Does anyone do a winter garden,or have a year round vege garden? I tend to just do the summer thing - tomatoes,lettuce,peas....all the usual stuff.Then I just let it go all to hell,and break my back in spring getting it in order again. Now I want to keep veges growing consistently all year - pull something out,put something in.I've just put my new raised garden together (5x1.8 sleepers)...have put in a row of radishes as they say to sow direct in the garden all year round.Started seedlings of spinach,cress and a winter lettuce....guess they will be going in mid or late winter.Anyway,the plan is not to just be overburdened with produce for a couple of months....but to keep up a constant supply.
I do the year round garden. Currently have silverbeet, cauli, broccolli, spring onions (a first winter vege for me, I always thought they were a summer crop, they actually grow really well) and a very sad looking capsicum plant. It has 3, I count them often, peppers on it. It is a yellow one, but very slow to ripen, I guess the frost would not be helping eh? Anyway, it is actually starting to turn so yay! I have reduced my garden to several large grow bags and containers, I will take some pics, the best thing I have ever done. No digging, no weeding to speak of and veges all year round. Summer time obviously best productive time though. I used to have a huge vege garden, grew everything in it. We pay for our water here and it got really expensive to keep, the other reason for letting it go was the fact we go away for 2 weeks end of January and the damn thing would be just hitting its straps, all that effort and we did not get to eat it all, 2 weeks of no water and it was very sorry looking indeed. Now I just take the bags with me, the other campers think I am a mad woman, but what do they know
That's why I did the raised garden....no digging,and weeding can be done from the sides.I was late pulling the garden up because one damn lone chilli plant was just covered in fruit,it just didn't stop.We have gardens all around the house with herbs,spring onions,silverbeet etc,they get dry in summer as they are sheltered by the eves.My wife looks after those....mine is the main vege garden. I'll do potatoes in tyres this season - a friend does that,and looks like a good idea.Dotted around the lawn,wherever.
Funny you should mention spuds, I am considering doing them too, I saw this really cool idea a while ago, just in a 50ltr bag of mix, cut a hole and away you go. Hmmmmmm tyres eh?
I have a token winter garden ... parsnips, swede and leeks. A plant a bit of stuff around the end of February to take me partly into winter like ... cabbage, cauli and brocolli but I do tend to let the bulk of the garden rest over winter.
still got cherry tomatos growning here in nelsn outside under the pungas at teh moment roll on spud monday ill have to resurect the rotary hoe again hey did any of ya built a worm farm like radar on the tele? mines working a treat
See yet another worm farm idea. I am prepared to be guinea pig for this...kilingon, your bucket idea intrigues... Bring on the worms!
I do the whole worm farm/compost thing and try to have a winter garden but not always with success. I plant garlic on or around the shortest day too and harvest on the longest day. Home grown garlic is the bomb!
I used to do the big compost thing when I had a proper garden. Over the years I have moved many times, sometimes room and time for a big garden, sometimes not. One place ( I had 3 kids under 5 at the time) did not allow time for a big garden, so I bought one of those plastic compost bins All that ever produced was foul rotting crap, nothing that I wanted to add to the garden. That is why I am so keen on worms.
Probably getting a little bit late to qualify for "winter" garden but have just turned over a bit of dirt in readiness for a small crop of "Maori potatoes". Just needs a couple of degrees warmer I think before they will be safe.
I want to grow some spuds this year. Anyone done them in a bag?
Not in a bag, but last season we wove a large basket out of bamboo on the clay. We filled this up with nice composty soil, planted some spuds and then as they grew we progressively(?) filled the basket up with sawdust and compost. Turned out quite good really for a relatively small amount of effort. Growing in a bag sounds like a good idea. Might not dry out so fast.
Interesting, I can see my container garden getting bigger and bigger and bigger...LOL I remember seeing something on TV years ago, it may not have been bags but, it certainly was not in the ground. Basically, they simply sliced the bag or whatever open in the end and filtered out all these yummy little spuds. I am thinking Xmas here, little spuds and yummy peas and...
Hi all, great group Mom. As the soil is basically clay here, I grow all my stuff in buckets or large containers..spuds,tomatoes,beans, peas in hanging baskets, radishes, lettuce. Yep always have nice fresh spuds for Xmas.. yum
So tell me what do you do to have spuds for Xmas day? I have a kind of a weird way of things, I love to say I grew all this food on the table (ham etc excluded, though I used to be able to say that too). Spuds are the things I have not got to yet.
