The Inaugural Earlwood Farm Busy Bee

In mid-November we moved into The Farm. It is almost overwhelming for our plan, which has been brewing for so long in our imaginations, to start to take shape in reality. We moved in with very little furniture and swiftly acquired a lounge suite from Gumtree and a dining table and chairs from the Greek Orthodox Monastery across the road from us (!). After a few weeks in The Farm for settling in, gathering flatmates (welcome Aaron and Sophie!) and getting things set up, it was time to start building the farm.

So, with CMJ’s exciting acquisition of twelve cubic metres of Jacaranda and Gum mulch from Gumtree, the stage was set for the inaugural Earlwood Farm Busy Bee. We invited a group of friends and by 10am we had an amazing team working on spreading the mulch around the front lawn (Thank you Jose, Sophia, Mattias, Susie P, Ned, Vixie Pixie, Ben and Amelia!). The plan is to kill the grass and build a no-dig garden atop the new surface. The trees will slowly breakdown and enrich the top soil as well. The results from our working bee are not very pretty. It very much looks like a work in progress, like a base coat rather than the finish. But that is OK. The brown desert-like aesthetic will encourage us to do more work.