John and Helen ready to make a leaky drain

Today we dug up and made a leaky drain outside Helen’s house in Pine Street.

Now, all or most of the rain from the two roofs draining to the street will stay where it falls and the road garden will be self-irrigating.

About 1200 litres a year falls in each square metre of this part of Sydney.  As each roof is about 30 square metres, this leaky drain will keep about 60,000 litres of rainwater to feed the new life that will be created in the soil.

Presently the soil is lifeless.  When we dug up and exposed the drain there were no worms, no bugs – nothing was there except rock hard, compacted rocks and dirt.

When we put the raised bed garden in, probably next week, it will be irrigated from below.

We’ll plant strawberries, midgen berries, lemon grass, passion fruit and some hakeas to feed the little birds.

It cost us nothing except our labour.  Our real capital here is ourselves, our imagination, our will and ever-growing community.

M