Starting out

I'm occasionally asked by friends who would like to start a herb and veggie garden what plants to start with. The answer varies according to climate and soil type, so those would be the first things to establish. Are you in a cold climate, temperate, sub-tropical? This will greatly affect what you can grow well. The other thing to consider is soil type. This isn't an issue if you're going to use raised garden beds, which I'd recommend. The local soil type here is clay in which not much grows at all, although leeks like it.

Starting out in Winter will be frustrating because you're limited to what you can grow and it will grow slowly. But it is a great time to plan and prepare your vegetable garden. If buying raised garden beds I have found wooden frames (sleepers) as these have worked best for us. The stainless steel ones tend to heat up and dry out the soil. There are some concerns about wood treatments leeching into the soil but these concerns can be brought up against most types of garden bed containers so it's a matter of going with what you feel comfortable with. There is a big variety of garden bed edging that can be used - truck tyres, hay bales, bricks. What you choose depends on the look you are after and how temporary or permanent you want the bed to be. Stainless steel or sleepers are usually the preferred option because they are easy but if you hunt around, there are cheaper options - especially if you recycle. One of our beds was once a sandpit. I would recommend not skimping on soil though. Our local garden centre recently did an experiment by planting lettuces directly in a bag of their own soil and some in a bag of soil bought from the supermarket. The results spoke for themselves.

Consider the shape of the bed - you need to be able to easily reach the centre of the bed for sewing and harvesting. I love the idea of mandala gardens which are designed to avoid having to tread on soil - something I occasionally have to do to reach the back of one of our beds. This compacts the soil and makes it difficult for plants to grow so I am always careful to tread in the same spot. If you are fortunate enough to have the space, aim to have four garden beds - this allows for crop rotation. There's no such thing 'too much' of a harvest of something, you can make chutney or jam or other preserves and some vegetables (e.g. green beans, corn) freeze well. You can base the size of your garden bed according to your requirements but having more than one will help eliminate any soil problems. I find some plants work well in one bed but not in another according to shade, soil type, depth etc.

Most vegetable plants need full sunshine. Our best performing bed is one that gets full morning sun and dappled sun in the afternoon (shaded by the lemon tree). This is because it's not subject to the harsh early afternoon summer sun. Don't plant along a fence line - the bed won't get enough light - but if planting in the middle of the garden, consider that the bed may need some shade from midday sun in summer, depending on your location.

Radish are often said to be a good plant to sew first because they germinate quickly so you can see them appearing. Carrots take a long time to germinate and look like grass at first so while usually easy to grow, if you haven't planned your bed well, it can be easy to accidentally dig them up. Plant what you eat - there's no point planting radishes if nobody in the household eats them.

There are a couple of great apps and websites that can help you with deciding what to plant and when. One is Gardenate which gives monthly advice depending on your climate. I also like the Yates website for providing advice on what to sew and common problems. I've found that growing plants from seed is the easy part - keeping them alive is the real challenge!

Greenhouses and pizza

Here is my temporary greenhouse. My main aim for it was to reduce frost damage to eggplants but there are also a few butter lettuces that are enjoying the unseasonal warmth and humidity. The rest of the garden is still growing slowly although the silverbeet and celery continue to be regular providers and we've used spring onions in lots of dishes. I'm also still picking some late cherry tomatoes and even the occasional strawberry. The pizza below was made using sill-ripened cherry tomatoes.

You are my sunshine

This is my first Winter as a veggie gardener and I have discovered, somewhat sadly, that the garden does not get much sunlight during the colder months. This is in part due to fences and neighbouring building but even when the sun is at it's highest, it's blocked out by a large gum tree in a neighbour's garden. Consequently things are growing very very slowly.

So mostly I'm using herbs and the occasional stalk of celery for flavouring. And the other night I harvested a first chilli for chilli con carne. It's quite a hot variety, I only used half but it still had quite a kick. Also a couple of potatoes for cottage pie.

There are lots of peas and bean and snowpea plants growing but nothing to harvest as yet. I'm still getting a few cherry tomatoes but mostly they need ripening on the sill. It's easy to see why jams, preserves and chutneys originated. I havested most of the basil to make basil pesto and froze some for when I need a taste of summer.

I'll 'ave you lamb shanks

A sign of a good gardener is often how big they can grow their produce. Is bigger always better?

This giant tomato (being held by a grub worm), tasted just as delicious as it's regular sized brothers. It formed the basis for these garlic and rosemary lamb shanks using rosemary, carrots, tomatoes and a few green beans from the garden.

It's getting too cold to grow tomatoes and I've pulled up all but the Tommy Toe and one cherry tomatoe. The last of the tomatoes are now ripening on the kitchen window sill. Guess we'll have to wait until Spring to try and grow another whopper tom.

MasterChef

I missed the first two seasons of MasterChef but I've got into it third time round. And like many others I've been inspired to try some new things in the kitchen. I mainly cook meals the whole family will enjoy but tonight I decided to try something cooked just to please me. I didn't follow a recipe, just followed my MasterChef instincts. The result was creamy smoked salmon pasta (using lemon, silverbeet, dill and spring onion from the garden) with a side of bruschetta (using homegrown tomatoes and basil).

The result was as good as anything I've ever had in a restaurant. In fact it was so good there's no photo because it was gobbled up so quickly.

The problem of course, with using fresh ingredients and making tasty dishes is that it's really hard to then go back to eating frozen meals or the sort of bland tasteless foods that busy families often fall back on. But freeing up time to spend more time in the kitchen and garden is not such a bad thing. We are what we eat.

Alien plant

I've brought most of the last green tomatoes inside to ripen on the kitchen windowsill which gets the afternoon sun. Tonight's dish was chicken kiev with simple tomato rice using cherry tomatoes from the garden. Simple but delish.

Something I'm far less inclined to taste is this strange looking growth I found the other day. The stalk was quite thick and mushroom like, the flower part about the size of my palm. It's dried out considerably since then so I'm thinking it was the result of frequent rain recently. Anyone know what it is?

Spinach and pumpkin frittata

We had some silverbeet in a delicious and simple chicken stir-fry a few days ago so I was inspired to try another recipe. This spinach and pumpkin frittata used silverbeet, basil, and spring onion from the garden. Unfortunately I didn't have any luck with pumpkin this year - I think maybe I planted too late in the season or perhaps just not enough water. We did get a few butternuts but they were too small to do anything with. Next year I'll be more careful about where I plant and also managing them so that they don't sprawl all over the garden without actually producing any fruit.