spring vegie patch

In the last couple of busy weeks I have managed to snatch a couple of days to devote to planting this years veggie crop in my patch at home. After being somewhat fully neglected over the winter (apart from some spinach, broccoli and beetroot) I needed to devote almost a full day just to weeding, as the patch has become overrun with mainly Sorrel (Acetosella vulgaris) which I remember Laurie saying is an indicator of acidic soil and would fit with our sandy soil here. Also there is lots of grass and the odd Narrow Leaf Plantain (Plantago lanceolata). Now I've completed my weeds unit - it's amazing how many weeds I notice now! For example a few tiny Petty Spurge (Euphorbia peplus) are popping up in the roots bed and I find myself reciting it's botanical name out loud before I prise it from it's spot. Unfortunately no one was around to be impressed by my new found knowledge. The majority of the weeds are growing in the wood chip paths, rather than the beds, and the best thing to do is hand pull so I get to it. Sorrel grows on runners that are bright orange and very easy to pull up in the soft bark. I know I will be back doing the same thing next year though, as it's impossible to get every tiny bit and the broken root sections will re-shoot. I do prefer this to spraying poisons around my organic patch however! After clearing the paths I top up the wood chips from a pile of chips we had done from a felled Blue Gum we had to remove, that is now breaking down nicely for later use. 

My veggie patch.

This is my forth year of veggie growing. The first few have been a real learning curve but I am feeling more confident and a bit more ambitious now, applying my failures and successes from previous years. The soil is getting better each year after regular applications of manures and compost and green manures and is now riddled with big fat worms and has good aggregates. 

The four main beds are organised loosely into a rotation system. I don't really know what I'm doing but I think the main thing to follow is not to plant the same crop in the same position in successive years. After readinhg numerous books and talking to Adam sat RTBG I have decided to stick to this loose formula: 

Bed One - Potatoes - has had a green manure and then topped with compost, straw and horse manure.

Bed Two - Legumes - has had a green manure over winter, topped with compost.

Bed Three - Miscellaneous - topped with compost.

Bed Four - Roots - (carrots, leeks, onions - members of the APIACEAE family) no compost.

Next year - Bed One will move to Bed Four and so on in a counter clockwise direction.

Other permanent beds include:

Raspberries - Along the back wall. Pruned, weeded and compost added. Shoots removed from path.

Blueberries - Weeded, blood and bone and mulch (had a load of compost last year)

Asparagus - Planted and mulched this winter in raised rows (see earlier post), now sprouted and just needing a light weed and fertilise.
Rhubarb - is planted outside the patch as the wallabies don't eat it.

And two smaller overflow beds this year used for:

Strawberries - These were planted at the start of winter and mulched with our Plane Tree leaf litter.  These will be moved again every 3 years.

No-Dig Bed - Has had a green manure crop, now with Lettuce and Pumpkin.
Tomatoes - will be grown in pots by the front door which is the warmest north facing sheltered position for them until the our polytunnel is constructed. This year I am trying an old fashioned favourite KY1 and a tommy toe for the kids to graze on. Last year's Grosse Lisse didn't ripen but we did have some fantastic green tomato chutney from it.

Bed One - Potatoes ( a bit late this year! Too busy studying!!)
Pinkeyes and Dutch Cream.

Bed Two - Sugarsnap and Snowpeas against a trellis,
yellow and green french bush beans, A block of sweetcorn
and zucchinis (one needed, three planted for insurance)

In bed three - winter broccoli, mini and globe beetroot,
dwarf beans (separate crop to bed 2 for insurance against the slugs)
some lettuce and cream marigolds.

Bed four - Orange and purple carrots, radish
garlic, leeks, chives, parsley and spring onions 
and the odd flower seedling tucked into the corners.

I decide to put my new found course knowledge into practise this year and convert one of the beds into a no-dig. I use 3 layers of spent grass hay, chicken manure pellets and dolerite rock dust, sprinkled with compost. Each layer is thoroughly soaked with the hose. Into pockets of compost go some heirloom lettuce and two Kent pumpkin seedlings. I only need one plant but have planted another for insurance (something I learnt from losing seedlings to the slugs last year) This will be allowed to trail down off the bed and along the side wall. I may even gently tie it to the fence to keep it neat.

My first No-Dig!
And check it out Marcus.... I even made hay sausages!

In the centre of my patch I have a tiered herb garden with a standardised bay tree in a pot at the top. The idea was to provide a designated area for companion flowers and herbs in a central position. On the sunny side I plant all the sun loving herbs like rosemary, oregano, sage and thyme. On the back shaded side I plant common mint and chocolate mint. For flowers this year I have planted Portulacas in the base of the pot. Dahlias in the first tier (they remind me fondly of my grandfather) and a row of cream marigolds at the bottom. I have also dotted a few different seedling punnets of flowers throughout the other beds to attract beneficials. I have also filled an old metal wheelbarrow with some foxgloves, celosia (for cut flowers) and asters for some more colour and attraction. The outside two edges of the tiers have English Lavender trimmed into spheres for interest.

Herbs and flowers.

When i first planted strawberries I can't remember which types I brought 3 yrs ago. I remember planting Tioga, Red Gauntlet and one other and forgot to label them clearly (lesson for the future!) Two out of the three were favoured by slugs and got quite a bit of grey mould. The third variety was fantastic. Hardly touched by the slugs and fruited prolifically with smaller sweet fruit. Consequently I only saved offshoot runners from this one for transplanting to the new bed and pulled the rest out and threw them away.

New strawberry bed mulched with leaf litter.
Asparagus bed beyond this planted with successive heirloom varieties
brought from the Froghollow Nursery Stall at the RTBG winter festival.
Only two more years  to wait before yummy spring asparagus soup.

My gorgeous kid Otto trying to sneak into my healthy
broccoli shot! These have been slowly grown (not Otto - he has shot up fast!)
with just rainfall over winter and there is not a slug or snail hole in them!
Not quite sure why they haven't touched them but they look fantastic!  

A few other happenings in my garden include some succulent propagation (isn't that the world's easiest propagation?) and some corms I brought from Voglevry at the market in winter are starting to flower. I love this time of year.

My succulent propagation efforts doing well.
Tucked in some Pansy seedlings for colour soon.

Some of my favourite ruby Ranunculus have just come out.

And hot of the press, I managed to score an original Huon pine laundry trough from the local antique dealer for a bargain price yesterday. Greg is keen to restore it to it's former golden glory and mount it on a nice frame in the patch as a feature to use for washing the dirt off the veggies before bringing them inside. The water used will drain into a bucket that will be recycled back into liquid feeds onto the garden. Here is a 'before' shot -will post an 'after' shot as soon as it's complete. :)

Our Huon pine restoration project.

japanese garden rotation - wk 5

Today is my last day in the Japanese Garden for this rotation and it's all systems go. All the water in the pond has been drained so that maintenance can be done and first on the list is the wheel house. The large wooden wheel hasn't been turning for a while and needs to be taken away for repairs. It takes about 8 of us to manoeuvre it out of it's holdings, through the garden bed (amazingly no plants were squashed!) and over to the fence to be lifted onto the truck. 

The large water wheel is heading off for repairs.

Next up on my jobs list is cutting back a large clump of  Miscanthus sinensis. This herbaceous perennial grows in clumps from underground rhizomes. This particular one is quite big so I start down in the pond behind the clump cutting everything back from that level before coming back around to the front. 

Miscanthus sinensis

New shoots have already begun to sprout from the base so I make sure to carefully leave those and only remove the long dried spikes before making a bundle and hauling them out to the cart. 

Interestingly when the storks are cut I notice 

they 'bleed' with a red ring around the outside. 

Seven bundles later the job is complete and it opens up the view of the pond considerably. Something to note for next time, always cut Miscanthus back keeping your arms covered, as I notice later in the day all the tiny cuts from the grass irritate my skin in a red stinging rash!

Nearly finished.

On the way back from lunch Jeremy and I take an leaf sample to Natalie (the garden's resident botanist) to identify. She thinks it is one of the yellow flowering Iris's (possibly Iris pseudacorus?) and note it is suffering from a bacterial disease of some kind.

Natalie giving us her verdict.

The strappy leaves of the Iris show dark black inky spotting typical of a bacterial disease. Jeremy will figure out how to treat this later once some research is done.

Bacterial spotting on these Iris leaves?

Next up on the jobs list is fertilising the water lily's (which Jeremy points out are from the Nymphaeaceae family). Now the pond is drained it is the perfect time to give them their annual feed. We use a pelleted form of fertiliser that looks like a small disc. These are inserted in the raised lily beds with a sharp spade.

Inserting the fertiliser discs into the Water Lily beds.

After this I do a quick weed around the edges of the pond as it is the perfect time to do it whilst the water is gone and we have easy access all the the hard to reach spots in the garden beds. There are not many weeds though as the area is regularly mulched but I manage to prise the odd baby Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and some Winter Grass (Poa annua) out with my trowel making sure to catch all the roots so they don't spring back later. I use gloves and carry a bucket to put the weeds in so I can dispose of them in the correct greenwaste bin back at the storeroom. When we get back there, I also make sure to carefully hose off all the tools that are caked in pond mud in the wash down bay before placing back in the racks. As we are always reminded and rightly so - good hygiene is very important.

Clean tools ready to store back in the shed
at the end of the day.

Big thanks to Jeremy and Kath who have looked after me for this rotation. I've learnt a lot from them both and have loved hanging out in the Japanese Garden which is such a beautiful collection and about to burst into spring colour. My next rotation will actually be on the job as I've managed to score myself some work in my local nursery. I'm hoping this will help to rapidly increase my plant knowledge in a short space of time. It's a fantastic nursery and has a huge array of plants with a high turnover I'm sure to be very busy in the next few months. I will post some pics and details soon.