Read, Learn, Decide and Design

I have the humble beginnings of what I like to think will one day be a beautiful garden. Now just a pile of dirt, builders red sand, clay and a collection of nasty weeds, some old underground watering system (delightful black tubing) and bits of waste from renovations i.e. chunks of plaster boards, glass, bricks and so on. I'm waiting for the days to become longer and warmer so I can get into it and dig up this pile of 'crap', pull out all the weeds, put in the garden beds and paths and then get the soil up to scratch for planting.

So what can I do in the mean time...? Read, learn, decide and design! I've started to realize that I will be wasting my time if I don't get mentally prepared and have some plan of action before trying to prepare soil let alone plant. Or in the rush to get something in, I'll compromise and go for an easy synthetic option. I am very strict about doing things organically and so it wont be a simple spraying of weeds with Round Up, going to Bunnings and picking up some all purpose fertilizer and seedlings and digging some holes. Even when you browse through the 'organic' section in garden stores you'd be surprised how many 'organic' products are just organically BASED! This means off limits to someone trying to grow organically because the holes have been filled by synthetic means. Nitrogen at 10 and 13 gives it away automatically, you can't get that from a completely organic product. Anyhow more of that later.

So where to start...? Well how about answering the question 'What do you want to grow?' Answering this question should then lead to working out what soil conditions will be required. It should also then lead to where can I grow these plants, in shade, half shade, full sun...? This information should then be taken into account when deciding where to plants things. I should also start looking at who likes to hang out with who. Some plants don't do so well together while others quietly fall in love and blossom! Some act as body guards and keep pests and nasties at bay, but which ones? This I've got to find out hence 'read and learn'! It's amazing how sitting and thinking about all this has changed my perception of the winter. It's gone from being an annoying pause in the year to a time I hope will go slowly enough so that I can get all my reading, learning, deciding and designing done.

I have to say since reading the Ringing Cedars of Russia series I've started to appreciate the importance of taking the time to think things through. Anastasia often talks about the importance of visualising things to the greatest of detail so that what you are designing does not fall apart. I have to admit in desperation to get something in the ground I have planted some rocket, leek and beetroot seeds in planter boxes which I filled with some of the crappy soil I have and half a bag of horse manure left over from the summer. So it's not too surprising the lack of proper planning  has left me with some nice little rocket seedlings but a whole tray of beets and leeks that have not really germinated. A couple of beets did come through but then one shriveled up and died after 5 days. I don't know if the others will do the same. Bloody cold weather, bloody impatient gardener!

There are two sections of garden that I have to work with. The garden at the front of the house and the vegetable garden in the back. Unfortunately we have some neighbours who's kids are proving to be a bit of a nuisance, they kick footballs and soccer balls on the road at the front of our property and of course often we end up seeing them walking all over our front garden to get the ball. I've also caught the same kids picking the fruit of our neighbours LillyPilly tree and throwing it at cars and other houses. Basically I don't think I can safely grow fruit trees and obvious vegetables out the front without these 'pests' attacking them! I don't mind sharing but I get the feeling they wont be taking stuff to eat and wont exactly be watching where they're stepping when they do come to take stuff. So my dream of having the whole property covered with veggies and fruit has gone to poo. I am going to try however to put in herbs and edible flowers that are not so tempting or obviously edible at the front so that not all is lost. Fruit trees will have to be planted in the back. My own father is one of those 'pests' that thinks lemons growing in people's front yards are public property!

So I'll start with the vegetable garden. 'What do I want to grown?' or maybe the question is 'What do I want to eat?' Hmm.... I love vegetables in general. I don't think there really is anything I don't like to eat so how about finding out what vegetables are the most nutritious so that I can get the most out of what I grow? I always liked the idea of growing lettuce but  recently read that lettuce, once a medicinal plant, has had the medicinal milky juice 'farmed' out of it and so now has very little nutritional value and is just used as a 'filler' in salads. So as you can see growing a square meter of lettuce just for some salad filler might not be the best use of my time and resources.

So what do others suggest are the most nutritious vegetables? At  HealthMad  the list included carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, soybeans, broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, kale, aspapagus, brussels sprouts. Perfect Shape Lima beans, peas, cauliflower and artichokes. On another website Most Nutritious Plant Foods, endive topped the list, this is most unfortunate for me because I really don't like eating this stuff! To make it worse it's got oodles of foliate which I am trying to get my hands on at the moment, with baby making and all. Collards are second on the list, but you know what I have no idea what collards are! I've never seen them in shops and I certainly haven't seen seeds for sale.Anastasia always seems to talk of mushrooms and berries, although the ones she has access to are wild, collected from the forest around her. I know I can grow mushrooms at home but I don't know if you can get different varieties and berries they are selling raspberries at Bunnings but don't they get out of hand and produce nasty thorns? I think they also sell blueberries, oh that would be an awesome addition to the garden!

So after a little research I have the following on my 'vegies to grow' list

Spinach                    asparagus
Kale                         endive
brussel sprouts        collards
carrots                     cauliflower
tomatoes                  broccoli
Lima beans                sweet potatoes
peas-snow peas        soybeans
bell peppers

I think leek should also be on this list and of course onions and garlic but they are really for the herb section of the front garden. (people don't go pulling these out of people's front yards do they?) I just learnt that the green parts of beetroot are what's full of vitamin K and the red part has a good amount of foliate. Ha! who would have thought?

Anyhow it's getting very late in fact 1am late and I am starting to get a headache. This I think is a good start but I will continue to look for other things over the next week. Once I have this list together I then ought to calculate when these things will grow and fill in gaps. I would ideally like to have things growing all year round. Something to eat at anytime of year!