Dilemmas and Decisions

We were fortunate enough to be able to buy a fairly modest (by today's standards) house sited pretty centrally on a 600+ square metre block. This means we have decent sized gardens the whole way round the house, which is somewhat daunting when while most of the gardens are fine, they do need a lot of attention to bring them up to even a good standard.

It is easy to sit back and do nothing because doing anything looks scary, and it is a ploy I'll often use when procrastinating. I have decided though, that I would like to start both a veggie patch, and a compost heap. I'd like to reduce how much rubbish we throw out, and I'd like to buy less at the supermarket. In our recent diet regime we learned that there are some veggies we eat plenty of, that would be handy to be able to at least supplement our purchases, or be self sufficient with.

The list that was brainstormed with BabyCakes the other night is:

1. spinach (probably NZ spinach)
   
2. tomatoes
3. zucchini
4. corn
5. rocket
6. lettuce (probably cos)
7. carrot
8. broccoli

According to my "Kitchen Garden" book they are all pretty much sown/ transplanted in spring, and harvested in summer through to autumn, with some starting harvest in spring. (The picture is of the two books that I own about gardening - they are pretty much my first reference point these days!)

There are pretty much two possible sites for the garden bed in mind, both with their own issues. One is in the back right hand corner of the back yard, which sees a lot of sun and is bordered creating a nice deep garden bed.... with a giant tree stump in the middle of it, and some pesky self sown jacaranda (ish) trees in the other corner of that patch. Stump grinding sounds like it could be an expensive job - but we have other stumps left by the previous owner that will also need grinding so it is a known project on our 'to spend money on' list.

The other site is to the left of the back deck, along the fence line, just inside our new(ish) fence. At the moment, it gets a lot of sun, but we have planted passion fruit vines along the fence and if they ever get established, will block out the afternoon sun. This bed is much narrower in depth, with many less obstructions in it - and about as far away from the back steps as you could possibly get, and stay in the back yard. The key to good use and maintenance of both a kitchen garden and compost heap is of course, to be as close as possible to the kitchen!

We do have a few weeks to weigh the options up, and come up with a solution. Of course, I guess I could also move the garden bed after the first season if the results are not as planned.

Too, installing a water tank would also be handy before we embarked on our edible garden... but then the gutters would need replacing, given how many holes there are in them...

Saving money on the groceries could turn out to be an expensive process!