Lazy Vegetable Gardening

lazy vegetable patch

Author: Julie

Lazy vegetable gardening

Lately it seems like everyone is starting to grow their own vegetables at home. It’s a good way to guarantee you’re getting local, organic food, and can be a really rewarding hobby.

You’ve probably seen the beautiful vegie patches on tv, with neatly ordered rows in sturdy planter boxes filling up nearly a whole backyard. They look great, but they also seem a little too time-consuming for someone with a busy life. Luckily, you don’t have to jump right into the deep end with vegetable gardening: you can get started in just one afternoon.

My husband and I have got a lovely little vegie patch, but we were far too slack to set up something like you see on tv. Plus, we didn’t even know if we would like gardening, or be any good at it. Here’s how we got started in 6 easy steps.

1. Set up a spot for your vegie garden
Pick a place you can get started in. It could be anywhere from 3 feet square to several metres, should get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day, and be easy to water. We pulled out a shrub we didn’t like that was close to one of our sprinklers and decided that was good enough to start with. A big rectangular pot near your outside tap is just as good.

2. Pick the vegies you want
There are so many vegetables you could be growing that it might seem hard to choose, but there’s an easy method: pick your favourites! What do your kids like, or what do you remember tasting better when you were a kid? Pick two or three to start with – don’t try to supply all your household needs at first. We decided on tomatoes, basil and beetroot for our test-run.

3. Gather your supplies and prepare the soil
Pretty much every garden centre has got seeds for sale, but I like the Diggers Club range too. If you’ve already got a compost bin, you’re in luck, otherwise you’ll need to buy some. If you’re using a big pot then you’ll want some potting mix as well. You’ll also need a bit of mulch: you can buy this, or make your own from garden prunings. If you’ve got some gardening friends, ask them if they’ve got any leftovers or spare supplies to get you started.

4. Get planting!
Follow the directions on the seed packets. If you’ve got some saved seeds from friends, a good average is to plant them a centimetre or two deep, about 15 cm apart. Water them in a little bit, then put mulch around them to stop weeds from popping up. It should only take 10 minutes to get them sorted out.

5. Mark on the calendar when you can expect to harvest
The first four steps above can be done in one afternoon, but now we get to the time-consuming part: waiting for your vegies to grow. Seed packets usually tell you when you can expect to get some produce. Write it down so you don’t forget to check on your plants!

6. Maintenance
Once every couple of days (when you’re watering, if doing that by hand) take 5 minutes to look over your seedlings. Check for bugs, snails and weeds. Pick off the bugs and snails, pluck the weeds out before they get too big. We generally stop hand-weeding when the vegetable plants are bigger than the weeds – usually the plants will outcrowd them if given a chance to get established.

Optional extras

Plant some tansy to attract ladybirds, who will eat any tiny bugs trying to snack on your vegetables.
Make a beer trap for snails and slaters – pop a jar in the ground with a bit of beer in it. The little ctters will jump in for the beer and not be able to get out, at which point you can collect them and dispose of them.

As you can see, it really doesn’t take long to get started with your own vegetable garden. In our first year, our beetroot didn’t work out so well, but we got tons of cherry tomatoes and lots of fresh basil.

We enjoy it so much that this year we’ve dug up some lawn and gotten one of those fancy planters – but we started with a sandy spot and three packets of seeds. Why not give it a go, just to see if you like it?

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