Lyttleton Stores in Lawson, the Blue Mountains (more about them here!) have a lovely little garden beside their cooperatively run shop which supplies their cafe. This is how they describe it -
"Lyttleton Gardens came about as Manu (above) and Cameron joined the Lyttleton team a bit over a year ago. When they started, the garden was over-run by grassy weeds and eroded soil.
Cameron started working his magic making beautiful hot compost with the food scraps from the shop. We set up two small worm farms to provide us with castings and worm ‘wee,’ and got some mushroom compost to add instant organic matter to the soil.
It is a tricky site, characterised by its sloped and shady nature. Manu designed the garden with careful consideration of the site’s external energies (sun, wind, slope, water), by placing all grow beds on contour and creating valleys between them to slow down heavy rain, encouraging it to slowly seep into the soil instead of washing away and creating further erosion.
Cameron has since gone back to focus on his studies in sustainable agriculture, and Manu continues caring for Lyttleton Gardens, growing a diverse mix of edible flowers for the kitchen, vegetables and fruit. We’ve since grown our worm farm collection and use castings and wee which enrich the soil with all the nutrients plants need in perfect quantities."
Out the back, with bees, worms and wood shavings
The main part of the garden
Both of the above structures were woven from prunings sourced from the garden
Rainwater catchment
Raising Seedlings
Beds on contour
