The Veggie Garden

Not being a Jamie Oliver in the kitchen, my veggie needs are few and precise. This patch needs to serve all my foodie needs and look good doing it.

I like veggies just as the much as the next person. There is nothing better than a home grown carrot, nothing as sweet as a tomato or as satisfying as picking your first strawberry of the season.

The seasonal glut of veg had me scrambling around looking up Lynda Hallinan's food preserve recipes.

In my first garden I devoted a quarter of my growing space to the veggie patch. I was all about food production back then. And we ended up not eating a fraction of it. So much was wasted. The seasonal glut of veg had me scrambling around looking up Lynda Hallinan's food preserve recipes. There are only so many edible courgette recipes out there my friends.

Small but perfectly formed.

In comparison, in this garden out of 1200m2 only 6m2 is reserved for growing veg. I grow what we eat. I have given it the best position in terms of sun and shelter, situated full north against the fence. This is why it is not next to the kitchen but rather you need to walk through the country garden to get to it. But really that is no hardship at all having to walk past overflowing flower borders. It does prove to be a bit of a problem when on a veggie gathering mission and then getting distracted by some weeds that need pulling. I confess I have burnt a few dinners like this!

We mainly grow, tomatoes, spinach, corn, lettuce and one winter crop that matures later in the season. This summer thats butternut. Potatoes are grown in a bucket, handy for harvesting and doesn't hog valuable space. I do like growing capsicum, but they live in the greenhouse were they perform better. Herbs are grown in the country garden next door. It's a just the perfect solution. I let them bolt freely, basil and coriander flowers are just gorgeous. They work well with the theme of the country garden, making attractive fillers and are close to the kitchen for quick picking (as long as no weeds that need pulling are nearby).

Tooty Fruity

Our future project is to add a mirror or some like garden art and espalier the fruit trees onto the fence.

There are also fruit trees planted. Lemon and Lime (for the Gin and Tonics), a fancy thrice grafted apple tree that's supposedly fruits all year (Ill let you know), a delicious mandarin, guava and a thornless rasberry. You can grow quite a lot in a small space. We have also got plans to put in a grape.

With this level of the garden been in a formal layout, its natural focal point is slap bang in the middle of two fruit trees on the fence line. Our future project is to add a mirror or some like garden art and espalier the fruit trees onto the fence. There are so many good reasons to espalier your fruit trees and not just for aesthetics. Space saving of course, you can grow a lot of fruit this way and promote early and even ripening of your fruit. It will also create a wonderful backdrop and enhance this country veggie garden.

I do practice crop rotation and I do not use any pesticides in any beds that produce food. The exception to this rule is in early spring when I'm trying to get the lettuces going, I will use slug bait liberally! Ive lost too many young tenders to those slimy bastards. I cant resist putting in a couple of flowers in here too just to pretty it up a bit. Last spring I sprinkled some wild flower seed mix at the back of these beds as an experiment. The only seed to germinate was this white Lavatera ,pictured left. Its managed to grow right on top of a tree stump filling up an unusable spot and Im hoping this one is a perennial so will come back year after year.

And there you have it, its practical, perfectly formed and serves all our foodie needs. Once planted, needs very little maintenance and gives us the pleasure and satisfaction of growing our own.