Vege Garden ...

Well I'll tell you up front, I suck at vege gardening and am known amongst my vege guru friends as the 'virgin vegetable gardener' ...

It's a funny thing to think that I grew up in a family who vege gardened and that vege garden provided us with much sustenance and yet, I know nothing about the intricacies of vege gardening. I'm hoping it's 'in the genes!'

So last year I started late and my vege garden surcame to the sunflowers (from the bird feeder) and weeds. My successes were peas, and tomatoes. Now before you think I'm blowing my own horn, I DID NOT plant the tomatoes ... they were in my compost and just came up! I also grew some plants from seed which came up this year - green onions - so mum transplanted those for me. But I am thankful to those tomato plants as they have spurd me on to read, build, and get bigger :) - the vege garden that is!

I like to be creative - like growing potatoes in a trash bag, using the many rocks around the property for walkways, and recycling plant/tree pots into mini herb gardens and potted veges. My friend H. put me onto Patti Moreno who is a pioneer of urban sustainable gardening, so I do snoop her website and hope to get to see her place one of these days. (She is on the Farmers Almanac gardening cable show - although we only have basic cable and so don't get to see that show).

So this year I have the original vege garden (a perennial garden that I had to move), 2 vege boxes, and a lot of pots! I'm working on some of the 'Square foot Gardening' methods in Mel Bartholomews book. So far so good! My mum gave me the kick off with actual plants, helping me build some trellises, and getting the pea seeds in the ground. Such a boost to see something already in the ground, that I just kept on going. Now I know there is such a thing as 'planting times' - but as a virgin vege gardener, I'm not there yet, I'm still on a whim and trial basis - that's why the plants were good.

Where I'd like to be is with a vege garden that really helps with cutting food costs down, saving my own seeds, canning my own foods, cold frames and storage, while crossing over to a pure 'organic/heirloom' vege garden! So I'm starting to see what books are out there to help me upskill in these areas.

I will be adding some up to date gardening photos as my garden progresses. In fact I just walked the garden and realized that I'm needing to plant more lettuce seeds and bush bean seeds in the next day or two, in order to rotate the crops and keep the veges coming all season long. So there you have it! Lets just hope that I learned from last year and can keep up with it all!!!

The Virgin Vegetable Gardener