Designing Your Vegetable Garden

Imagine being able to pop out to your backyard everyday to pick your own flavoursome, nutrient-packed produce.  Regardless of the size of your home, it is possible to grow your own vegies.  Here are a few tips on how to get started:

Positioning Your Patch

Although it is tempting to place your patch along a fence or corner so that its appearance does not take away from the overall aesthetics of your yard, doing so is likely to produce sub-optimal results.

 

Vegetables thrive in open, sunny positions with good drainage and air circulation.  Being located In the southern hemisphere, in Australia vegies are ideally grown on a north or north easterly aspect.

 

 

Choosing Your Set-Up

There are several ways that you can set up your veggie patch:

 

Raised beds

Give the roots of your vegetables more room to grow and good drainage by growing them in raised beds.  Build each bed up with manure, compost and soil.  Ideally beds are supported with a wooden frame or besser blocks.

 

No-dig gardens

Avoid the physical exertion of digging with a low maintenance no-dig garden. Heavily water layers of organic matter such as grass clippings, straw, manure and blood and bone, then allow to settle for several days before planting

 

Containers

If you have limited garden space, try growing a selection of your favourite vegetables in containers.  The same rules in relation to positioning and drainage apply.

 

 

Plot Planning

When planning your plot, ensure that you research how much room each plant will need both vertically and horizontally. Ensure taller plants won’t tower over ground hugging varieties and consider utilising a trellis to free up ground space taken up by creepers.

 

Learning about crop rotation will also ensure your vegetable garden is successful year after year, because when the same families of plants are grown in the same spot each season it increases the likelihood of diseases developing.