Making compost and digging new beds

I spent most of last Saturday in the garden doing a couple of jobs. The first one was to make compost. I had been using a regular compost bin, and it was going well for a while, with lots of worms doing their work and nice compost being made. But recently some mice took up residence and, I suspect, dined rather well on the worms and other choice things in there. So, i decided to start again and use the corner of the garden to build a free-form compost pile. I got the instructions from a book I'd borrowed from the library. Unfortunately I took it back and I can't remember the name! It was really good though so I'm going to have to hunt for it again. The idea for the compost pile was to build layers of garden waste, straw, chook poo and kitchen waste. It is supposed to compost quite quickly, and you have to turn it regularly to keep everything going. Fingers crossed.

The other job that I did was to extend the garden bed next to the fence by digging down past the couch roots and putting in a barrier. I'm pretty excited about this - it's going to give me heaps more growing space. I've put some plastic over the remaining weeds to try and kill them off, with the plan of planting potatoes in a couple of months.

Mother's day in the garden

It was a beautiful day in Melbourne and I spent a perfect afternoon

in the garden with little FB mulching the beds and putting in more peas (snow, dwarf and climbing) and more onions. The peas went into the garden bed near the new fence. It has a small retaining wall so I'm pretty excited about being able to extend the bed all along the length, especially as it is north- facing. I'm planning on building it up a bit, putting in some sort of edging to stop the couch grass and the planting potatoes in a few months. We'll see how it goes.

Dora and Marlin planning their escape

I made a mobile chicken pen with the aim of the girls clearing and digging up the soil, but it backfired a bit when they escaped and ate the pea shoots. Cheeky chickens.

Here are some pictures of the beds at the moment. They look a bit bare at the moment but hopefully everything will start to grow soon.

Little FB's garden

Turnips, carrots, parsnips and spring onions

Onion bed

Silverbeet, spinach and lettuce (seeds just starting to come up)

What 's growing now

I'm trying to follow a 4 bed rotation system, based loosely on the Diggers mini plot vegetable garden . I don't have as much space (I'll post a plan of my garden soon) but I'm trying my best to follow the groupings of crop types. Anyway, here is what I have planted/growing at the moment:

Bed 1
Onions, Leeks, Chives, Spring onions, Turnips, Parsnips, Carrots

Bed 2
Brocolli (purple spouting), Brocolli (green), Cauliflower, Rocket, Rock melon (coming to the end)

Bed 3
Climbing beans (coming to the end), Lettuce, Spinach, Silverbeet, Parsley, Shallots

Bed 4
Capsicum (coming to the end), Snow peas

Little FB's garden
Snow peas, Bok choi, Silverbeet, coriander

I also have some strawberries in a pot, rhubarb, a kaffir lime tree and various herbs (oregano, tyme, basil, mint. parley, coriander)

Growing, cooking, pottering

I've been passionate about my veggie garden for a few years now. It's getting to be a bit of an addiction (I know this because one of my favourite things to do is to wander about there first thing in the morning checking what has grown). I also love cooking, especially when it involves things that have come from my garden.

I got the gardening gene from my Dad. He grew all our own veg and fruit when I was growing up in the UK and my childhood memories are of picking cucumbers warm from the greenhouse and making jam from home-grown blackcurrants.

Anyway I wanted to share my enthusiasm for food, growing things and pottering about outside - hence this blog. I suppose I should have started it in the summer when my harvest was bountiful, but hey, I live in Melbourne and you can plant all year round here. Plus it's an excuse to cook yummy casseroles and soups...