Homegrown - Planting has begun

 

It always amazes me how much work goes into a garden, long before any planting happens.

We've been living in Wellington for a month now and I was getting frustrated that I still didn't have a garden to speak of. Well, after a weekend of hard yakka (to go along with all the prep work I've being doing over the past month), we now have some herbs planted and some seeds in the ground.

Homegrown photo gallery

Herb wall (trailing rosemary, French tarragon, oregano and pizza thyme). It may not look like much, but this wall was riddled with ivy and took hours to clear:

Mint patch (in its own little corner where it can sprawl to its heart's content without taking over any other plants):

Marigolds planted, along with carrot, basil, pea and bean seeds. Tomato and cucumber seedlings will go along the wall on the right, when they are ready to be transplanted:

Upcoming project gallery

Kit-set raised garden to be erected once the area behind it has been cleared. It's going to be used to grow my strawberries and leafy greens like spinach and silverbeet:

This patch of earth needs to be turned, edged, filled with compost and garden mix, and then planted out with broccoli, beetroot, marigolds and possibly zucchini if there's room:

Once the seeds in these seed-raising trays have sprouted and grown to a good size, they'll need to be planted out. I'm growing tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cucumber and zucchini:

I can't wait till everything is flourishing and I'm actually able to eat some of it. That's my motivation for putting in the hard yards now. The sooner things get planted, the sooner I'll be harvesting homegrown vegetables.

To plan my garden I've been referring to Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening to check which plants are good companions of others. I've drawn several garden plans, and will, I'm sure, continue tweaking these plans right up till everything is in the ground.