Luckily we´ve had a few sunnyish days in Cape Town over the last two weeks which allowed me to get going with my very first veggie garden, courtesy of Starke Ayres. As I mentioned before in previous posts, I am no gardening pro so the thought of starting my own vegetable patch was at first slightly daunting to say the least. Anyway off I went to Starke Ayres Garden Centre on Liesbeek Parkway on a rainy Saturday morning to pick out my herbs and vegetables and to gather all the essentials I needed to setup my garden.
Luckily I had the gadren centre´s friendly staff on hand to help me with recommendations and with all the heavy lifting. This is what I chose in terms of veg and herbs: Cabbage, Swiss Chard Spinach, Sweet peas, Peas (seeds), Rocket, Coriander, Italian parsely, Parsely, a Granadilla tree and a couple of Marigolds and Pansies to add some colour to the patch. To get your soil ready before planting you will need the following: compost, Talborne Organics Vita Veg 6:3:4, Fertilis and a bag of Volcanic Rock dust – all available from Starke Ayres. You will also need to grab a bag of mulch, I´ll explain what to do with this later. None of the above is extremely expensive so those with a limited budget can also do this, maybe just buy fewer herbs and veggies. Although the start-up may be slightly costly, once you´ve got everything growing, think how much you will save on your grocery bill, not too mention what this will do for your personal food mileage.
Before I started laying all my produce in the ground, I first planned out the area on a piece of paper to make sure everything fitted in. I was told to plant tight but didn´t want things to start mingling in an unhealthy way! Important: Make sure the area you want to place your veggie garden in, receives a fair amount of sunlight.
The next step is to prepare your soil.The area I chose to plant in was quite sandy, see image below, so I had to add quite a bit of compost to the patch first before planting. If your patch´s soil is healthy then just add compost to the areas where you´ll be planting to prevent any waste. Once the compost has been raked in, add the Vita Veg (read packaging for dosage requirements) and rake in with the compost. Then start planting. Dig a hole big enough to fit each plant. In the hole, place about a tablespoon of Fertilis and about a teaspoon of volcanic rock dust, mix into the soil and then place your veg or herbs into the hole, individually (be very careful when removing veggies and herbs from their pots, so as not to damage their roots – push up rather than pull out). If you do sweet peas or granadillas, like me, be sure to get a trellace as well as they need to grow upright against a trellace or fence (see images below). Repeat the hole digging process (don´t forget to add fertilis and rock dust to each hole) until you have laid down all your produce. If you are planting seeds as well (I planted some pea seeds) then make sure you read the packaging which tells you how deep to make your hole and how far apart to space each seed.
BEFORE:
Raking in the compost
The liveeco garden gnomes 🙂
Once everything is in, lay down your mulch (mulch helps the soil to retain moisture, reduces erosion, provides nutrients, and suppresses weed growth and seed germination). Just do a thin layer of mulch where you have planted your seeds. Once this is done, water your vegetable patch thoroughly and watch it grow! The best part about choosing the kind of veg and herbs I did, is the fact that you can plant today and eat tomorrow. I have already eaten most of my lettuce (lettuce is unfortunately an annual so it wont regrow and once eaten, you will need to replant with new leaves), coriander and parsley.
Mulch
Watering everything in
If you start to see that something may be munching on your produce rather take a sample of the leaf into the garden centre before spraying with anything. If you absolutely have to spray, make sure it is natural, organic and pet friendly, if you have pets.
Which brings me to my next point, I have dogs. Who apparently have developed an affinity for vegetable gardens. So right now my poor veggie garden looks more like Alcatraz. A word of warning for others with four legged friends, they will adore the smell and taste of the compost and the Vita Veg so you will need to fence off your patch unless you don´t mind replanting everything almost daily! One thing I can say is that the veggie patch really has transformed my backyard. It has brought colour and life to an otherwise very dull, sad corner. As well as helping us save on our grocery bill, it´s extremely convenient having your most frequently used herbs outside the kitchen door when making my favourite dishes!
AFTER: My imprisoned veggie garden
In the next addition of The Starke Effect, we explore veggie gardening for those who have no garden. Keep checking back as I will be updating the blog with how my garden is progressing as well as some backyard recipes!
Nics
xx
