our vegie patch

One of our goals for this year (and last year, but shhhh) was to do 'something with the side garden'. Last year we pulled out the lamandra (leaving us with a big expanse of white rocks) and built a wooden fence and gate, which I just love.

But now....

L had some time off over the holidays and built 3 raised beds for us. We live on the side of the hill with lots of retaining walls, and have come to realise our soil is terrible. It's thick clay, has little drainage and no goodness. So for us raised beds are the way to go so we can add in some goodness and drainage.

Before: Lots of white rocks, a few big rocks that needed busting up, and lots of pots. 

Compare the size of the rocks to the jack hammer and wheel barrow. Yep

First up was a garden bed made out of treated pine. We just used a few plans we already had that were in pots. The pots in front are lily pillys, waiting to be planted on the other side of the fence. 

Then two big, deep vegie gardens. These were made out of hardwood (treated pine not being a great idea for vegie gardens with the leeching of the chemicals). They aren't quite finished yet, there is a narrower plank to sit along the top of the walls so we can place pots, rest vegies, sit down.

This one has a cover to protect things like lettuce and herbs from the sun, especially when they are young. It's just too hot here for most of the year for them. We will also plant some seedlings into pots to establish them, and then replant into the garden. We lots a few zucchini seedlings early on that way-just too hot!

We have planted herbs, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, zucchini to start off with. The stuff we eat a lot of, or the stuff that we buy and doesn't last in the fridge more than a few days (herbs and bags of salad I'm looking at you!).

The trellises on this one will be for zucchinis and cucumbers to grow up, rather than out.

We used used lots of good stuff in our soil to retain water and add in goodies-rock minerals, compost, manure, coconut coir, worm castings, lucern, with some seasol, worm tea and molasses mixed in for good measure. 

Now we just need rain! :) It's a big improvement on my pot vegie patch, but it did teach us a lot about what we should and shouldn't do before we went for the more permanent and expensive beds.

How have your vegie patches been going?