Pergola : Making our mark with the help of Velvet Luxe and a few shots of the vege garden

October last year was when we started working on the vege garden area and once things started taking shape we had this impromptu; over a beer/ glass of wine moment brilliant idea of building a pergola in the area (even though we are not builders, by any means but google has been a huge help). Darrell can be pretty handy when he wants to be too, there's not a lot he can't figure out, so the Pergola was his project and is full credit to him. I don't know what we were thinking to tackle this on in the midst of our "busy period" we did actually have a whole heap of other things we needed to do before this, but it was a matter of once started you have to finish it right? it was a slow burn project fitting it in, in between things.

 

Concrete and and wood for the pergola on the back of the ute...and yes you can spot of a bit compost there too for the garden. Thats also my handy work of using masking tape and a hi vis vest at the end of it lol...  that was about the extent of my involvement on the whole pergola project. The flooring was done with recycled wood.

It sat at this stage for a couple of weeks waiting for the weather to improve and for time, this spot gets all day sun and the plan is to hedge up either side of it and plant around it to divide the space up and seperate the vege garden from the rest of the garden which you can see the beginnings of behind the pergola.

 

Pergola is now built but waiting to be painted, and we happen to know some people who make great paint :-)  we tossed around on whether to use stone effects on this or not, but in the end we decided on Beluga Velvet Luxe.  It is  quite close to the house, so decided  to link back to it the house and have it in keeping, rather than stand out on it's own as a seperate feature. 

Off to the side we started another patch of herbs, fruit and exotic plants some we've never even heard of let alone seen, like an ice cream bean plant!...never heard of such a thing but we've planted one in here and I mean how could you not after discovering it, if it's anything like it sounds it's should be delicious right? we'll let you know in  a year or so. Not long after this photo was taken, we had our eggplants, basil, chilli, gooseberries, pomegranate, the start of a Fig Tree  pepinos, radish, capsicum all randomly planted in this area.  Looking to create a bit of a wild food forest, I'm looking forward to see it evolve. 

So come March 2022 this is where it's at so far.  Pergola looks so so much better in Beluga Velvet Luxe and we love the mix of the rough sawn wood and Artisan white. Literally took an hour to do with one and a half cans of Velvet Luxe in Beluga, a large staalmeester brush and a ladder on a nice warm overcast day. Bear in mind if you plan on doing something similar; that raw wood does soak up more paint than usual,  hence it took one and a half cans of Velvet Luxe to do this a bit  more than your usual  large piece of furniture. 

Basil  is growing profusely and I have found the more you give it a "haircut" the better and more it grows, almost feels wrong to cut back basil, but man have we had a lot of home made. pesto this summer. Everything is growing well and wildly next to and over each other, but we love it... completely imperfect :-) 

We didn't realise that Basil can grow a lot bigger than what you get at the supermarket... so we have around 6 lots of basil plants about this size throughout the vege garden in different areas...a bit OTT for a small family but we've been giving plenty away to people we know here, so all is good. Prune your basil plants give them haircuts and they shall grow crazy...from our experience anyhow 

 

and a shot  from a different angle as the morning sun starts travelling over the pergola ... we were going to paint the framing around the floor in black but we figured you won't be able to see it when it gets planted up, next step planting around the Pergola, there's been talk of more passionfruit vines and subtropicals but we'll see.. 

Pergola view taken from the bottom of the garden looking up, to think this was all pretty much bare land when we got here, we've been here just on a year now , we moved end of Feb last year so it's nice to sit here and write this and feel like we have actually done quite a bit in the last year despite all the craziness happening in the world at the moment its great to make our mark in the landscape and land around us

A little look at what sits  behind the pergola which you can't see in the photos  taken today 

can't fit the entire garden in one photo so heres one from a different angle taken on a different day that fits a little more in the shot.

This was all bare, just grass a year ago. Rocks were collected off the land from the paddock to create the little rock gardens, I have photos of working up a sweat lifting those rocks but I won't share it as we look like we're about to pass out in every single shot. Vege planter boxes created out of recycled fence pailings.   As soon as we get some down time we will do a little post about the vege garden and what we've learnt so far as it travels further down from what you can see here and it really has been an awesome learning curve .   

That eye sore of a red plastic barrel has now been removed and is currently in the studio ready to be painted in stone effects and awaiting a full transformation, so it might just be what you see us post next. :-) 

 

Dorophya x


1 comment


  • Jenne Pomfret

    Loving your up dates guys
    Multitalented building gardening not to mention fantastic paint and amazing talent using it
    Cheers jenne
    ———
    The Artisan Company replied:
    Jenny it sure keeps us busy and Thankyou that is wonderful to hear… we do
    love transforming all around, having amazing paint just spurs it on :-)
    appreciate your comment :-)


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