There is nothing quite like tuning in to nature, walking barefoot, getting your hands dirty, listening to all the sounds around you, and admiring all the incredible wildlife.
Unless you are in our shoes….or situation should I say.
Don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE those things and DO those things, but our dreams of starting a modern homestead on our humble property soon became a little trickier and harder than we thought. It was not long after meeting the neighbours and our first major rain storm, that we realised our soil was absolutely no good for planting in. Clay soil with zero drainage.
How I wished I listened the first time! Some money and efforts wasted, along with some hopes and dreams. Ok, maybe not so much the last bit. I don’t give up that easily. Did I have fun? Absolutely! Am I enjoying the fruits of my labour….not so much.
So what went wrong? Stubbornness. I decided that I was going to experiment for myself and figure out what the best possible ways to plant in our own garden would be. I was not having some woman I don’t know tell me how to plant. The irony here is she was right, and I listen to YouTubers on the subject, who are people I do not know! We did also only move and settle in by September, and only got planting in mid spring! So yeah there is that…
Some of my mistakes:
- I did not listen to solid advice from a person who has lived next door for 30 plus years! All my fruit trees are planted in ground. Due to this, I lost my fig tree after the heavy rains as the soil does not drain, the poor thing completely rotted! It looks like the avo and mulberry are not too happy either.
- I did not do enough research on the types of plants I was planting. I made the grave mistake of assuming that if the nursery was selling them they HAD to be in season. Oh I learnt this one the hard way! In short, some of these fruits and veggies amounted to nothing. Don’t get me wrong, the actual plants grew, but they produced no edible produce.
- I watered all plants with the same amount of water. Such a rookie mistake! Thankfully I only lost one plant due to this mistake.
- I have not done enough research on fertilizers and compost. This is a priority for this years efforts!
- Growing squash on the ground instead of raised up and on an arch. Again, with the rain the plants were soggy, some vines become rotten, and critters got into some of the produce. Not all were lost though.
- Planting veggies I do not eat. Why do us novice gardeners do this!? I think it has something to do with excitement and the shear joy of growing your own food. My zucchini and radish did really well. I had to quickly learn how to disguise zucchini in food as I do not eat it. I quickly surprised myself here by making some delicious muffins, brownies, noodles and lasagna. So not a huge mistake as I will definitely be incorporating these next season! I still haven’t learnt though as I currently have eggplant growing! Anyone have some great recipes??
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Some triumphs:
- Mistakes were made and lessons learned! I think this is important to highlight, because if you are like me, you will make mistakes and it can be disheartening. I had to remind myself countless times that this was all just one big experiment. I purposefully did not grow a lot, as I think deep down I knew there would be many failures along the way.
- I should add I tired to make a sun map, which is very important and I would highly suggest you do this, however seeing as we have little to no trees, our garden is mostly full sun! The sun map helped confirm this for the chosen gardening spots.
- I have successfully set up 3 raised garden beds – well, still a work in progress if I am honest. I need to fill the beds with more soil!
- We grew sweet corn, zucchini, lettuce, herbs, radish, butternut and capsicum rather successfully.
- I currently have peanuts, eggplant, carrots and sweet potato growing, along with pumpkin and capsicums.
- I successfully brought my capsicums back from the brink of extinction – they needed calcium, who knew? Apparently every other gardener out there…
- I’ve learn to get creative in the kitchen…insert zucchini!
So not all is lost. I think it added to the experience. Sometimes we just need to find out things for ourselves in order to succeed and truly appreciate the efforts put in.
Happy gardening! I hope you novice gardeners like me can learn from some of my mistakes, and be brave to share some of yours so we can all learn together. Let me know if you have any tips and tricks around fertilizers and compost. I will listen this time! 🙂