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Gardening in Oz

New to gardening! Need help with veggie and herb garden

12 years ago

Hello,

I live in Byron Bay and the place that I have recently moved into has 4 rectangular raised garden beds like the one pictured.
I have bought some seeds (sweet basil, tarragon, italian parsley, coriander, eggplant, capsicum and roma tomatoes)
I really want to get into gardening as a hobby but I don't know anything about it!
I found some potting mix and some dynamic lifter (not sure what that is) in the shed and I've heard you can start seeds in cardboard egg cartons with soil (we have tons of egg cartons).
Just wondering if anyone has any tips for getting started or knows this area well and could recommend some community gardens that I could check out?
Thanks for your help! :)

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Comments (3)

alisonoz_gw
12 years ago
Good on you!

I googled up some links for local groups you might investigate

Mullumbimby community gardens website
http://mullumbimbycommunitygardens.org/

Ocean shores area
http://www.sharacommunitygardens.org/

Byron Bay seedsavers - community gardens links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSfUtjrpIUk

Ballina
http://www.ballina.nsw.gov.au/cp_themes/default/page.asp?p=DOC-FPQ-70-63-42

Lismore community garden
http://www.rrcf.org.au/

See if you can ID what you have in those planters that's worth saving (or saving but moving) in the way of herbs, then you can dig around and improve the soil a bit.

Dynamic lifted is composted "chook poo".

It would be useful if you also started up a little compost area so that you can break down your kitchen waste peelings to add to the soil.

A simple range of herbs - that you would actually use - and the same for vegetables, will be a good start. Capsicum or peppers, tomatoes, eggplant are good. Beans are easy to grow from now on and lettuce do OK pretty well year round as do chives. You could try some strawberries also.
Shnookums
Original Author
12 years ago
Hi Alison!
Thanks so much for your help, I'll definitely check out the links :)
So it would be good to mix dynamic lifter into the soil before i plant anything?
Thanks again!! x
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Thanks so much for all the helpful replies. My father is fine to work with, although I don't think we'll actually be working much together, since he is home all day, which is when he likes to garden, and I won't be there until I get out of work. However, my 17 yo daughter is very keen to garden, as she is planning to major in Biology in college, with a focus on botany. So I have a helper who is voraciously reading up on gardening right now. We went to a local nursery this weekend and picked up seedlings: peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce, onions, corn, watermelon, cantalope and strawberries, as well as some herbs: dill, tarragon, mint, rosemary, thyme and chives. We didn't bother with tomatoes because my father aleady has too many tomato plants, so there'll be plenty to share. I wasn't sure how big of a plot he tilled, so I didn't get many plants of each of these. We'll probably add some zucchini and pumpkin and some other kind of squash if we have space. We went to his house yesterday, but we didn't plant - there were 3 tilled areas, but I wasn't sure which one was mine, and he wasn't home to ask. Plus, it was raining. He definitely prepped the soil already - there was definitely manure in the mix. I'll keep you posted on the progress of our garden. I'll be interested to see if any of the cabbage and lettuce survive the rabbits - my father has tried various non-lethal methods to keep the critters away, and right now, he plants each of his cabbages in an individual cage of chicken wire.
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alisonoz_gw
12 years ago
Dynamic lifter is a good fertilizer but before you do anything you need to see what the soil is like. Fertilizer won't improve soil and is a waste of money if your plants are struggling in soil that's too light or too heavy, or full of roots from competing trees.
I would salvage what I could from those gardens - perennials herbs etc, weed out the rest (saving the sunflower seeds for the birds :-) ) and dig it over.
What you need is good soil to grow veggies. Too sandy will need compost added to bulk it up and reduce water loss. Too old and heavy may just need breaking up, watering, compost and working over.
You may even need to bring in some better soil to work into what you've got.
So, I'd go for compost and soil improvement first. That might also involve adding some organic fertilizers. If you are on a budget, you should also start setting up your own compost area so you can recycle your "good" kitchen scraps and "good" weeds.
I notice a number of skinny things on top of the soil that I would normally call "catkins" and suspect come from a pine tree or similar - do you have any overhanging trees like that?

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