My veggie patch is a bit bare at the moment, having recently harvested my potatoes and garlic and a couple of the other gardens only having recently been planted - meaning the plants are still just seedlings.
Currently I have:
- a decent bed of corn which is just starting to flower. The corn is underplanted with cow peas (a nitrogen fixing legume) mainly to help suppress weeds.
- a second bed of corn only planted a couple of weeks back. I'm hoping some more plants will come up because germination so far is so poor I'd really need to replant entirely. I experienced a similar problem last year - should have taken more note of the brand of seeds.
- my water chesnut bed that is in an old poly trough.
- a garden of roma toms and eggplants which are in one of the round corro beds. The seedlings are still small and I'm yet to thin out.
- some cucumber plants in another round corro bed. These too are just seedlings at this stage;
- some lettuce, beetroot and silverbeet in another round corro bed. These are at a stage where I really should have thinned them out. A job for later I guess.
- a bed of strawberries in one of the round corro beds. These were planted last year and have not done very well as the bed has very little dirt in it. I am really just keeping them for replanting at a later time.
- a bed of orange sweet potatoe (another one of the round corro beds) which did not end up with tubers sizable enough to eat as of the winter die back. It is now growing well so I would expect some tubers in a couple of months - if the grubs don't get them first.
- the last of the round corro beds has some bok choy or pak choy that has gone to seed. The seed pods have pretty much all dried now so I'll distribute these around the place to benefit from some self sown veg. I've run out of compost and other stuff to fill the corro beds with, so this one might have to wait for a while before replanting. The last crop just had some soil etc pushed up to the sides with a big void in the middle.
- a bed which has some self sown tomatoes at one end (they come up here like weeds, mainly broadripple currents, which are like a little orange cherry) and some recently planted ginger at the other. I found most of the ginger when digging over the bed that I'd had ginger and tumeric in last season. There is so much tumeric still in the gorund that it is going to be coming up in this bed and elsewhere like a weed for years I reckon - so have not bothered planting any at this stage (found nothing to do with the 5 plus kilos I harvested last season
).
I've also got an area of cos lettuce that I have let go to head and I'm waiting to seed. I find that the best way to grow lettuce is self sown, so will shake these all over the place once they are ready.
Surrounding the veggie patch is arrowroot on one side (left of picture), gallangal on one end (far end of picture) and a border of west indian lemongrass and comfrey on one side (right of picture - can't be seen in shot) and part of one end (closest end of picture - can just see a bit of the lemongrass in shot) and east indian lemongrass taking up the rest of that end.
Once the garden has grown a bit more - I'll take some pictures, as I know my description is crap
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