It's only been 2 months since v2.0 (almost to the day!), but on the weekend I started the next version of the veggie garden. This is following on from my previous post on planning, so now I am starting the follow through.
First I took out half of the dirt from my previous efforts and got all the way down to the clay soil. The downside to this is that I picked up all of the mulch that had been left behind previously. This is an issue in a vegetable garden when growing root vegetables (such as carrots) the roots can split and you get a strange form growing. At this stage, I think I will stick with non root vegetables in this bed.
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| Digging out the existing garden bed |
Digging up all of this soil meant that I also had to dig up my Bokashi that I had buried, none of it had completely decomposed, which was interesting, and gross, all at the same time. It is interesting to note that everything that was left was basically all of the processed foods; all of the organic foods had been processed. I did find a whole stack of worms at one point working on some of the Bokashi, in fact I found worms throughout the soil (mostly where there was Bokashi) which is an excellent sign!
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| Lots and lots of worms!!! |
After removing the soil, I placed the raised garden bed where I wanted it to go and then placed a broken down cardboard box as the base to act as a weed mat. If you decide to do this too, make sure you get rid of all of the sticky tape on the outside first.
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| Using an old cardboard box to deter weeds |
On top of this, I scattered a handful of dynamic lifter to help get things going followed by the soil. By this stage I was working up quite a sweat! As I put the soil back in, I tried to make sure all of the Bokashi was buried, although I am unsure if I got it all... we'll see if I did, and what the consequences are! I did rake in some Worm Farm and Compost Conditioner, to help with the acidity of the Bokashi.
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| Raised garden bed, practically ready to go! |
On top of the new garden bed I basically blasted it with nutrients! First I added more dynamic lifter, gave it a water, then added a Seasol mix and also used some worm tea on it as well. I wouldn't normally do this, but as the bed is empty and probably will remain so for the next couple of weeks, it can sit and 'process' and settle over this time.
I also added a little of the Seasol to the garlic currently growing, and finally put the bird netting over the lot of it again.
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| Bird netting over v2.1 |
I also added some shredded paper to the compost and worm farm, and I also added some scraps from the kitchen to both (coffee grounds and vegetable peelings). While sorting out the worm farm, I checked on the Bokashi again and found the worms to be all over it! The next bucket has finished fermenting and I am so tempted to add more Bokashi and cover it all in soil... but I don't want to do this until I have more working trays to add, so I think that might be my next purchase.
Finally, I used some jiffy pellets in a seedling tray and went through some of my seeds to plant some:
- Nasturtiums
- Capsicum
- Dwarf Peas
- Sugarsnap Peas
I still have more that I would like to plant, but at least it is a start.
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| Seeds! Hopefully they will sprout... |
It was really great as I was able to use my new mini greenhouse! I added a few other little plants and previously planted seeds in there in the hope that they will grow too... hopefully the greenhouse will help to keep them safe.
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| The newest addition: mini greenhouse! |
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