Vegetable patch preparation
Posted by DavidM in Gardening | 5 March 2007
After a mixed result with last year's vegetable patch, I'm looking forward to a more successful growing season in 2007.
I've moved it to a larger area on the other side of the garden and dug it over twice to prepare the soil.
The compost bin that I installed in autumn has at least 18 inches of really good compost ready to go in as I start planting.
We've bought potato seedlings and onion sets which are waiting in the garage to be sown. It's our first year for potatos and the plan is to plant them in three batches starting in the next week or so to get a spread of produce.
I'll treat the tomatoes similarly. The area for the tomatoes is about three times bigger than last year and by planting at several different times I should have tomatoes available all summer.
The runner beans will stay where the old veg patch was as they did really well over there.
Alongside the potatos and onions in the new patch I'll have green beans which work really well, carrots (which were a disaster last year), broccolli (which got eaten), courgettes and cucumber.
I want to put a border of reclaimed wood around the patch this year and stick copper tape to the top in an effort to reduce the slug menace that blighted last year's broccolli and courgette crop.
We haven't seen hoppity - the wild rabbit who took up residence at the bottom of the garden - for some time and we've sorted the rat living under our decking, so we should be reasonably pest free.
So all ready to start planting in the next few weeks. Once that bulk of work is over I'll look forward to more pleasant summer evenings pootling around the garden.
