I have two vegetable/herb garden beds in my yard that my husband built for me when I stated that I wanted to grow vegetables.
My first planting went well, we definitely got more sweet potato than we could really eat comfortably, and in the end I got a little sick of eating it. I grew a rosemary plant that just dominated and grew taller than me (not that that is a hard accomplishment on the part of shrubbery). The tomatoes we tried to grow failed, and the jalapeno’s I grew were exceedingly hot. But I got busy so the beds pretty much got out of control. The biggest mistake I made was to grow lemongrass in the bed. It spread, in fact its now in the other bed, and growing on the grass and generally out of control and a big pain in the backside.
So a few weekends ago (17th of October) I decided I wanted to replant my garden beds, generally clean them up and plant some edibles. It started with an epic weeding. That took a weekend. I also found there was still sweet potato growing so just left it there and planted some seedling and seeds:
This is the bed all cleaned up, planted and protected from the dogs. Below are some closeups of the bed close up in segments with descriptions of what was planted.
First segment of the bed. Holds a planter (with its own weed) used to hold up the structure to keep the dogs out. Also planted was a Red Passionfruit seedling. My hope/plan is that it grows up the wire behind it and grows across and yields many many passionfruit cheesecakes. I also planted sunflowers all along the back in a row. I <3 sunflowers.
Second segment of the bed. Holds existing sweet potato that were there all along under the weeds.
More sweet potatoes, more sunflowers planted.
This was an area I focused on that weekend. The chillies are long red chillies. I also planted some seeded potatoes from my vegetable basket, some curly parsley and another passionfruit, this time golden. The plan is that one will grow up, along the fencing piece we put there and join with the other passionfruit in a beautiful green lush and fruit producing union of bliss.
This is my second bed that I have not attacked yet. See the lemongrass? This wasn’t even the initial bed I planted that in! It spreads y’all! There is still thyme in there that I use when cooking mushrooms, pastas, garlic & herb bread. Okay so I use it heaps. Thyme is fantastic.
I also have some planters on my fence. They are full of herby goodness. Mint, Chocolate Mint (yes its real, yes it is magic) and oregano. Ive been using the oregano in every pasta dish I make. I might be doing it wrong, it just doesn’t pack as much of a punch as dried oregano.
As I left this post a little long, I will have an update again this weekend, as I have unsuccessfully planted carrots, and only two of my sunflowers have arrived. So it will be a ‘WHAT I DID WRONG’ kinda post. OH and the potatoes have popped up.
