A Mini Freak-out

So I'm awake at 4.30am and I can't sleep. Namely, I'm freaking out slightly about the raised garden beds and what is about to take place.

Two days ago, I managed to borrow a trailer and bought almost a cubic metre of what is called "Veggie Mix" from the local greenwaste distributors. Now, this stuff does not come cheap, and one cubic metre alone costs $75. It comes mixed with local riverbed sand, compost and all the good stuff that is supposed to make veggies grow.

Now, we live in a unit which has no backyard access. What we DO have is a public laneway behind our back fence, through which we managed to guide a trailer loaded up with Veggie Mix. After removing three fence panels... voila! A self-made gateway to the backyard.

It took us roughly an hour and a half from setting up to finishing the task the first day. The photos will explain a bit more how we accomplished this.

But basically we placed a massive tarp over the back fence which formed a 'slide' into the garden bed closest to the fence. Let's call this the first garden bed, for there are three. Then we placed the trailer as close to the fence as possible, and we started shovelling Veggie Mix over the fence like maniacs.

We took turns shovelling, and the person who wasn't shovelling at the time would be filling up 10 litre plastic containers with Mix and emptying them into the first bed.

Then yesterday, we went back to get more Mix, making it a total of 2 cubic metres so far. We filled up the rest of the first bed, and then most of the second bed.

So why am I freaking out? Well, we are meant to be buying even more Mix later this morning in order to fill up the rest of the second and third beds. Another cubic metre perhaps? More expense, hot sweaty labour and it could all turn out to be fodder for the ants!
I haven't yet talked about the ginger & black ants which have just about infiltrated the first garden bed and back fenceline despite the 15cms of topsoil we placed over their ant-holes. And... (and I'm not proud to admit this) despite trying to poison them with ant-icide (sorry ants!). Mind you, my boyfriend then dug the soil out of the beds anyway before we filled it up with expensive Veggie Mix. So I guess I'm a bit nervous about where all this effort and expense is going. We haven't even bought all the seedlings yet. It's almost August, and the plants should be in the ground, well and truly growing. The Wet is just around the corner, as the build-up to it normally starts in September...

So all in all, it's not a good start to the day. I am having some serious second thoughts about this project, and where it is headed. Somehow I don't think we'll end up buying more Mix for now. But if my boyfriend has his way... and I can almost guarantee he will find it!