In my garden - July 2025

This month, I have a renewed energy for the garden and enthusiasm to try growing produce for sale again. I have been here before, in this “Can I turn my hobby into a financially viable operation?” space.

The weather has been unseasonably warm this winter which has made it more enticing getting into the garden and the soil and also quite exciting seeing how good some of my beds look after 3 years of building soil health.

I have marked out 20 beds 75cm wide by 10m long with 45cm paths between each bed and a mow strip around the outside. 3 of these have been planted in asparagus which I grew from seed 3 years ago. The crowns were well established but in an area that the cattle broke into and made into paddock. It was also an area that was very difficult to keep weed free. Digging the crowns is a good workout, even in sandy soil. So these will be permanent asparagus beds in the main vege patch now which removes these beds for annual crops. So I am playing with the idea of expanding to another patch. But first, fencing will be required.

Creating new beds is a bit of work but once they are established, I am happy with a permanent bed system. This time I am planning to make more use of tarps for weed suppression and breaking down mulch on the surface. Hopefully, mulching, tarping and broadforking will be enough to start new beds, without having to turn the soil over. If I get started now, I should have a few more beds ready for planting out in the spring.

The strawberry plants have been uncovered from the weeds, mostly sheep sorrel and transplanted out into newly broadforked beds with straw mulch.

A few stray carrots and garlic plants have been transplanted.

I am not making any compost in bins anymore. All composting is currently being done directly onto the beds and I have a few reasons for this approach. One major advantage is that I can keep the soil covered by either growing plants or laying down composting material. The major disadvantage is that I will have no idea about the nutrient status of the bed as each bed will have a different range of materials added over time. The best way to deal with this would be soil testing but I will most likely just look at the colour, consistency and smell of the soil and see how well plants are growing in the bed.

I am hoping the get some beetroot and onion seeds started this month for early planting under covers.

Ideally, I would like to get fruit trees in but this is also going to require some more fencing to be finished and time!