Friday, January 22, 2010

The dream vegie garden - and the reality

Part of my new ‘good life’ plan was to have my own vegie garden. I know, just like every other escapee from the city. But I actually did it, rather than just talking about doing it.

Mind you, it took a while. I ‘planned’ for about nine months. Then, last September, I ripped out all the cliveas that were sitting in the sunniest spot in the garden (replanting them in a dead spot under some shady trees, where, I’m pleased to say, they’re thriving). I dug in several types of animal poo and compost (just call me Peter Cundall), mulched it to keep the weeds down and then… nothing.

After six or so weeks, my husband (The Builder) asked me if I was actually planning to grow anything or was I waiting for a miracle. I tried to look wise and Confucian as I answered that I was allowing the soil time to prepare itself. He muttered something under his breath about boy scouts, but left it at that.

Two weeks later he told me that if I didn’t put something in it, he was going to make a claim for land rights and turn it into a Japanese garden. It was the impetus I needed. Leaving land to 'improve' is very tempting – mostly because it’s the easiest part of gardening.

But the concept of having to rake sand around a stone pagoda on a daily basis was enough inspiration to get me out of my lull and off to the nursery. Where I purchased. And purchased.

Three months later, I have a few hard-won pearls of wisdom to share about my first vegie patch. Firstly, chances are you won’t need five tomato plants. No, really. I have just finished making tomato relish with three kilos of roma tomatoes, having given away about the same. I still have three kilos of green tomatoes to bottle, and no sign of a tomato drought yet.

Secondly, read the labels on the seedlings. Also known as – don’t take the kids to the nursery with you. I picked up what I thought were cherry truss tomatoes during a sibling kerfuffle over who got to stand on the end of the trolley and, voila! My cherry tomatoes turned out to be GIANT tomatoes. And it’s not the tomatoes that were huge – it was the bush, which turned into a trifid and took over the entire patch within minutes.

Thirdly, I love spinach. My kids love spinach. We all love spinach. But there are not enough spinach recipes in the world to make use of the amount of spinach that five small plants can produce. Ditto, capsicums.

So I guess my lesson, this time around, is to plant small amounts, often. Otherwise, there’s a major glut in the kitchen – and the birds are having a party in the backyard.

27 comments:

  1. Love this. We had a similar glut of beetroot one year. There is only so much beetroot one family can eat... I too now plant small amounts and stagger the plantings.

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  2. If my worms could be controlled I would have the best veggie garden ever...compost worms I mean of course!

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  3. I wish I had the problems you had with your garden, ie too much of a yield.

    I tried to grow tomato plants from seed and I got little seedlings yay, but if I missed watering them each and every day (sometimes more than once because of the heat), they wilted and died.

    Too hard for me who has only one house plant that I haven't watered in weeks. Good thing it is a 'lucky' bamboo.

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  4. You must be an accomplished gardner now :)

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  5. To this day I can't eat broadbeans owing to my dad's enorrrrrmous crop one childhood year (it filled an entire deep freezer).
    But you have reminded me that I should think about a vege garden again one of these days :-)
    xxxCate

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  6. I'm having a cucumber glut this year. Just two plants, didn't seem too many at the time, but we're the kind of couple who eats maybe two or three cucumbers a week, max, and we're harvesting two or three every day. You know you have a glut when you meet people and say "hi, would you like some Lebanese cucumbers?"

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  7. I'm having a giggle at this post (and thinking of our garden while reading yours). We have around 10 tomato plants, 6 capsicum plants, and around 10 spinaches (oh, and too many eggplants and lettuces). Can I just tell you we make lots of chutney (and we still have some from last year) and pasta sauce and I cannot make enough spinach and ricotta lasagne, spinach puffs. Now we just give it away! But sounds like your tomatoes went gung ho last year! How are they going now? Thanks for sharing this post.

    As for me, all my January posts have been scarce to say the least, so I have a rewind from this week (sad, I know). x

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  8. LOL at the amount of spinach & tomatoes - our lovely neighbours last year gave us a few seedlings of a few lettuce varieties & spinach/cauli - the ones that survived the kids & dog were just the perfect amount.

    I wish the garden centres would let you just pick a mixed punnet of say 3-4 seedlings of different vegies rather than a dozen of the same.

    My tomatoes have been hit & miss, got afew, the birds got some and my cherry toms were minute and only a few.

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  9. It just seems like a lot of hard work, really. All the battles against pests and diseases and weeds. I would be battling the wildlife as well. I can't even grow a flower without the bastards eating it. Have you noticed that my garden has no flowers? Bastards. x

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  10. I love that you love your gardening so much. And that you have gluts too.

    Gluts are the mother of all recipe invention...

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  11. How lovely to have had such a wonderful vegie growing experience. It's the best fun, isn't it?

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  12. Oh but so much better to have too much rather than not enough? You just need some chooks who'll happily eat all the left overs!

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  13. yes, and watch out for zucchinis!! I have never eaten so many frittatas, pancakes, soups etc etc made out of zucchinis!

    good luck with your next season! x

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  14. Sage advice (pardon the pun). I have parsley coming out of my ears. Very good advice for over enthusiastic newbies.
    The only thing I would add is ... DO NOT add horse poo to your soil, you'll just end up with a shit load of weeds.

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  15. I can't wait to have a garden again! Like you I procrastinate over each stage and work like a dynamo for a few days in a row. I haven't really tried a full on vegie garden yet, I'm more of a herb and flower person. And there's never really been enough room. I did grow carrots once and I managed to grow some lettuce, but that's about it. The next house will have enough garden for vegies....

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  16. Gardening in Australia sounds much more exotic than here. You grow "vegies" like "capsicums." If I had words that were as fun to spell and say as those, I might have better luck with my garden.

    PS: Though this bounty is last year's, I have a wonderful spinach recipe. I'll e-mail it to you.

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  17. Love it! Thanks for the tips - my vegie garden has started off as a few herbs... so will need these tips for later. PS stopping by from The Rewind - thanks again.

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  18. I have no luck planting vegetables, but I have been very lucky on having neighbors who plant too many vegetables.

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  19. Remembering the tips for when I have my vege garden in 6 months time. Am certain I will F it up royally at least a few times and then let it all go to weeds.

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  20. I love our veggie garden, which is my husband's pride and joy but it does sorely test my recipe repertoire. We spent the month of April looking rather orange, courtesy of the 20 pumpkins harvested that month. This month we are all a lovely shade of green, courtesy of the masses of silver beet produced. And on it goes throughout the year, one month is zucchini month, the next is cucumber month etc. But the best thing is giving the veggies away to friends and neighbours - people always love receiving fresh veggies from the garden so the thing I love most about our veggie garden is the smiles we get in exchange for our pumpkins and cucumbers!

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  21. Wow, you had a buffet! We had a never ending supply of strawberries in ours last year, they seemed to grow overnight. Everyone we knew was well supplied for the whole Summer.
    Thanks for the rewind Allison :)

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  22. Great post. We'd love to plant some veggies come spring... though it will be more of a potted garden so will take your tips re tomatoes and spinach! I don't think friends would turn down free veggies though ;)

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  23. So very true! You end up with mountains of growth and don't know what to do! The very reason I gave up on my garden!

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  24. Remembering this post from the first time and laughing at my comment as I am, once again, dealing with a beetroot glut!

    I would fail a Japenese Garden miserably Bad enough sweeping the floor let alone little rocks.

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  25. I would have to be the worlds worst gardener, I plant anything that requires minimum attention whilst giving me the most flowers.

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  26. I love the veggie garden so much. It always loos so nice and neat when nothing's growing:) How's it all going now - a few years later? Loving the Rewind x

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  27. I have been tempted to try a vegetable garden but have never taken any of the steps. The thought of having an abundance of tomatoes is very tempting. I tried growing them in pots, and I got about 10 small tomatoes all together.

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