House & Home The Vege Garden Thread

Good ideas, I’ve got two so will try both, thanks!

 

I have been moving toward getting raised garden beds for a while, will prob get tin, do not like the idea of timber that may have treatment leeching past plastic, anyways...

I have or had a large pile of ash, which was supposed to be compost, but it is too much just ash and burned wood, have been slowly getting rid of it, then I thought about the cost of filling garden beds, see am thinking of waist high, then the light went off......it is going to cost a lot to fill.

So, do you think piling say a foot of ash at the bottom before putting fill and soil would matter, or should I maybe mix it in with a bulk potting type mix, or just continue to get rid of it and fill beds with good soil/s ?

I can also get quite a bit of sheep/goat manure, I imagine it would be good in soil about a foot down or so.

 

You mean the beds ? Will be waist high.....

 

Hip height may be more like it......avoid bending. I had a lot of ash.....i can also get lots of mulch and prob lots of decent fill.

Can you tell I am not heavily into this area ?

 

Could put something mid way to slow water drain

Am willing to hear better suggestions with bending in mind....they make beds this high so assume people do use them.

 

Go Hydro.

 

Ash doesn't drain. Will get waterlogged. I accidentally killed some very healthy raspberries by sprinkling a small amount of ash in the garden.... I thought I was fertilising

 

Yes the bearded dragons are visiting my garden too! He (she?) is supervising for you! Mine wasn't as active as your looks, just sun baking.

 

lived in a unit in sydney for years and the best we could do was a few herbs and a chilli bush, not to mention fighting the salty air of the beach. this year we are out of sydney and our comfortable little villa allows me to expand my garden!

my organic, no dig garden:

lettuce varieties, cucumbers, zuchinni, chilli, spinach, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, radishes, mint, coriander, basil, thyme, snake beans and passionfruit

 

Ash should only be used in tiny quantities as it makes the soil very alkaline, great if you want a native garden but not much else.

You want well rotted manure to improve any soil you might have and you would need to work out what NPKP your "decent fill" is before you plant anything in it since you will probably have to adjust it.

Our first raised garden ( the one at the beginning of this thread ) took 3 tonne of material to fill.

Do the math for the volume of the garden you are building so you know how any cubic metres of fill you will require.

With our first garden the first tonne was general soil left over from landscaping, to that we added two tonne of "vege mix" from our local landscape supplier. Most suppliers have a "vege mix", eg.

Garden Materials

Read through this whole thread since there was quite a discussion on raised beds earlier on.

 

The first yield from the TommyToes is nice, not too many worms - part of the price you pay for being organic.



The Romano beans are also producing well now, just in time as the Purple kings die back.



One of our Romano bean plants is producing serious big beans!

 

First tomatoes of the year, they are Tiger tomatoes and keep their stripes and mild taste. Also have some Amish paste growing which are much richer in flavour from memory.

Anyone have a good method to identify when to pick corn?

 

Nah, use 100mm PVC, long lengths, filled with medium/soil and have the waterbed nutrient cycling thru.

This guy knows a bit.

Reckon @datto would know a bit too !

 

On the commercial tomato farm (laboured on) we used scoria as a medium, a nearby farm used come kind of husk (?coconut) I believe. Small amounts of water with nutrients were applied to each plant several times a day.