Garden Journal

In this section you will find dated entries showing the garden's progress.  Here is a brief background.

I have just moved into this house about 2 months ago.  On request from the owners of the house I was previously renting, I have gone back to that house to dismantle the established veggie garden.  It was finally into its third season.  I always say that veggie gardens only really get good in their third season and this was certainly the case this time.  Knowing that I was shortly to move, I hadn't been planting anything, so what was there had just come up by itself or been there for a while.  It had hundreds of lettuces, perennial spinach (warrigal greens), masses of parsley, nasturtiams and calendula and the odd marigold everywhere, lots of different culinary and medicinal herbs and potatoes.  I even found a few very tiny carrots.

So, I dug up the potatoes - mostly baby potatoes, but still over half a bucket full.  And pulled out the rest to transplant.  I should have taken the time to cut it all back before transplanting - could have given everyone I know enough parsley to feed their families on tabbouli for a week - but I just didn't have the time.  So I started digging up the front lawn of the new house and just getting the plants in.  I couldn't see any point in leaving lawn to mow, so decided the whole lot would have to go.

Normally I use no-dig methods, but the soil here seemed so good that I didn't want it to take 3 years for the paper and other layers to break down.  I'm really hoping that by digging, and adding to the existing soil the garden will establish quicker.  I also didn't have the spare $$ for straw, manure, soil, etc to layer on top to build up the garden.  So the plants have just been put into the existing soil.