The last few weeks have been full on and full of fun, meaning that the blog posts are starting to pile up! A few weeks back we enjoyed our first annual Blues at Bridgetown festival. We decided to volunteer our time for two evenings of bar work, which was good but tiring! We had a nice view of one of the main stages and got to nick off for an hour to catch Stonefield’s set, which was incredible.

We also had a couple of friends down to stay for the weekend, friends we made while doing our PDC, so it was really lovely to see them, catch up on what’s been happening and show them Green Hill Farm and what we have been working on. They also had some great ideas about what we could do with the space after seeing it in person for the first time.

Amongst all the excitement of town events and working on the block – an update on block work coming soon – we have been expanding our edible garden to increase production. Growing food really brings us a lot of pleasure, and coming into summer has to be one of the most exciting times of the year to be growing food. It’s extra nice when someone asks us for tips on starting their own vegie garden, which happened recently. Even though we’ve been dabbling in edible gardening for a few years now, we still make plenty of mistakes and feel like beginners a lot of the time. When you get the chance to answer someone’s questions you realise you have learnt a few things through research and past mistakes and it’s nice to be able to share that with others. We recently expanded our home vegie garden, below we discuss the process and share some tips that might help those starting out or looking to take their garden to the next level.

So, what should you grow?

Starting a new garden is exciting. There are so many possibilities and visions of bountiful beds just begging to be harvested can make it difficult to know where to start. So when you ask yourself “what should I grow?” instead think about a few qualifying questions that will point you in the right direction.

Firstly: What do I like to eat? This is perhaps the most important question. There is no point growing beetroot if nobody in your household likes to eat beetroot (however I am a big believer that fresh roasted beetroot is enough to convert anyone). If you have kids, though, growing vegies can be a fun way of piquing their interest and teaching them where their food comes from. A kid who has watered a broccoli plant, watched it grow and protected it from caterpillars is way more likely to taste that broccoli when it’s ready. You can even teach them what is safe and yummy to eat straight from the garden.

What season is it? You can grow most vegetables out of season IF you provide them with the right conditions. However, most beginner gardeners will not have the time, knowledge or infrastructure set up to do this (greenhouse and polytunnel = life goals). There are plenty of calendars online that provide guidance on what to plant when, so get Googling! By starting out with the seasons on your side you’re more likely to enjoy some success that will provide motivation for next season.

Where are you? If you have already tried looking up a seasonal planting calendar, you might have come across another variable – your location. Do some research on your climate zone and go for crops that like the conditions in your region. Remember, if you’re in Australia and download a planting calendar for the US you’ll need to switch the seasons and ensure your zone matches fairly well in terms of heat, frost and rainfall. It’s best to find a planting calendar for your location. For individual plant types there is a lookup tool at http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/vegieguide/ . For a spring/summer planting guide see https://www.organicgardener.com.au/sites/default/files/resources/files/Organic_Gardener_Planting_Guide_Spring-Summer.pdf – but there are thousands out there, Google is your best mate here.

Before you can plant anything, you need to have a space to plant in. Designing your space is a process unique to each person and property. My first tip is to design with change in mind. Our current garden is at a rental property so this makes extra sense for us, but chances are you won’t get the layout perfect first time. So, if you can avoid it, don’t use concrete or anything that will be hard to move or remove when you change your mind. We’ve tried to build ours as cheaply as possible, so have used found materials and things we already had to create structure where we needed it.

In a previous blog we discussed doing a “sector analysis” to get your head around the elements you are working with (and what to plant where). Consider the sun angles through the day (and shadows from trees/buildings), prevailing winds, other plants already present and the slope.

Looking at the diagram above you can see we developed it in two phases. Phase one was implemented in our first couple of weeks at the house. We had to remove a lot of weeds, debris and grass before we could begin. The beds are rectangular in shape. Mandala-style garden beds are popular, especially amongst permaculturists, for their space-saving design and easy crop rotation. We decided to go with rectangles for two reasons. First, we needed to be able to keep the pets out of the garden which means fencing – much easier to implement in straight lines, especially when you have fence panels already laying around. Second, I find the irregular mandala shape difficult to work with when planting rows. There’s something about my mind that is satisfied by straight lines!

We decided to bring in new soil as what was there was quite clayish and not nutrient rich. With more time we could have spent less and improved the current soil, but we were excited to get growing so we had two cubic metres of vegie mix delivered. Rather than building surrounds for raised beds, we decided to mound the soil over some sticks and fertiliser (inspired by hugelkultur methods, google to find out more) and used some rocks to provide a barrier for the soil on the downward sloping side. The idea for phase two came around two months after we moved in – once we realised we had more seedlings growing than room to plant them. Due to a few design decisions made early on, alterations were pretty simple.

The sizes of the beds and the paths in between were determined by two things: the area we had to work with, and measurements in units of body parts and wheelbarrows. By “units of body parts” I don’t mean we’ve contracted some kid to use as a measuring stick. Rather, we used our bodies to measure the garden dimensions. The space between the beds is used for walking, harvesting, planting and maintenance – you want to avoid stepping on your growing soil as this creates compaction. So with this purpose in mind, each walkway is the same width as the length between our foot and knee – in other words, the perfect amount of space for kneeling down. To get the depth for the beds, we made sure we could access all parts of the growing beds without disturbing the soil, either from inside or outside of the garden (see image below). In some spots we were able to make it wider because we can access areas from outside the fence for harvesting. One spot in a corner is deeper than we can reach, so here we will plant sweet potatoes – a crop with a long growing season that won’t need regular attention.

To prepare the areas for growing, we firstly removed the grass. In one spot where we couldn’t remove the grass (more due to tired bones than anything else) we sheet-mulched over the grass with newspaper. There were a lot of rocks, twigs and other detritus that we picked out as much as possible. For the phase 1 bed we did a rough Hugelkultur-inspired method, piling a layer of twigs beneath each bed, then sprinkling with rock minerals and lawn cuttings before adding the soil on top. For the phase 2 area, we had more soil than first time around and didn’t use the Hugelkultur method. We decided to use this as a bit of an experiment and are interested to see how the results for each bed will compare over the next few years.

Choosing the right position for each plant can be a balancing act. Organic gardeners love to talk about companion planting and a strictly enforced crop rotation system. While I think these things are worthwhile considerations, to me there are more important issues at play, especially if you are correctly building the organic matter in your soil throughout the year (which I know you are). In our garden there is varying light and shade thanks to some big trees and the surrounding fence. Lettuces and other “soft” plants will go in shadier spots, with tomatoes, pumpkins and other sun-lovers in the sunniest positions. We will grow basil next to our tomatoes, mostly because they will be harvested together but old housewives will tell you that they will keep pests away.

It’s important to educate yourself on what you like to grow. Some plants have traits specific to them and knowing this information will save you a lot of time and frustration. For example, carrots seem like they should be easy but can present a few challenges if you are not aware of the conditions they prefer. Carrots prefer fine, loose soil – rocks, stones and other hard bits can result in small, odd-shaped and stunted carrots. Carrot roots are delicate so they don’t transplant well, which means direct sowing is the best method for planting. This just means you plant the seeds in the same place you eventually want to harvest the carrots from, not into seedling tubes first. When growing carrots avoid using fertiliser rich in nitrogen. Nitrogen encourages vigorous leaf growth and will result in smaller root vegetables. If you want to save some carrot seeds to plant again, you will need to leave a couple of carrots behind as they set seed in their second year (this is called “overwintering” and I’m sure you can figure out why).

Another example of plants with funny habits is eggplant, whose flowers are pollinated by wind, not bees. If you grow your eggplant in a windless greenhouse, you might be in for some disappointment. We’ve planted our eggplants running east-west as that’s the way the breeze usually blows in our garden. Basil is amazing fresh from the garden but it loves to set seed as soon as the weather gets hot, which makes the leaves weird-shaped and flavourless. If you pinch the flower buds off as soon as you see them start to form, you can prolong your basil growing season for weeks (long enough to take a few cuttings and create some new basil plants).

This post has really blown the word count out of the water, but before I finish I wanted to touch on a couple of points that I might expand on later. Going into summer, mulch is so important to keep your soil protected from the drying elements. Make sure you mulch your garden to save money on water and prevent your plants from heat stress. When dealing with pests, your eyes are your best weapon. Monitor pest activity so it doesn’t get out of control. I’ve included a recipe for the homemade pest spray we use in our garden at the bottom of the post. Also, work on inviting beneficial pests into your garden – flowers, native plants and “bug hotels” are your best mates here. Finally, and we will touch on this more later, seed saving. If you’re growing food it makes sense to collect your own seeds for next season’s harvest. This is something we are really focussing on improving in our own garden, so hopefully we can bring you some helpful ideas over the coming months.

Homemade pesticide

Works on caterpillars and other things that like to nibble.