The first month of my vegetable patch

Everything started growing so fast! The weather was perfectly warm and gradually got hotter. I had to do a lot of watering as we didn't have much rain.

You should have seen me planning what I was going to grow and where. The vegetable bed in the first photo is 1 meter and 20 centimeters wide by 7 meters long. I didn't want the bed to be too wide as I wouldn't be able to reach the back to weed it and I didn't want to ever stand on the soil.

I drew up a scaled plan, on graph paper, of where each plant was to grow, using the distances on the seed packets and from books I read on intensive vege growing. I also included a strip of wildflowers for beneficial insects at the back of the patch against the garage wall. Plus I included some other companion plants in amongst the veges. And I tried to grow veges together that liked growing next to each other.

Then when it came to planting I marked out meter lengths and measured the distances with a ruler between my plants and where I was sowing seed!!! I won't be doing that again, but I had no idea that I didn't have to be that accurate. But I wanted to fit as much in as I could and make sure all the soil was shaded from the sun by the leaves to reduce watering needs.

This first vegetable patch is mainly for perpetual harvesting/cut-and-come again vegetables.

The second larger vegetable patch is for the larger plants and ones that are to be uplifted when ready for harvesting.

All around the outside of the vegetable garden I placed a wide, deep strip of used coffee grounds. This is doing an amazing job of keeping the slugs and snails away from my plants. Then I placed more flowers in pots on top to attract more of the good insects that would hopefully pollinate my crops and/or eat the baddies.

I grew 6 plants of Rainbow chard and was able to harvest some within a few weeks. The young leaves were so tender and full of flavour that I will never eat big old leaves again!

I am finding now that the plants are growing so quickly that I can't keep up with them for eating, so we are giving veges to my sister too.

This is some of my Mizuna and perpetual silverbeet which are also growing very well.

And here are my bok choy and celeriac plants.

I have been experimenting with different recipes and am having a great time with it. Everything cooks quickly when it is young and freshly picked. Yum!!! Now I am hungry, luckily dinner is ready....Soupe au pistou with foccacia bread here I come!

Looking forward to your next visit here.

Hugs,

Rose x