My 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.