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Saturday, April 27, 2013

How do I know what to plant and when?

After building our garden beds we are now looking at filling them up with lots of yummy plants. The first question we had was "Well what do we plant?". In the long term we are looking at following a crop rotation scheme that will guide us in providing a years supply of veges and salad for four people. To do this we really need 40 square meters and to start planting in spring.

Since we only have 23 square meters (which is enough for two people mind you) and are starting in Autumn we decided to stick in a Autumn/Winter crop. To guide us in what to plant we have found a handy little website called www.gardenate.com. We picked Australia - Temperate as our climate zone and then picked the things we mostly eat.

To reward our hard work we went to Bunnings and grabbed a few seedlings to give us a head start. But to save money we are raising all our plants from seed so I sourced a years supply from www.diggers.com.au. I have sown some of the seeds directly into the garden beds and the others I am raising in our heated propagator.

If you are interested in knowing what to plant there are a few good resources available. I would recommend the following:
Gardenate http://www.gardenate.com/ (smartphone app available)
Gardening Australia Vegie Guidehttp://www.abc.net.au/gardening/vegieguide/ (smartphone app available)
Diggers Tipshttp://www.diggers.com.au/tips.aspx





Below is a list of what we have currently planted to date:

Bean 'Roc d'Or'
Beetroot 'Detroit 2 Organic'
Beetroot 'Diggers mixed heirloom'
Broccoli 'Green sprouting calabrese'
Brussels sprout 'Long Island Improved'
Carrot 'Heirloom Mix'
Carrot 'Majestic Red'
Carrot 'Topweight'
Cauliflower 'Mini white'
Chard 'Bright Lights'
Chinese cabbage 'Pak Choi'
Common foxglove 'Foxy mix'
Corn 'miracle F1'
Cucumber 'Spacemaster'
Eastern purple coneflower 'Purple'
Echium
Florence fennel
Garlic 'Italian White'
Kale 'Dwarf blue curled'
Kale 'Nero di toscana'
Kangaroo Paw 'Mixed Colours'
Leaf lettuce 'Amish deer tongue'
Leaf lettuce 'Salad Bowl Red & Green Mixed'
Lettuce
Lettuce 'Diggers Heirloom Mix'
Love-in-a-mist
Pea 'Early crop massey'
Rocket 'Pronto'
Romaine lettuce 'Baby Cos'
Salad mix 'Asian Baby Leaf'
Sea holly
Shallot
Silverbeet 'Swiss chard'
Snap pea 'Stringless sugar snap'
Spinach 'Bloomsdale'
Spinach 'English Medania'
Sweet Annie
Sweet corn