A successful edible garden is a productive one.
No great revelation there. But how productive?
Well, that's entirely up to you.
Like anything in life,
you can really get the most out of your vegie garden
with some careful planning.
Here at our place, we love our greens.
Right now, we've got plenty of options to bring into the kitchen,
including silverbeet, celery,
lettuce and kale,
and the key to regular harvests is preparation and timing.
This is all coming along
because of a carefully orchestrated planting regime.
Now, it's one thing to have a plan, but another to stick to it.
If you get that right, you'll be harvesting greens all year round.
Take this butter lettuce, for example.
They're coming along beautifully.
Now, I've clearly overplanted, but that was intentional.
So, these young ones are ready to harvest
and I'll take out every second one
to create some room for the others to grow to full maturity.
And that'll extend the time that I'm harvesting.
But I've got another tip to make sure
the next generation of lettuce is also coming along.
Leafy greens are hungry plants,
so it's important to build up your soil,
especially on sandy soil like mine.
Each time I plant I top dress with compost
and apply pelletised manure,
then give a gentle forking in...
..and level it off for planting.
I've got a mix of varieties here.
There's oakleaf, mignonette and cos.
All delicious, quick growing,
and planting them into this lovely soft soil feels so good.
I'll keep these plants well watered.
Plus, give them a liquid feed with fish emulsion every few weeks
to keep them rocking along.
But you can take succession planting one step further
Alongside the seedlings,
I'm sowing lettuce seed in the shallow furrow.
The idea is, as the seedlings finally grow and get harvested,
these new ones will be coming on.
And between all three plantings, I will be in lettuce for months.
When it comes to productive greens,
it's hard to go past silverbeet.
Take this row, for example.
These plants have been in the ground for about six months
and they've been so productive.
We've been cropping it regularly
and using it in some of our favourite dishes,
like vegie lasagne and even cheese and spinach triangles.
And when we have a surplus, well,
we just blanch and freeze it to use it later.
I planted this row of silverbeet about four weeks ago with seedlings,
and as you can see, it's absolutely cranking.
Again, the idea is,
as the older crop starts to fade away,
it gets coarse and it finishes up,
this one will be ready to eat.
Now, one of the things that leafy greens can struggle with is heat.
So, in addition to building up the soil and giving them regular water,
like I've shown you,
is you might want to think about giving them some light shade.
For example, this is 30% shade.
It's horticultural shade cloth,
and I've got it just wrapped over a wire frame,
and made a little tunnel so it sits over the row just like that.
By altering the microclimate for these plants,
their growing period is extended,
which means that cropping is extended too.
Another way of managing the warmer conditions
is to grow your crops in pots.
Keeping your leafy greens transportable
means you can move them to spots in the garden with some light shade.
I'm a gardener, so I enjoy every step of the process,
but the edible part of edible gardening
is particularly rewarding.
Another one? Yeah.
Especially when you're harvesting with your nearest and dearest.
Caitlin and I are picking some ingredients to make a green smoothie.
How about some celery? Good idea.
What do you reckon? Looks good.
Thanks, sweetheart.
Silverbeet first? Yeah.
Load that in. Nice.
Celery.
Some apple.
Now, for the banana.
Are those bananas from our garden?
Sure is. Frozen banana to make it last longer.
And then how about a squeeze of lemon?
Growing greens is so easy.
And whatever your favourite dish is...
(BLENDER WHIRRS)
..fresh is best
for taste, nutrition and satisfaction.