How (not) to grow a vegetable garden

For weeks I have been watching them grow. Thick. Verdant. Lush. Luxuriant. A carpet of health and vitality.

On rainy days, the green was particularly virulent, soaking in the raindrops, drinking in the vitality. When the sun shone, they seemed to bask, undulating in a light breeze, flexing to their very leaf tips.

Today, I decided, they had to go.

Like most refugees from the city, one of the first things I wanted to do when I got to Fibrotown was to establish my very own vegetable garden. I would be Peter Cundall, only younger and more... female. My backyard would become a Garden of Eden, without the snakes. We would eat our own tomatoes and lettuce and parsley and basil. In winter, we'd reap the bounty of cauliflowers and leeks and celery.

Things haven't turned out exactly as I'd planned.

The scales fell from my eyes early (you can read about the dream vegie garden (and the reality) here).

Then there was the Great Rhubarb Incident. Followed by the Spinach Glut of 2010. And my one and only Vegetable Gardening Success.

Which brings us today. And the enormously successful crop of Weeds that I managed to grow in my vegie patch over summer. The only thing, in fact, that grew at all after that one success with the tomatoes.

I got in there today and pulled them all out. Weed after weed after weed. Dirty patches on my jeans. Mud caked on my boots. RSI in my shoulders. As I pulled and dug and pulled some more, I found myself considering planting some nice shrubs in the space. Low maintenance. Good screening.

But as I pulled out the weeds, revealing the patch in all its glory, I noticed just how good my soil has become. No wonder those weeds flourished. All that compost so carefully dug through has provided the structure for a veritable worm farm in the beds. It is dark, and rich, and just bursting with goodness.

It'd be kind of a waste to put a Murraya in there. Not when it could feed some leeks to make me some soup. Or some parsley to save me buying it every five minutes.

Hmmm. Back to the drawing board.

[image: pictured above are the cumquats from my friend Jamie's wonderful inner-city food garden. He knows what he's talking about, and I should listen to him more often. Go see him at Garden Amateur.]

It's a good life

Sometimes, a picture says a thousand words. Even for me.

These are my tomatoes. My tomatoes.

After a shaky start, my Jack and the Tomato Stalk plants are bearing fruit. Lots and lots of red, ripe, juicy fruit. Ambrosia.

I am in awe.

And delighted.

I love gardening. It makes me smile.*

Are you a gardener? How does your garden grow?


*Feel free to remind me of this post next time I'm complaining about the weeds.

It's not easy being green

It appears that I am experiencing a glut. The Great Silverbeet Glut of 2010. Even after the snails and slugs have been on the rampage, I have enough here to feed a Greek village on spanakopita for months. Trouble is, I tend to treat the garden like a pantry. I leave it out there until I need it. Can't foresee needing that much silverbeet in the near future. My practical friend K suggested I bring it in, wash it, chop it finely and freeze it. It's an excellent idea. If one had the freezer space for that much silverbeet.

I blame Masterchef. Was a time when a vegetable was a Vegetable. Now it's an Ingredient. I've made quiche, spanakopita, pie, lamb/spinach curry. I've added it to pasta sauce, dahl, and salad. At no point have I boiled it up and plonked it on a plate with a sausage, some carrots and mashed potatoes. That's how people used to eat it. As a vegetable.

Then again, those same people also ate a lot of chokoes. Steamed chokoes, boiled chokoes, baked chokoes. Choko chips, choko chutney... Did your parents have a choko vine? Dad's was the wonder of the street. It intertwined along the palings of the back fence, obscene in its fecundity. Obscene to me, anyway. I never liked chokoes. No matter what my parents did with them.

Sisters B and C felt much the same way about silverbeet. No matter what my parents did with it.

Any suggestions on useful things to do with silverbeet will be gratefully accepted. I need to move it along before the rhubarb problem rears its ugly head again.

PS: I, ahem, borrowed the artful silverbeet image, artfully named 'Wet Silverbeet', from Garden Amateur, the fab blog by my friend Jamie, devoted to all things garden. Is well worth a read - he's actually a total pro and would never end up with way too much silverbeet...