Poo, poo and more poo!

The garden seems to finally be heading in the right direction!
I puchased some chili plants and herbs for the back garden because it gets a lot of sun. Dug it over with lots of compost and fert. That garden is very clay based, but hopefully with enough compost and fert it will be ok. I planted this up about a week or two ago, just hadn't had a chance to update the blog/lazy.

New chili plants and herbs ready to go in

The thyme i had previously purchased and was living in my kitchen but i figured it would be more happy in the garden. 

The Chilis planted up, with the capsicum i transported from the front garden so it could get some more sun

Herbs planted in their little section

 Sadly some slugs decided my basil plant was delicious and totally destroyed it overnight. The had a nibble on the oregano also. I was trying to avoid using slug bait just because its so so toxic to animals and we have 2 dogs running around, but i have since decided that the slugs are causing far too much damage and i'll have to do something. I did some research online and found that Quash, a Yates product, is supposed to be safe for use around animals.

I figured it was worth ago so we got some last night to sprinkle around. I have only put some around the main vege garden because it's fully fenced for the dogs. I'll use it on the back garden when we get the new latch put on the gate to keep the dogs out. I know it says it's not supposed to be toxic, but i don't totally trust it... The slugs have been doing serious damage to my plants including eating all my ripe strawberries, after i was worried enough about birds to install netting around the plant!

I have spent the week digging over the middle garden. Wow it was hard work! I took my time with it, mostly because it was very heavy clay and by this point i'm totally over digging...

It took me about 5 days but i finally got all of the soil dug over and broken up. That left section as you can see is quite dry and has lots of clay. The right side has much nicer soil. I dug in lots of compost, sheep pellets and fertilizer. Sheep pellets are a new thing for me to use. I have heard good things about how they improve soil quality so i thought i'd give them ago. I also made a little path to the right, because that's slightly less area that i have to dig up. I think it looks quite nice too!

I have been doing a bit of research online, mainly around how to grow in clay based soils, and how to improve it. I had heard that there were products that you could get to help break up the clay, but i was unable to find any. I decided to go for lots of compost, sheep pellets and a good fert. I had been using Yates Vegetable fert up until now, but have decided to switch to blood and bone, mainly because its cheaper, and also because it's essentially the exact same thing. 

I then noticed when i was at Mitre10 last night buying some vegetables for the middle garden, that they had this handy looking product... 

I have mixed it into all of the gardens and have fingers crossed that it makes a difference!

Today i did that and also spread sheep pellets around all of the gardens. Mixing it in with a bit of blood and bone, or tomato food depending on the plant. The soil here is such average quality i'm adopting the policy of more is more.

We purchased a few plants for the middle garden; cos lettuce, sugar snap peas, cabbage, spring onion, cucumber, and capsicum. 

How the gardens are looking today... 

The cherry tomatoes are coming along really nicely 

 The 3 Jalapeno plants and capsicum

I planted the new capsicum plant where the basil was previously. Kinda ruins the whole "herb garden" thing that i was going for, but it's the sunniest spot so it made sense to plant it there

The main vegetable garden planted up fully now

I noticed today that my little peas i had planted a few weeks ago have little pods on them. Yay!!!

 That's all for now. I'll update this if there are any further developments. Am excited for my little plants to grow and produce food!!!

If at first you don't succeed...

We recently moved into a new rental property which had a nicely tiered vegetable garden built into the side of the hill. It was empty and overgrown but i figured i shouldn't waste it, and that i might give this growing vegetables thing a go. I had previously grown cherry tomatoes in a raised garden bed at an old house we rented and they turned out great so i was rather optimistic. I weeded the whole lower section of the garden and planted some seedlings i got from a local store. Then i waited...

It wasn't until i got a visit from my mother, up from the south island that i realized i had done it wrong. She commented on now dry the garden looked. I said i was concerned the plants didn't really seem to be growing, especially compared to some vegetables i had seen in a friend's potted garden. She then explained to me that i needed to have dug over the garden and mixed in compost. Whoops!

Photo of the garden as it was

I had planted a beefsteak tomato, lettuce (one i accidentally killed with weed spray, whoops!), broccoli, capsicum and peas.You can barely see the little plants in there! Clearly i needed to fix this problem so i acquired many bags of compost and got to work with digging. I started with the top garden, totally digging it over and removing all of the weeds. Found many little potatoes in there too. Guess that previous occupants must have used it for! I mixed in some compost also. Once that was done i transported as many vegetables as i could from the bottom garden to the top. That left a few stragglers in the bottom garden.

Top garden and me starting to dig up the lower garden

I also decided to fully weed spray the middle garden. Its heavily laden with weeds and pulling them all out by hand just seemed like way too much effort. I'm still in 2 minds as to whether i actually want to use this garden at all. It will be a big job to dig it over. The soil is much more compacted than the other two gardens!
I managed to finish digging over and composting the lower garden. I decided to actually read the ingredients for the vegetable fertilizer that i got and saw i was supposed to mix it into the soil. Whoops! I did at least mix it in with the compost in the lower garden, with the top one i just sprinkled it around the plants and watered it well. I am using number 8 compost from Mitre10, Yates Vegetable Fertilizer and Yates Tomato Food.

The tomato food was a bit of an after thought and i just applied it on top after re-planting my beefsteak and regular tomatoes. I had a slight technical error with the peas. We have these climbing frames lying around i thought might be useful after i discovered that peas like to climb things. It kept blowing over in the wind so i instead decided to break it up and individually stake each pea plant. The poor things have been shifted around so many times! This will hopefully be the last. I also cable tied up the peas and my tomato plants. They seem to look much better now except the one tomato plant that's tiny and a weird shade of purple. Kinda expecting that once to die... Also having issues with my courgette plant which was thriving and now looks a kind of sickly yellow colour. Not sure what is up with that. What i didn't realize when i shifted the plants up to the top garden us that it doesn't get sun all of the day. Could become an issue for my capsicum plant that i'm seriously considering shifting to a spot more sunny.






The gardens as they are today

I decided to get some extra vegetables when i got the compost and fert. I picked up some cherry tomatoes, corn, cauliflower and carrots. All except the cherry tomatoes ended up in the bottom garden as you can see pictured. It looks rather dry in the photos but the soil is nice and damp under the top layer. I found quite a lot of pavers around the place which i am going to use for edging and making the garden a bit more user friendly. I did use them to construct a kind of path under the step ladder. Makes it look a lot tidier than weeds!

The cherry tomatoes i decided to plant in the back garden because it gets a LOT of sun and it also saved me from having to tackle the middle garden ;)
I had been contemplating doing something with the back garden anyway. This at least gave it purpose. Only dug over and composted as much garden as i needed for the tomatoes. The pavers indicate the edge. The other side i'm thinking might be perfect for chilies, if i can get my act together in time.

I also have a single strawberry planted in a pot. It seems to be doing fine!

At this stage i'm not overly confident my garden will be a huge success. It has been a bit of a learning curve and quite hard work! Am hoping it will pay off when we have lots of yummy home grown veggies. More posts to follow...