The start of my Veggie Patch

This photo was taken at the beginning of April this year and is what my Veggie Patch looked like at the beginning. During summer (I think it was the end of January) we had huge rains which caused flooding in some areas nearby, leading to national highways being closed and many floodways being washed away. This also sent all the plants in the area into a state of confusion, thinking it was spring, rather than the middle of Autumn. Hence the weeds shot up and set seed before I knew it, and the tree in the background started to flower and grow leaves (about six months too early). This did however show me that the tree was deciduous and not dead, and from the type of leaves and the flowers on the tree I assumed it was a plum tree, but could not be sure until it set fruit, if indeed it was a fruiting variety rather than an ornamental.

I decided that since this garden bed was close to the house, received morning sun and afternoon shade and had a tap readily accessible, it would be a good site for my veggie patch, and looking at the layout I would guess that at some time previously it was set up as a veggie patch. I set to levelling out the mounds that had been created, a rather slow process using a nail rake, (I was being lazy and not really wanting to shovel piles of dirt, cause I know my back would let me know about it afterwards, and not in a good "I've done some physical work" kind of way) but I eventually got there. Then the peastraw went down and I started to water the start of my veggie garden.

After a few weeks of watering my peastraw garden I had pea plants starting to emerge, at least now I knew that things would grow in what I had created. At the same time some seeds that I had planted had now transformed into seedlings and so in they went in to the ground along with some corn seeds along the fence, partly for the corn cobs (hopefully) but also to create shade from the reflected heat from the iron fence. In this picture from left to right is silverbeet, chinese greens, corn seeds, italian parsley and tomatoes. The italian parsley didnt get planted because I ran out of room in that little bed, which was the one with the best soil and there for my main focus for the time being. My plan: Start with a small bed and once that is up and running move to the larger one.

This is what my veggie patch now looks like today, we have had a few pretty hot days this week (35 degrees +) and so the tomatoes are starting to wilt but they will get a good soaking tonight once the weather cools down a bit, and they will perk up again. Also I have let most of the weeds grow as I am aiming to have them work as a living mulch and also as a constant supply of green feed for the Chooks. So all in all its a bit messy, but its a natural, "organised chaos". Each morning I go out and pull the flowering tops off of the canola weeds and the chinese greens that have decided to flower rather than being leafy and any tops of pea plants which might look large enough to cope with it, and maybe for a treat a couple of leaves of silverbeet or chinese greens. I have discovered that the chooks don't like the purslane that is growing so that just stays and creeps. I am also discovering that with a bit of water the three corner jacks (or caltrop) are starting to come up, so at first site they get pulled out completely, I have enough of those seeds in the back yard to last me a lifetime.