Summer is upon us. The dry winter has led to an average spring and the fields have turned to straw.

Despite the recent inch of rain, the veggie patch still looks half done. Beds have patches of growth where rows of carrots should be, tomatoes are struggling to raise themselves up and the beans are gone.

But this is not just the action of a brilliant sun and harsh, dry winds. This is also the result of the first major attacks from predators.

The garden has evolved from the first trial beds ten months ago in February to what it is today through a process of trial and error. Initially I figured that I could attempt to grow some vegies and see what would attack them. Would it be bugs, mice, bunnies or kangaroos? Would the deer venture out of the trees to the pond to drink and have a nice succulent bite of something as well?

One of the major reasons for just having a go has been the fencing issue. If I am to keep pests away, what sort of fence is required and how big should it be? How big will the vegie garden get? Should I fence in part or do the lot and if I fence a little will I ever expand the garden and fence more? How will the chook run be set up and where will that go?

All of these questions led to indecision and a “suck it and see” approach.

But the first major attack has now happened.

A few months ago I scared a little bunny that was sheltering under the leaves of one of the last remaining broccoli. It darted off so fast that I was still trying to work out what it was as it zigged out of the bed and zagged passed the stack of pea straw bales.

Weeks later, I disturbed another in the shelter of a zucchini and felt that a trend was beginning to form. The soft piles of soil near the zucchini looked like the beginnings of a burrow and I was quick to water and mulch to discourage a repeat visit.

But after a night away in Adelaide, we returned to the carnage. Dozens of climbing beans that were just hitting their straps were gone. The carrots had been decimated and even the tomatoes had been nibbled. I knew that it was just something that was bound to happen in time, but the reality of summer without beans was deflating.

As the massacre sunk in, it was not just the loss of a crop but the potential loss of future crops. Was this just the beginning of the attacks? What if they returned night after night to reduce my hard earned crops to nothing? How could I stop them? What could I do?

I noticed that the corn was still going strong. Not even the kangaroos had been tempted by the towering corn, even though most of the beans planted within the same bed, around the stalks of the corn were just stumps.

The plan formed slowly in my mind. More corn! Raph and I had replenished some beds a few weeks ago with aged cow manure and pea straw mulch and now I saw that these would be planted with corn.

The half full vegie garden would be prosperous again within a month if I planted more beds and we would see some summer crops. Corn would be the summer saviour.

Even though the shed is temporary accommodation, we still need to be comfortable while we plan, get approval and build the new house. In winter this was solved with an abundance of firewood and a combustion heater, but Meg and I both knew that summer would present an altogether different problem.

Sheds transfer heat very well. The single layer of colourbond sheeting gets very hot in the sun and quickly heats the inside.

The construction also allows a lot of air gaps which leak and provide hundreds of entry points for insects and creepy crawlies. We noticed this in the very cold weather when moving away from the immediately radiated heat of the fire the temperature dropped dramatically and the wall of the shed was very cold to the touch.

Millipedes were a problem when it was wet or in the days after a heavy dew. Armies of them would march across the concrete and through the gaps…

Warmer weather has brought more spiders with their skin-crawling effects.

Initially we thought that the cheapest and easiest way to insulate was to use a cheap three ply, tec screwed into the purlins and rails with standard fibre insulation between the outside sheets and the ply. It would be a little tricky to box in the skylights and windows with timber, but I figured that we could do it. We looked into it and even bought some sample sheets of ply and insulation to give it a go. But then a chance meeting with one of my clients led to a new direction.

Meg and I had both done some work for this client; Meg with editing and typesetting a book that he was publishing and I had been solving his IT problems.

It was only when Meg and I went to his office/warehouse to view the finished book that we started talking about things and he suggested using the Aircell insulation that was in the warehouse.

Aircell is a reflective sheet with bubblewrap like compartments of air trapped inside. It comes in a roll and is tec screwed to ‘C’ section and adjacent sheets are taped together.

Changing our minds was easy and that weekend we’d bought enough to do one bay.

Our neighbours, Kym and Ian were building their huge shed across the road and were using a scaffold to reach the roof. They were more than happy to offer it and it turned out to be a godsend. I can’t imagine moving around at the top of the roof of our shed using ladders! With the scaffold, two of us could work together with one holding the sheet and the other drilling the screws.

Of course, you can’t just stick to the instructions and we decided to use traditional fibre insulation in the roof section between the colourbond and the aircell.

More trips and more purchases later and the shed was taking on a new, space age persona.

The effect was immediately noticeable. We’d had a few days of warm weather and returning to the shed after a hot day away was stifling. Meg noticed one day that the potatoes were warm to the touch and going soft, even though they were previously fresh and stored under a bench in their wooden box.

After the “David Bowie effect” had spread over the full length, the shed is quite cooler on hot days. We lashed out and bought a pedestal fan and combined with the cross ventilation effect of the opposing windows, we can quickly reduce the inside temperature of the shed when the outside temperature drops at night.

It may look weird, but then we didn’t say we were normal and I’m all for function over fashion.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about bushfires while working of various projects or just watering the garden. Bushfires are something that we’ve chosen to live with as anyone in Southern Australia who lives outside of a major city will have to deal with. Bushfires happen and the best way to survive is to have a strategy in place for prevention and also for protection.

The other thing that I’ve been considering is the house location and the likely direction that the fire will come from. Most big fires will be on very hot, dry days with strong northerly winds pushing the fire front south, so a buffer around the property in this direction is a good idea.

Luckily we have the stock paddock on the northern side and the cows are currently doing a good job to reduce the load in this paddock.

Having the bore on the property is a great advantage as well. If we can keep a large tank of water available for fire fighting then we have a better chance of stopping the fire, but we also need to transport that water to the fire before the CFS (Country Fire Service) arrive, assuming that they are not otherwise occupied with another fire at the time.

My plan for this was to buy a fire pump that could be used either from the 5000 gallon tank on the hill or with a smaller trailer mounted tank. I could then also use the small tank for watering trees that weren’t on irrigation or transporting water to stock as well.

After the usual research around the place, I found a pump and thanks to a chat with brother in law, Rod, found a 1000 litre tank from Pat the Drum Man in Adelaide.

More research with Mid North Irrigation and I had some fittings and some suction pipe and all I needed was some time to plumb everything together and test it.

An afternoon presented itself and after a bit of work with reducers, nut and tail connectors and the obligatory hose clamp, I filled the tank, mounted the pump and drove off to see how it worked.

Using one inch poly instead of fire hose won’t be a permanent solution, but it was enough to test the setup and pump 500 litres in only a few minutes at a considerable distance from the pump.

I feel much better now that certain things are in place. Murphy’s Law says that if you are prepared you’ll never have to use it, so I’m hoping that my preparation prevents this fire. But in the worst case, we’ll have some way of reducing the damage.