The poor vegetable patch has been neglected since the big move, so I spent the whole weekend cleaning the raised garden-beds. Last seasons vegetables were pulled out to make room for the new seedlings. I pulled all the weeds out and dug a few bags of compost into each of the raised garden beds. Adding compost to the pre-existing soil can help to rejuvenate, condition and improve the overall texture of the soil. When I am getting a garden bed ready for planting I always make sure I add compost into the soil and a generous handful of either rock dust or blood & bone.
This season I have decided to plant out a mixture of leafy greens to a range of different Brassicas. In previous years, I always get over excited and buy too many cabbages and cauliflowers and then find that I struggle to give them all a home in the garden. This year I purchased only a few of the Brassicas and decided to plant a lot more lettuces as I will be using them much quicker.
In the first veggie box I have planted:
– Silverbeet Rainbow – Bok Choi
– Lettuce Salad Mix – Spinach Ironman
– Brussels Sprouts Green Thumb – Celery
Vegetable box number 2 has:
– Red Cabbage – Cauliflower Baby
– Kale Sprout Green – Sorrel Rumex
– Pak Choi
I added a thick layer of sugar cane mulch to help keep the soil and the plants roots warm. The weather temperatures are a lot cooler in the mountains and it is very common for young seedlings to collapse due to the extremely cold weather. The fertiliser that I will be using is a product from Grow Better called Organic Fertiliser. It is a pelletised blend of blood & bone, fishmeal, seaweed, composted poultry manure and zeolite. It is also BFA (Biological Farmers of Australia) certified organic which is huge tick in my books whenever I am using a product on any edible crops.
Until next time happy gardening!
By Bonnie-Marie Hibbs
©BMHPhotographyTheGardener’sNotebook2017
