There is a twist to this story, but it does not end with beautiful, edible produce. The new house came with a garden bed in the backyard. It seemed, at the time, a perfect place to start our veggie patch. It was long, raised, in a sunny spot and right up against a fence.
How wrong I was.
First things first, this raised garden bed came ready packed with 4 tall privacy screen trees. I say privacy screen trees because that was their only purpose. They were not particularly pretty, they dropped funny red berries on the ground, and their branches were sporadic at best. I don’t know what kind of trees they were, but it didn’t matter. They were gone before I could even be bothered to discover their name. (okay, well I kept the two that were most useful screeners, and also they happened to be the healthiest, and kind of out of the way)
Next, I got to work experimenting with what might work there. I threw in some worm castings for good measure, but managed to plant small tomatoes, carrot, thyme, mint, basil, corn, garlic and zucchini. Okay, so I went a bit overboard, but this was exciting stuff for me!
Everything died.
Everything.
My favourite story is that of the corn. It is supposedly easy, so I planted it with high expectations. I knew it grew tall, I knew it needed LOTS of water and Nitrogen (yay for chook poo!) and plenty of sun. I gave it all of that, but it only grew to be 3 feet tall. 3 feet! I kept willing it to grow taller, but it stunted, as did the resulting corn. In fact, I was digging in that garden bed again today and discovered a tiny little corn ear, all mouldy and grey, with a dismal little cob inside about the size of my little toe. Oh the shame!
part of the garden bed, showing my stunted corn
So I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I had looked into what were the easy crops to grow in my many garden books and on Pintrest, but I paid no attention to the soil, to enriching it, and ensuring it was ready for such an influx of vegetation. Not only this, but the bed also unfortunately lays in the unrelenting path of the late afternoon sun – not a very nice place for any aspiring vegetable to be.
But the poor soil and poor positioning were not the only problems faced by my poor plants. Every night, the little darlings were attacked without resistance by snails who hid between the bed and the corrugated iron fencing. Let me make myself clear here. I hate snails. I’ve always hated them. As a child, we used to collect them from our garden and thrown them under the wheels of cars passing in the street. Oh, what fun we used to have!
This was like Revenge of the Snails, because as I soon discovered, on a cool evening, you couldn’t walk two steps without stepping on one of the little blighters. If I shone a light on them, it was all out war against my plants.
What is an aspiring gardener to do? I tried the old beer trap trick. I caught one. One measly little snail.
Next, I tried some salt on the rims of the garden bed. I managed to get a few with this method… maybe a dozen or so in a couple of nights. But still, the infestation continued.
One wet morning, after inspecting my poor, miserable excuse for a veggie patch once more, and being confronted by dozens of snails lazily eating the grass, something clicked inside me. I grabbed a milk carton and began collecting them in it. I filled the carton. They oozed, fizzed, mated and generally grossed me out. But they were off my garden. The next day I did the same thing. Overall I think I collected about 200 snails in 2 days. Gross! Funnily enough it was the most effective method. Since this mass murder of snails, I only ever see the occasional snail. The chooks also loved to eat them…. but that’s another story.
So what is my solution to the garden bed situation? Here’s the twist. I’m dismantling the garden bed. I hate the garden bed. The garden bed is the devil. It must be gone! Fortunately I have a new job for all that wood, and a new plan for all the new space…. but more about that later.
For now, I maintain my Brown Thumb status.
Confessions of a Brown Thumb 