Restoring the Patch

How good do my potatoes look! Can’t wait to taste them.

It’s been quite a while since I really got stuck into the vegetable garden and I really haven’t grown that much to eat in the last twelve months. When I think back a couple of years when the patch was at its most productive and I reveled in my time out there each day it makes me a little sad that I let it slip. It is quite a lot of work to keep a really good vegetable garden going and I seemed to lose the motivation to do that. Thankfully, that is returning and this was the second weekend in a row where I worked out in the dirt for large portions of the day.

After a quick trip to the  market and the local Food is Free site for a few seedlings (cucumber, zucchini, another tomato, capsicum and some herbs) I got stuck in. My favourite bed now has lettuces at the front (these have been in for a few weeks already and I picked up free from Food is Free), then a row of tomatoes and a capsicum  with basil seeds in between and behind them some sunflowers seeds. I’m experimenting a little with both the combination and the location. This bed does not get full sun being against the Western fence so it will be interesting the see how productive these plants are in the long run. I opted to plant them in that bed because I haven’t grown tomatoes there before and I felt like I needed to rotate my planting a bit more.

In the other bed along the fence I’ve planted the zucchinis. These seem to grow prolifically wherever I plant them so lets hope it’s the same this year. Disappointingly I couldn’t get a yellow zucchini seedling so it will just be green ones this year.

In the two spots that do get full sun I have strawberries and corn in one and wasabi lettuce, cucumber and parsley in the other, with some rocket, chard or kale yet to be planted. I did have another bed that I’ve decided to transform into a perennial herb bed, but that’s still a work in progress. Mr Good is going to build a passionfruit frame for the back – which will also cover the ugly shed wall – and then I thought rosemary, thyme (perhaps a couple of varieties) oregano, sage and maybe tarragon. Is there anything else I should put in there?

As well as all the planting I did today, I also dug over all the beds, added compost and poo and then laid peastraw around everything. Needless to say I now have sore hands and aching limbs. I bet I sleep well tonight.

I have yet more plans in place that I’m hoping to get to soon so there should be more garden related posts in the coming weeks. It’s so nice to be able to share what I’ve been doing, but I’d really love to hear what you’ve been up to in your patch (add a link to your own blog in the comments if you want to). Let’s face it, I need to motivation.

Barbara