The plot thickens How to keep your vegie patch thriving and harvest your best-ever crops

Grow and harvest – then reap the rewards at your table!

You’ve set up a little vegie plot – a raised bed in the garden or containers on the balcony – chosen your plants and are looking forward to a summer crop of tasty produce. Now you have to schedule in planting, feeding, weeding, watering, and pest and disease control, which are crucial to a successful harvest. Problem is, in warmer weather you want to be out doing other things, so here’s how to make these tasks quick and easy.

GROW YOUR OWN CARE TIPS AND TRICKS FOR YOUR PLOT

• Good-quality garden soil or po ing mix should provide you with enough nutrients to see you through the season.

• Organic mulch covering the soil helps to suppress weeds and prevent water evaporation. Use a straw mulch from legumes, such as lucerne or peas, as it has a high nutrient content and, as it breaks down, it adds to the supply of nutrients in the soil.

• For watering, you can set up an irrigation system if you have a garden that can accommodate it. Just make sure the water gets into the soil and thus the roots, not the leaves on top. Sprinklers are great for lawns but not necessarily for plants, as water lingering on foliage can cause fungal problems. Or, try plastic water bottles – fill with water, nail a hole in the cap, remove nail, replace cap on the bottle and bury upside down in the soil near your plants. This way water gets to the roots – where it’s needed – and doesn’t evaporate. Remember to refill them when empty.

• Control pests and night-time foragers with plastic cloches over individual plants, or ne ing. Snails and slugs are put off by small, sharp objects (you can use coarse sand or fine gravel). Yellow sticky traps a ract flying insects. Or go for companion planting (see page 46).

ROTATE YOUR CROPS

You may have a plan for where you want to plant your favourites, but it’s important to change this arrangement each year and only go back to the initial plan a er three years. This helps prevent pests and diseases, especially soil pathogens. It also means the soil is not depleted of the nutrients particular plants may favour.

PROGRESSIVE PLANTING

Many spring and summer vegetables are quick growing, such as lettuces, but they are also quick to perish. So don’t plant 24 lettuces at the same time as you’ll be hard pressed to eat them all before they go off. Instead, in the first week plant five lettuces, and the next week another five, and keep going throughout the summer. That way your summer salads are always fresh. Also, you don’t need to harvest whole loose-leaf lettuces. Just pick what leaves you need for dinner and leave the plant in the ground to produce more fresh leaves.

Most vegetables are pretty tough and all they really need is water and sunshine

GROW INTENSIVELY

With container or raised-bed gardening, you don’t walk through a plot to weed, feed and harvest, so you have more space for the mature size of your crops. So why not ditch the convention of putting the same plants in long, neat rows and mix your vegies up instead? Benefits include:

• Plants give shade and cool the soil, meaning fewer weeds and less water evaporation.

• The path soil doesn’t become compacted.

• Shallow-rooted vegies next to deep-rooted ones cuts competition for water and nutrients as happens when the same vegies are planted in groups.

Begin harvesting beets when the root ball is golf-ball size, or let them grow fatter.