Self care by growing a garden

Hi @Former-Member

I have 2 veggie patches. One is dedicated just to asparagus which takes up a lot of space, the other has at the moment spinach, rocket, parsley,,basil, chilli, snow peas, and strawberries. Its my pride and joy! Its definitely very grounding to potter around in the garden, and helps me when things are spiralling in other areas.

Your veg patch sounds lovely @Sheila

Yes, the garden does help kerp us grounded, at one stage when things were difficult I would head out and tackle the dock in our garden - a weed with a forking taproot.

Hi @Sheila. Yeah, the garden's a good place for keeping the mind healthy. 🙂

Something I've thought of trying in my little asparagus patch, but haven't got to yet, is planting peas to grow over winter while it's dormant. Peas put nitrogen into the soil, which the asparagus would appreciate, and asparagus is very deep rooted, so the shallow rooted peas shouldn't impinge on their soil space. The biggest barrier is that we get wallabies visiting our garden, and they like peas too. Am thinking now I could kind of solve that by growing Sweet Peas instead. I've never had them snack on those.

We have an asparagus patch which is rather sparse but we have one purple variety among the green @Smc @Sheila. The bed is quite weedy at present. I remember reading how Jackie French plants pansies with onions to keep the weeds down and I wondered if doing something like that with the asparagus would help.

@Former-Member, I don't think I'd try onions with asparagus, because they'd still be growing when the asparagus sprouted in spring, and they might be competing with each other. I think the onions would come off second best. Pansies are low growing, so they should work nicely. Some of the smaller types of looseleaf lettuce might do OK too.

Have begun planting over chookie's spot. So far, a Chinese Cabbage, primulas, cornflowers, dill, and some teeny tiny poppies that I transplanted from the next spot I'll be working on. I've left a spot in the middle for larkspurs. I also planted a bit more Printanoor garlic, which by now is starting to sprout. And bought some more plants and seeds today. Hostas, a lemon melalucea, a heuchera, an abutilon, "Pizza Thyme" (prostrate culinary variety), some aquilegia seedlings... peony poppy, Oriental poppy and snapdragon seeds. I haven't succeeded with Oriental poppy seeds in the past, but at $3 something a packet, I'm willing to risk another try.

Previous plantings are all "so far, so good", so I'm hoping I'm on track for that colourful spring. A few tulip shoots are showing, and the ranunculas have sprouted. 🙂

@Smc ,

Wow! You have quite a garden !! And some great thoughts! I will be taking all these ideas on board. 🌱

wow @Former-Member , @Smc , @Sheila , you are soo good , not mei am afraid to say

how about you @Determined , @Ali11 , have you got a vege garden

@Sheila, I've got a garden that moves in and out of periods of neglect. I've very deliberately made it "crisis resistant" by planting lots of perennial or self seeding flowering and edible things, so that if we have a crummy year for one reason or another, there's still something to pick.

This past summer was a bit crummy. Lots of hard stuff with our MI Older Daughter, among other things, so the garden was left to itself a lot. I lost some of my potted plants in the heat. I was depressed and unmotivated... am currently making the effort to pull myself and the garden back together, and reclaim both from the "weeds".

Veg garden on my to do list @Shaz51 but not got that far yet.

We have orange and mandarin trees in our back yard that I was contemplating cutting out as they looked a bit past it. With the cooler weather they are now covered in fruit. Tried some of the mandarin this ave and lovely. I was supprised .