September 2012
The Vegie patch was waking up from the long cold Castlemaine winter. As reported in my very first post it had been a mixed start to my gardening life but none-the-less I was encouraged by the limited successes and so I got the idea that I was going to develop my centre of growing excellence for the Spring.

The first job, to remove a small gum tree that had taken root in what was going to be valuable real estate the garden, the location of my new vegie boxes.

October 2012
The vegie boxes above are 1.2m square and are actually decommissioned apple crates. These crates are well used around Castlemaine for the appropriation of growing produce as 40% of all Australia’s apples are grown in this part of Central Victoria, notably the Harcourt Valley. Once I lined my crates with black PVC I set about filling them with layers of lucerne, horse manure, hay and sheep poop, sitting on a bed of moist cardboard. This is commonly known as the lasagne mix (according to my Columbian neighbour).

And so I set about creating a master plan for the vegie patch. Here’s what I planned to grow, in no particular order; tomotoes (multiple varieties, raised from seeds), cucumbers (Lebanese & Continental), pumkins (Kent & Queensland Blue), capsicum, egg plant, red onion, Dutch Cream potatoes, sweet potato, zucchini (I’d been raising from seeds), chillies and carrots. Well this was going to be a veritable feast come harvest time – Liz was very excited, despite the small fortune I’d spent on the set up and seedlings, not to mention time invested.