Tim's Blog

The new garden is built largely for photography purposes, part of a publishing project I will be working on for the next 18 months or so. So it has to look good, but it will also be productive.

It has been a lot of work so far. The area was completely covered in Watsonia and blackberry, with just a few spaces left for some periwinkle (Vinca major).

I have been thinking a lot about weeds as I work my way into the patch; partly die to the immediate task, but also because my current writing project is a book on organic weed control. I have also been thinking about what to grow in the new garden.

Some crops will be determined by my requirement for photographs. Apart from that, how does one decide what to plant? I think there are several obvious alternatives.

I could go for any of the following strategies:

• high use vegies, and grow potatoes. Spuds are great for breaking new ground, they can be stored (which is good because there is a risk of ‘flood or famine’ from a home garden veggie plot) but on the other hand spuds are cheap and plentiful
• the highest value crops. This strategy replaces more expensive purchases like tomatoes with home supply, with the added benefit that garden tomatoes taste great
• the ‘best fresh’ approach where I grow those plants that taste terrific when they are just picked, such as sweet corn. The shop-bought ones can never match the ones that go straight from the plant to the pot
• the everyday use products. Parsley and spring onion for instance can make their way into a breakfast omelette and lunchtime salad and an evening casserole
• the unusual and hard to buy, such as globe artichoke or salsify

I will have to consider water use too, although the garden has a bore supplying plenty of good quality water, it will be a demonstration project, so it should be relevant to what other gardeners are confronting at the present time.

I don’t know what I will be planting yet; probably a mix of all of the above, but it gives me plenty to think about while toiling away at the weeds.

I am pretty certain that I will use raised beds, running north/south, and plenty of best compost to get the beds going. We will post some photos of the garden during the summer, and I will post some more blogs on those important decisions about what to plant.

And I know I shouldn’t be counting the chickens until they hatch, but I am also looking forward to a beefsteak tomato sandwich and some fresh grilled yummy sweet corn.