May 8

I was certain I had a picture on here... can't find it.

Well, the garden now has 4 vege beds (two of the doubles like in the last post) and each double-bed has been filled with a trailerfull of manure.

It was hard work!

Luckily it was free, though. I took the trailer to the stockyards, where you can just help yourself to... erm... what washes out of the cattle trucks. The first day it was wet, heavy stuff. The next time, about a week later, it was drier, but I was still a bit exhausted by digging a tonne of it twice, first into the trailer, then out into the garden.

Not much is going on now. The seedlings are surviving, though I've been neglecting them. The second lot of zucchinis planted out into the hexagarden died off, too. But I can't really plant anything into the manure until it breaks down quite a bit.

Here's my basic plan for when we have 5 beds going.

Vege Garden rotation

Bed 1
Spring: peas, beans (legumes)
Summer/Autumn: cauli, broc, cabbage

Bed 2
Spring: Onion, leek (alliums)
Summer/Autumn: cauli, broc, cabbage

Bed 3
Early Spring: dig in manure
Late Spring: tomatoes, capsicum, (acid lovers)
Autumn: add lime, mulch

Bed 4
Spring: corn, cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini (curcurbits)
Autumn: manure

Bed 5
Spring: root crops and asian veges

Next year: bed 1 crop to bed 2, bed 5 crop to bed 1, etc.