Mmm, beans

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For the last few weeks I have been idly musing about an enclosed area of the garden which I’m certain used to be a vegetable garden. (There’s a rogue pumpkin vine in the near vicinity, as well as some parsley and chives in a raised container - surviving, miraculously, despite my benevolent neglect since moving in.) I took advantage of the long weekend to grab myself a spade and do some investigation into the deep leaf litter which had covered up the enclosure.

I was delighted to uncover a neat paved path running down the middle of the enclosed bed, with a little irrigation system set up alongside. The leaf litter had kept the soil fairly loose and moist, and I dug through it all, loosening it up further. There was a high circle of chicken wire that seemed to have been used as a support for either beans or tomatoes. A large bathtub that I had thought was filled with weeds was in fact filled with lovely moist soil that had been carefully covered up with sacks, over which leaf litter had fallen.

I took off to the nursery and bought myself a little selection of seedlings, as well as some commercial compost mix, which I dug into the garden bed and the bathtub. Sweet basil and dill went into the bathtub, and roma tomatoes went around the chicken wire circle, ready to support them when they grow a little taller. I planted dwarf french beans along the back of the bed, next to a large wall of wire for a climbing support, and I filled the rest of the bed with capsicum, cauliflower and lettuce seedlings. It was so much fun having such space to play with, a proper garden bed and not a tiny area of lawn like those I’d enthusiastically excavated in the past - I think it’s the first time I haven’t crowded seedlings together, or tried to grow things in pots. I have high hopes for the success of this vegie garden, and enthusiastic visions of home grown dinners of cauliflower and beans.

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