Homegrown - Garden three is up and running

All three of my vegetable gardens have finally coming together. It's exciting to see plants popping up in this warm spring weather.

This week I edged the third vegetable garden with scraps of wood I found lying around the house. (Frugal culture!) The existing soil was clay, so I dug garden lime into that to help neutralise the acidity of the clay, since most plants prefer a more neutral soil pH. On top of the clay I poured compost and let that sit for a few days, before adding in an all purpose vegetable mix yesterday.

I've planted this garden with  one Zucchini Gold Rush F1 and one Zucchini Black Beauty - both grown from seeds I ordered through King Seeds. I've also planted marigolds along the back edge of the garden as a form of pest control. Marigolds not only repel whitefly, but they also kill nematodes in the soil which would otherwise damage plant roots.

My broccoli seedlings are still too small to plant out, but they will make their way into this garden too, along with some beetroot seeds when I get around to planting them.

Our kitset raised garden is now full of plants. I planted my silverbeet and lettuce seedlings this week. Now it's just a matter of keeping them well-watered so they don't grow bitter. That shouldn't be too hard as the garden is right outside my front-door.

In this garden I'm also keeping a close eye on my strawberries, which have just started to change colour. I may need to cover the plants with bird netting so I get to the strawberries before the birds do.

My original vegetable garden is now also fully planted.

My pea and bean shoots emerged this week, much to my delight, as did my carrot and basil seedlings.

And in this garden's last bit of space, I've planted four cucumbers I grew from seed.

We had a good rainfall overnight and my tomatoes are flourishing for it.

In other garden-related news: The fruit tree in our backyard has started to fruit. Can anyone confirm what type of fruit this is? I don't have much experience in this area, but am hoping for apple.

Upcoming project gallery

Make everything pretty. Plant flowers. Trim hedges.

Tackle more ivy. Clear the overgrowth. That sort of thing.

This property is still mostly a big mess. I get the feeling it hasn't been cared for in a while. Although Paul does say he likes the wilderness feel of it, and doesn't want me to get too carried away tidying it up. I guess that's a good excuse to stop if I run out of steam. 

What I wouldn't do for the advice of a landscape designer. I'm no good at that kind of thing, but I'm sure they would have some wonderful suggestions for making this place beautiful.