Passionfruit bed

We love eating our Passionfruit especially with yogurt. But finding a suitable place to plant them is always difficult. Currently there are two vines growing beside the chook house on a trellis. These two vines provide shade for the chook house from the western sun as well as supplying us with food. Being so close to the pen also allows them to take advantage of the nutrients that may leach into the soil from the chicken droppings.

Two vines are never enough but in our crowded orchard another spot is difficult to find. However, after cleaning up an area beside my workshop it seemed an ideal place to plant something except this spot had been bulldozed out for the workshop and held almost no soil. The solution was to build up and create a suitable habitat.

Firstly we build up the barrier between the proposed garden bed and the workshop wall to ensure some protection for the metal wall.

Then using sections of freshly fallen Poplar tree created a deep bed about 2 metres long and a metre wide.

Using a little Hugelkultur thinking the remaining offcuts were buried in the bed along with many bags of cow manure and spoilt hay topped off with lots of sticks to prevent excavation by the chickens. The grafted Passionfruit seedling was planted in a tube of potting mix in the centre. Two 2.4 metre galvanised steel star pickets have been erected. In due course they will have a crossbar joining them to provide some horizontal rigidity and a lattice of wire to support the vines foliage.