No-dig, raised veggie garden beds

I've been busy as predicted! It's taken two full days of really hard work but stage 1 of my no-dig, raised veggie garden is completed. I slept very well last night & expect the same will happen tonight. I'm so tired I can barely walk .. and sore!! The big containers are filled with ... Layer 1: thick cardboard (re-cycled house moving cartons) with thick wadges of newspaper filling the spaces. Layer 2: 30 cms deep mix of horse & chook manure (you can see some of my little fertiliser machines in the first pic). Layer 3: I raked up all those bloody dead leaves that were lying about everywhere and threw them in with a handful of blood & bone; as well as some of the broken down ashes out of the wood heater. Layer 4: thick pads of straw. Layer 5: I found some old compost, left behind by the previous owners, and added that. Layer 6: thick pads of lucerne hay which I got cheap 'cos it's weather damaged ~ perfect. This was a lot of hard work by an old girl, all by herself! I hope it works & I am harvesting yummy veggies this coming season. Stage 2 will happen once all those layers start to break down and I'll add some worms. Then for Stage 3, I'll buy either good quality garden soil, compost or potting mix to top the containers up before planting seedlings. The final, top layer will be a mix of horse manure and straw used as mulch.

Those small, round containers in the second photo are potato planters, which I saw in the gardening suppliers and thought why not? They are made from the same stuff as those blue tarps everyone uses...kwim? There are holes in the bottom and a velcro sealed trap door on the side, so you can harvest the spuds easily. I put a layer of straw & compost in the bottom and placed the Kipfler seed potatoes on it before I carefully covered them with compost. The idea is that you cover the potatoes continually as they grow, until they reach the top of the container...20 weeks or so until harvest.

The round galvanised container I originally bought for a tomato plant, but I think it might get too hot in our vicious summers so it will probably work better for a few herbs.
I'm going to ask DH to cut the old 44-gallon drum in two and use the 2 halves as well. Come to think of it, there are a few of those lying about which I can re-cycle. That way I can do some staggered planting of the veggies we like best; and that I can eat the most of.

There are nine 20+ years old mixed fruit trees on the property which yield hundreds of kilos of the most delicious fruit. Last season was a disaster with all the rain we had. What the rain didn't kill the birds destroyed one morning at daylight, so we didn't get much for ourselves last year. Even though I can't eat a lot of fruit, I will be ready for those birds this coming season. Hear me birds?? I've got two words to say to 'ya ... white netting ...