A blank canvas if I had ever seen one. But a year later we would have our house here.

Eventually we will have vege patches, fruit trees and some chickens and pigs, but first I need to get rid of the Patersons Curse (sometimes called Salvation Jane)  which covers the land and fix the drainage around the house – but more on those later.