Farm Fare #8: The Winter Vege Patch

Most people are amazed at the size of our vege garden, especially when its only for 2 people.  It is about 10 metres wide and 20 metres long.  This is made up of 6 long beds (I couldn't get them all in the photo) for larger crops and 6 small beds, including the asparagus bed, for smaller crops.  However, not all the beds are used at the same time.  This gives us time to:

• Weed
• Fallow
• or Fertilise

Some years are more productive than others, depending on how much time and energy there is left over by other demands like animals.

The beds are made from a pile of scaffolding boards that we bought off 'Trade Me' a few years ago.  Unfortunately, it is untreated and 2-3 of the larger beds are rotting away.  I guess this gives us the opportunity to re think and redesign the garden a bit so to accommodate new ventures (like turning the old chicken pen area into the new berry cage which is right next to the vege garden).

We worked out a long time ago that raised beds just over a metre wide was the way to go.  It just makes  managing produce and weeding just that much easier.

However, we discovered last year that preparation of the Spring vege garden is benefitted by composting and then covering the beds with weed mat for 2-3 months.  Our only problem is that weed mat comes at around 900mm wide!!  Last year we just covered what we could and it certainly helped.  This year we plan to build new beds to accommodate!!

So our Winter vege patch is undergoing a step process:

1. At the end of Autumn, get rid of any left over produce and give the beds a proper weeding over, digging down to catch any errant roots. (We fed our weeds to the pigs who loved it1!)
2. Let the ground lie for a month to give any other weeds a chance to pop up and be taken out.  The chickens are allowed to forage through the vege garden at this stage and they have a tendency to gobble up the emerging young roots.
3. Compost.  Here is a variety that we have tried and are still testing:

• Chicken manure
• Pig manure
• comfrey tea
• mustard

     4.  Cover until Spring.

Our garden is at Stage 3.  We have yet to finish composting and then cover.  Of course lots of people use their vege garden in Winter too.  However we tend to use our hothouse for that so the only crop we put in at this time is the garlic bed.