Edible garden chatter

[Razzberry]

I would love to start an edible garden! I am not very good with plats though so not sure how I would go as I don't know where to begin.

Where should you plant veggie garden? Does it need to be in the sun all day? or just sun in morning or arvo?

[2CheekyMonkeys]

i started a vegie garden a couple of months ago. i bought one of those colourbond raised garden beds from bunnnings, it the smallest one. the square shaped one. filled it with a mixture of garden soil, cow manure, sugar cane mulch, and some special mix of stuff for vegie beds (cant remember what it was called). i put in there some cucumber, zuccni (way to many, i didnt know how big they grew and i think they are going to take over the whole thing soon), snow peas (i didnt realise they would be wanting to climb up so i didnt put them near a trellis, silly me) tomatoes, shallots, carrots and cos lettuce. i have had to move the snow peas and i am afraid they are going to die now, their leaves are going a bit dried up at the bottom. i have also found that i have a bug problem. soemthing is eating holes in the leaves of my basil, snow peas and edges of lettuce. i got some spray from the garden shop but that doesnt seem to be doing much.

i am really not a gardner so i dont really know what i am doing. i will be reading this thread for tips for sure!

[Mum2twoBoys]

I have a recipe for homemade insecticide. It involves pureeing 10 cloves of garlic and 3 tsp of vegetable oil. Strain into a 1L jar. Add 3 cups of hot water and a tsp of dishwashing liquid. Spray infested plants, making sure to cover both sides of leaves. Apply every 3 days for a week. Then repeat as required.

Sent from HTC wildfire using TAPATALK, so forgive any spelling errors its a small keyboard.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

We're in the beginning stages of an edible garden - the 'get the weeds out of the garden and have a bonfire' stage. The backyard is mostly lawn, with brick tiers on the back and sides, 2 levels at the back with stairs in the middle, and one down either side. I want to put raised beds in front of the bottom tiers, with trellis going up the bricks for tomatoes, cucumbers etc. I want veg in the beds, veg and herb in the first tier, fruit trees in the top tier, and prettiness on the sides.

Before that happens though, I need to improve the soil. We're getting a worm farm, and I can't get the idea of chickens outta my head, but that's gonna take some work. I found a fabulous blog the other day that showed how to introduce warms straight into your raised bed, with a holey pipe dug in for your compost - they eat the compost, and go backwards and forwards spreading out the goodness, which I think will be the best way to do it.

Lots of work for Keike!

[RhiChiChi]

We are starting up again. DH just turned over the hot house soil and soil patches on either side last weekend. We will probably start planting this weekend. We had a really terrible year last year with growing any veg - got a little bit of herbs, tomatoes and that was about it. I am hoping to be able to plant alot of salad veg - we eat alot of that in Summer.

[Pholi]

2CheekyMonkeys, it may just be snails eating holes in your leaves - they don't respond to sprays so much as snail pellets, or removal by hand. Make sure you get child and pet-safe pellets if you need to! And snowpeas often die off at the lower leaves - they're old, they don't get so much sun, and the plant is concentrating on gaining height and flowering, and all it's new leaves will be up higher where they get more sunshine. I would pull out some of the zuccini plants to leave room, nutrients and water for some of the others - they can grow very, very large, and for a small family, one or maybe 2 plants will be enough to keep you in zuccini. If were able to get enough root out when you remove them, they may well survive to be replanted elsewhere - maybe a neighbour or family member would like them, or do some guerrilla gardeing and plant one or two somewhere in your neoghbourhood on what is otherwise unused land!

[2CheekyMonkeys]

Thanks Pholi. Great tips. I didn't know that about snow peas but now you mention it they do seem a lot healthier at the top. I think I will get rid of some zucchini plants, I don't want them to take over. I don't ever see any snails or many insects. The only ones I see from time to time are little fly type things that have a bluefish colour, tiny tiny minuscule flying things that scatter when I brush the leaves with my hands and a little insect with triangular shaped wings. I will try the natural pesticide too, I'm not really a fan of the chemical ones.


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[luna moth]

Best natural snail remedy is a jar lid filled with beer, dug into the ground, with a peaked roof tile over the top. Any beer works, but VB seems to be the most repulsive

[briggsy's girl]

Snails are attracted to yeasty smells. If you have room, sink a container (we used old Chinese containers) into the soil and put beer in it. Snails will take a swim and drown. Vegemite dissolved in water supposedly works too but we had limited success. Maybe I didn't use enough

Apparently saw dust or rough mulch works to keep snails at bay. They don't like the roughness/dryness to get over so stop. Not sure if that works though

Wish watermelon didn't take up so much room. Miss the old yard we had. Essentially s whole house block spare. Used to let pumpkin, watermelon and rock melon just take over....

[Cass72]

I have a veggie patch, which I made a 'cover' thingy for this year to keep the cabbage moths at bay without chemicals! Looks like this: 2868
I currently am waiting for the winter crop to finish which is cabbage, caulis, spinach and potatoes. When they are done Iwill put in corn, tomatoes and zuchini, possibly snow peas.

OOh, that's clever! I'm printing it off so DH can build one on the weekend!

[Cass72]

We have our "winter" crop in: cabbage, cauliflower, silverbeet, brussel sprouts. We've had some really heavy frosts so are waiting another couple of weeks before we put in our new seedings. I want to actually design our "summer" garden so it looks pretty as well as functional.

I'm also putting lots of herbs into big pots so I can move them around - also we are renting so can take them with us.

Roll on summer.... I long for the taste of homegrown, vine-ripened tomatoes, warmed by the sun that pop when you bite into them and dribble down your chin.... oooh, sounds a little naughty doesn't it?!

[Rivlas]

We plant peas, all sorts, beans and carrots for the boys to pick and eat. They are hardy so great for children. For a novelty plant rolly polly carrots. They don't go very deep so good soil that isn't in great shape.

For ourselves we grow zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, corn - it needs alot of water, onions, strawberries, spuds and lettuce. If you grow lettuce, the ones like cos are great for picking as you need. Let one go to seed, collect the seed and you can plant it nearly all year. We have it on the deck near the back door so it's handy. This yea we want to try sweet potatoes

If you find holes in your veggies and cannot see snails look for green grubs. They can be hard to see and do alot of damage.

In the ground we have grafted apple trees, nectarine, mandarin, peach, lemon and rhubarb. I am also trying a pomegranate in a self watering pot.

If you grow veggies in a pot make sure the saucer to a size or two larger than the pot as this seems to help stop them quickly drying out. Another thing we do is after planting the seedlings and watering them is place a thick layer of straw, we use sugar cane mulch. this keeps the snails away and keeps moisture in

[Mother Goose]

oooo thanks BG and ausgirl! I might have to get some of those seeds!

BG - I desperately want to grow watermelon too - but DH says no because of the room factor

[briggsy's girl]

I didn't find they took up too much room really. Not in comparison to pumpkin anyway! I'm
Contemplating giving them a go again. Will just train them along edge of garden (I hope!!) lol

[Mother Goose]

We only have the beds along the fence line. Not very much at all. But better than nothin and better than I have now!

[veus]

We currently have the winter veg, kale, broccoli, bok Choy (that has mostly gone to seeds), snowpeas, potatoes, garlic & herbs.

Have a kumquat, lemon, lemon & lime, mandarin, avocado (brand new) and an old apple tree that kinda needs to go but looks too beautiful to remove.

Somehow there's a few carrots & celery. Musta been from previous sowing that didn't grow. Not complaining.

DH loves permaculture so that's his job to work out where to plant them etc.

I'm hoping for decent tomatoes. Last couple of seasons hasn't worked for us. Also want zucchini, eggplant & LOTS of chilli!


Sorry, fat fingers syndrome might occur.

[Dansta]

Oo this is a good thread!

We have a veggie patch - it was going grate guns until a boar pump died and it was eather veggies or drinking water!

that said i have celery that i thought died - spring back up (so im seeing if i can do a pick as you go with it, seeing as it hasnt died yet, LOL) also some onions and suppriseingly leeks - they died but came back right under the tank over flow - so it floods in that spot when ever it rains! also just planted some spinitch and fond some galic that the chooks didnt manage to dig up. Im waiting to see if any tommartos spring up as i had to let them die last year and im wondering if any managed to self sew.

In the next few weeks we'll be extending the patch out - and covering it with some netting so the chooks cant get in as well as the little native ones.

Saw dust will work with snails - it drys them out and they often die in. but with my chooks we dont seem to have many of them. im hopeing to try and get an old bath tub or alike so that i can grow some water veggies EG water chest nuts. with out worrying about the boys getting in - and moving some gold fish into it so keep mossies at bay.

I have 3 types of mit growing (yes, it'll take over but i want a 'herb' corner) as well as rosemary and chives. hopefully soon some parsly and i'm going to plant some strawberrys too.
Out front we have 1 cherry tree (another two out the back) plus two apple trees (again another two out the back) plus peach, plum, orange, manarine, lemmon aaaaaaaaaaaaand something else that i cant remember what it is. but they where all here when we moved and last year we had curly leaf run riot though.

[briggsy's girl]

went to bunnings today to get the chilli plant DH messed up last week (grabbed capsicum instead of the chilli - doofus!) - anyway, as always happens, we got side tracked - by the time we found the sweet chilli we went for, we'd also grabbed some other stuff - same thing happened in bigw and in woolies when we went for groceries! doh!

woolies have cute little kids planting kits in a paper bag - has the seedling trays, seeds, soil and instructions. DD was given the option of what planter kit she wanted (she was at mums', so i was on the phone) - she tossed up between capsicum and corn so much that we got both... there was also rainbow spinach, tomato and pea kits.

this evening we moved some of the plants around so that we had everything kinda how we want it pot wise until the garden bed goes in - re-potted 5 capsicums (one is a gorgeous purple - hope it matures nicely!), a zucchini, some oregano, thyme, more mint, cucumbers. have more beetroot to go in, and some marigolds will be planted between the pavers in the garden (which are in between the tomato plants - hoping to use companion planting ideas there)

i may have also found two more breeds of sunflower... can't wait to get teh garden beds in and get them growing!