And then, there was a veggie patch!

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!

Veggie Garden: v2.1 - Part 1

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.

 

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!

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The newest addition: mini greenhouse!