Our Veggie Garden Project

2nd stage – well this has inspired a summer makeover of the front garden.  Since we started with our whiteboard wish list I’ve cleared out the weeds, discovered self sown tomatoes, a few random potatoes.  The tomatoes have been staked, the soil turned over, a new crop of lettuce has gone in.  I’m using seedling lettuce as it will deliver a quicker crop for us.

I’ve taken our whiteboard wish list and given it some structure;

Planting now (late Summer) –

BED 1 – Cucumbers, Lettuce & Strawberries

BED 2 – tomatoes have been staked

BED 3 –  Capsicum

BED 4 – (on fence line with all the north light) Passionfruit

Come late Autumn through till Winter we’ll compost the soil, plant out red onions for Ben, let the Roquet self seed everywhere and plant some Broad Bean seeds, but not anywhere near the onions.

This started out as a random conversation around the dinner table, but then it got me thinking.  I’m always on about how a small veggie garden has to work hard (like any small garden really).  So working hard means quick cropping, we don’t really have the room to wait 6 months for produce to appear.  Things that taste better home grown, but that really means everything, because fruit & veg always taste better when you grow them yourself.  Or, pick something that has a short season and it’s expensive.  We were eating Asparagus at the time so maybe that influenced the discussion.   So what to do?

I suggested everyone in the house should pick 2 crops they like.  We did all agree that salad greens in our garden are a given and would not count as a crop.  So here is our selection.

Next week I will start plotting how we can get all our crops in.  I need to sort out the schedule; what gets planted when, and, how do I allow for crop rotation.