This month we have been lucky enough to have a guest contributor. Fiona de Souza has been responsible for the WaterUps Wicking kitchen garden at Bondi Public school.

Why are wicking beds ideal for school veggie gardens and Early Learning Centres and how they are different from traditional raised garden beds? One of the biggest questions for me when it comes to these gardens is ‘what happens during the term and holiday breaks’?

A raised vegetable garden using WaterUps Wicking garden beds can help you become more self-sufficient when it comes to food supply. It will help families cope with inflation and rising food costs.

Up until a couple of weeks ago our focus on wicking beds has been on how well they performed in times of drought. Rain has long been our absent friend. However, with the recent heavy rains, particularly along the east coast of Australia, I thought that it would be useful to observe how wicking beds have performed in the wet.

This month we look at growing blueberries, some basic concepts in hydrology and the use of wicking systems for small scale blueberry growing. I had planned to write in a bit more detail about the capillary action and the process of transpiration in plants in this month’s blog. That was until I noticed how well the blueberries were going.

Have you ever wondered who looks after the school veggie garden during school holiday periods. Well, in most cases you only have to take a look at the garden at the beginning of term to find out. The answer is often no one. This is why wicking beds work so well in school veggie gardens.

We are often asked “how do wicking beds handle extreme summer heat?” Can they withstand a succession of 40C plus days. Well, the short answer is yes, and they do much better than non-wicking beds. The most important thing is to maintain the layer of mulch.

Angus explains how he tackles some of the challenges of in-ground gardening by using a raised wicking bed. He provides useful information for home gardeners and community gardens. He shows how to install a WaterUps® corro bed kit.