March Planting

Today has been my planting day.   At the start of each month I check the gardenate website, have a look at what people in a sub-tropical (ie Sydney) climate should be planting and then diligently plant up the seeds that will be burnt off by the sun, drowned by three days of downpour, dug up by the chickens or eaten by slugs.

We have a very high mortality rate at my house.

Still I persist. 

Anything on this list that does manage to survive I expect to start harvesting around June - though things like onions won't be on the menu until October at the earliest.

• Beetroot
• Broad beans
• Broccoli
• Capsicum
• Carrot
• Celeriac
• Beans - climbing
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Onion
• Pak Choy
• Parsley
• Parsnip
• Squash
• Sunflower
• Swedes
• Sweet corn
• Turnip
• Zucchini

 I tend to grow really ordinary stuff, mostly because I like walking around the supermarket produce section being all smug that I don't have to buy things because they are in my garden.  These days I have about 30 square metres of my garden growing vegetables in a six bed rotation system, but it wasn't always like that.

Nope.  Hubby didn't like the idea of anything but lawn at first and I had to wheedle, cajole and do unspeakable things to get every garden bed. 

I started small, on the left there is the beginning of my garden in around June 2007.

At that stage instead of trying to grow all my own veg, I would aim for a meal.  We eat spagetti bolognese a lot - so I set myself the goal of growing the ingredients (not the beef, obviously).

In my spag bol I use;

• leeks
• carrots
• celery
• tomato
• onion
• garlic, and
• basil

 That year I nearly got there.  I had to use shallots instead of onions, and had no garlic or celery. But I did have leeks, carrots, tomatoes and basil. 

I stuck with the 'grow a meal' plan, as goal-wise it wasn't too overwhelming.  After spag bol, I wanted to grow the veg for a roast dinner. So I had a go at pumpkin, potato, carrots, zuchinni.  They worked, kind of.  I'm still getting the hang of potatoes and pumpkins annoy me. 

It hasn't been until this year that I really feel like I've got a chance to rely on my own garden for my food rather than the supermarket.  Before now it would've been way too much to embark on a list of vegies like I have above.  But, over the last four years I've grown all of the things in that list, know what works, what doesn't, had disasters, endured hailstorms, ended up with nematodes, planted seeds and know that if you let them dry out even for a day then they cark it, seen the effects of not enough fertilizer, too much fertilizer and a four day westerly gale. 

My main advice, though, to anyone who is embarking on a bit of gardening is the following...

Patience, Persistence and Sunscreen.

:)