Yesterday started with a trip to Bunnings with Nessa to pick out our veggies and get ready to get our veggie patch set up. For a 5 year old, she did amazingly well to spend 2 hours in a garden/hardware store, although the trip to the playground in the middle there helped! I was lucky to get vouchers for my birthday, so was happily spending those!
After multiple laps around the store, we bought:
- carrots
- chives
- oregano
- spring onion
- brown onion
- tomatoes
- capsicum
- chilli
- garlic (HUGE garlic!!!)
- snow peas
- marigolds
- a flowering plant for Nessa (so we can get rid of the rose bush)
- 3 bags of soil
- a bag of pea straw
- a weeper hose and additional clamps
So much fun!!! If only I wasn't limited by space, I would have bought a lot more!!!
The only downside was that I didn't get to have Nessa with me for longer, as by the time we finished I really needed to get her to daycare, however it was the only day I was able to take her shopping for it all, so I headed home to start on my own.
First things first, I had to put the second raised garden bed in, which meant transplanting all of the garlic (again!) and digging up the dirt to make the second bed fit. I set up the second bed the same as the first one, with only one difference; after putting down some cardboard and then a layer of soil, I pulled out my fermented Bokashi bucket and laid it's contents down before putting the rest of the soil on top. The bed wasn't quite full, and as it had a lot of mulch mixed through it, which is where the 3 bags of soil came in... I needed something that didn't have a lot of rocks/woodchips through it to be able to grow the carrots successfully.
Usually I have the garden beds planned out, with what plants go well together (companion planting), how far apart they need to be planted and a general layout of the beds... however this time I had to wing it, and just try to remember as I went along what went well together.
In garden bed 1, I planted:
- Lettuce
- Garlic
- Oregano
- Spring Onions
- Leeks
- Marigold
In Garden Bed 2, I planted:
- Carrot (seedlings and seeds)
- Brown Onions
- Chives
- Snow Peas...
- Garlic
- Marigold
- Beetroot (seeds)
- Lettuce (seeds)
I still had a lot of left over seedlings, so I added a little more soil and put them into the greenhouse, so that hopefully I can use them later. I also added the chilli, capsicum and tomato plants to the greenhouse as it isn't quite warm enough for them yet, and I am hoping that this will mean that I will be able to plant them straight away when it's time.
I also added a marigold plant to the pot with the mandarin tree in the hopes that it will help with pests.
I still need to add the weeping hose to the garden, but I want to see how the plants establish first as I don't want to damage the seedlings. Once I have put in this hose, I will then mulch to help keep the plants at the right temperature, help keep water in, and to provide nutrients to the plants as they grow.
Overall, I am so happy that the garden is set up again, it's nice to have it going again, I am looking forward to seeing it all grow, and then eating it all!
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