Vegie Beds

I thought I'd better fill you in on what I've been up to in my new vegie beds (thanks Sooj, they're wonderful!). We had some pretty nice soil to fill the beds with - a mixture of a pile of soil that had been cleared off the future shed site and a pile of horse manure/saw dust that's been settling for months - but I wanted to add some extra organic matter to build it up. Since the beds were made over existing grasses/weeds (recently whipper-snippered) I covered the bottoms w/ cardboard using flattened boxes that I salvaged from work. Then I placed a layer of compost, a layer of lucerne hay then the soil/horse manure mix. I also mixed in some gypsum and sheep poo in the top layer of the soil mix. The gypsum helps to break up clay soil...the soil mix we had wasn't heavy clay (like most of the soil on our property!) but it had a small clay component so the gypsum should help with this.

I planted out 5 beds last weekend (I now have 3 more to do), though there is still room for more plants in each of the beds. I'm waiting on an order for more seeds from the Digger's Club (where I get most of my plants and seeds as they have lots of organically produced plants/seeds and heirloom varieties) so I'll have more to plant, hopefully next week. The first bed has 3 different carrot varieties (including 3 colour purple, which, when you transect it has 3 rings of colour including purple!); next has tomatoes (these are already fruiting as I've had them growing in pots since late spring...it's a bit late to plant tomatoes from seed here now), next bed has daikon raddish, pak choy and rocket; next has 2 different climbing bean varieties (including a purple one again) and sugar snap peas; and finally, sweet corn. (Thankyou Mary...I've planted Chloe, Dylan and Elise's rocket, beans and carrots so they will have to come and sample them when they're ready.) I also have cabbage, cauliflower, mini broccoli and lettuce planted in punnets, to be planted in the beds as seedlings. The nice thing about many of the heirloom vegie varieties is that most of them are unusual-looking (you don't see many in the shops) and they taste better and yield more than the more commercial varieties we're used to buying in supermarkets/greengrocers. You can get carrots that come in reds, purples, oranges, yellows and whites and tomatoes that are green, yellow, purple and striped! Anyway, sorry for rambling on about the vegies, but it's exciting seeing them all sprouting and developing into seedlings so fast. So far everything has sprouted through the soil except for the lettuce I've planted in punnets. I water twice a day and each time I notice new seedlings have come up and that all the seedlings that have sprouted have grown a bit more!

Today we also bought 9 blueberry plants...we've decided just to plant them on the western side of the house...will have to think of something else for the other sides. We will also plant some grapevines on this side. Both should help provide some shade in summer...we also plan to have espalier fruit trees (apple, pear etc) along the western fence to provide summer shade (but since they're deciduous will let the sun through in winter). In addition to the blueberries we bought some other fruit trees...a chocolate pudding fruit tree (can't wait to sample that one!), 2 rosella plants (Kristy should be excited about these...they produce little flowers that are delicious in champagne!), an avocado, a jaboticaba (a tree that produces yummy berry-like fruit), water chestnut (to go in an old bath Sooj is making into a water-plants pond) and a water lily.

We have lots of work cut out for ourselves in the garden but it's lots of fun. I enjoy it so much more than painting!

Nettie