Soil needs to be great in your entire garden, but getting it right in your vegetable garden is a must. When I hear folk mention they don't have green thumbs, I am quick to remind them it’s not green thumbs they require, but brown hands. Get your soil right and you can grown anything.

We are blessed to be living near a river, so our soils are naturally sandy loam, relatively rich river soils with not too many weeds (touch wood) and little to no clay.

The area we are dedicating to the veg garden is on the south side of our house, so not ideal in relation to amount of sun, but perfect for proximity, wind protection and aesthetics.

This part of the garden, prior to it being ours, was a large water tank (underground - that failed and was demolished - somewhat- some years ago) then it became an area where cars parked. So as far as the soil goes, it is fill from some unknown location and incredibly compacted and nutrient deprived.

My first job was to decide exactly where I wanted the beds, as I was having gravel paths between the beds, I didn't need to dig the whole site. Beds decided, it was time to bring in the big guns, that is machinery to dig the soil as shovels were not going to provide any impact. Beds were dug, turned and turned again, over a period of a few weeks. During this time I added a few things but mainly manure ( lots of it). I also added ash from our fire, a little gypsum, a little lime and some veggie mix soil. Then mulch and for our veg garden I only use lucerne hay. I also like to do a pH soil test, just to determine the action I should take. The soils in this part of the country are mostly acidic, but I have been tricked a few times and found quite alkaline soils, so its worth testing, plants do not like extremes of either.

Other things worth adding to veg beds include but not limited to, are, your own compost, worm castings, crushed egg shells, food wastes and soil probiotics.

I wanted to plant a few things immediately so I decided on which beds for planting and left a few beds to fallow. 

My biggest problem has been weeds, not weeds by everyone’s standards, but none the less, plants in the wrong place. I have a ridiculously over achieving rocket, prolifically spreading itself through the entire garden. I love rocket, but only when it’s contained. Lettuce has also made itself well known throughout and has to be removed in places, unfortunately. Along with these I have purslane, wire weed, couch, clover and winter grass making their presence known and annoying. In this part of the garden, I will not use any herbicides, so elimination will be a potentially slow and laborious, sometimes tedious, job. I am having success with mulch and hand weeding, and will continue to do this.

I am planning to build raised beds around each bed and will add more manure and compost as required.

The wall around the garden is partially constructed, one side, two to go and each 200 x 200 timber post is heavy and awkward to place, but we are determined to create a beautiful space. Time will tell.