Spring and early Summer in Sophia's Food Garden Sanctuary

Sophia's Food Garden Sanctuary will be open next February 5 and 6 through the Australian Open Garden Scheme (see page 105 and 107 of the guide - "Australia's Open Gardens"). Soph and I have planned many of our growing season's plantings around these dates with the aim of having many of the food plants still looking relatively fresh well into summer - that's what we hope at any rate. As it turns out, the wet cold start to spring has slowed things down anyway.

November's potato crop

broad beans

We harvested potatoes and broad beans in the middle of November. I like planting potatoes in the middle of winter because in frost free areas like Armadale potatoes shoot quickly through pea straw mulch and become healthy plants despite low winter temperatures. In Sophia's garden I grew them under under a bare, wintry looking fig tree and by the time the fig burst back into life we had well-established plants and delicious 'new' and mostly mature potatoes (see picture.) The broad beans were also great and I've dug the plants into the ground or used them as mulch for tomatoes and corn.

 

Leeks

The garden December 5

The rain has been so consistent and intense that low lying parts of the garden were turning into a mini-wetland and I have had to resort to raising beds in these areas and bringing in plenty of surecrop compost. This has been such a turn-around from the last two years of drought where these 'wet' sections of the garden grew fantastic zucchinis and eggplants without irrigation. I've also had to harvest garlic early to stop it rotting. Leeks, as you would expect, have thrived but this has been and will continue to be an unusual La Nina year.

Sophia's Food Garden Sanctuary in the Australian Open Garden Scheme

This year's National Garden Guide for Australia's Open Gardens is out now. The launch of the 2010-2011 program of open gardens will be at Burnley College in Melbourne in a couple of weeks. As part of this year's scheme, the productive garden I designed and created with my friend Sophia will feature on the weekend of February 5-6 2011 as part of a special focus on culinary gardening. Sophia's garden is mentioned on page 105 and 107 of the guide which is available on-line at www.opengarden.org.au/guidebook.html. Soph and I are excited to be able to open her garden to the public, especially at the height of summer when we hope the garden will be lush and bountiful, unlike now where it is wintry and pretty bare, with only the Broad Beans really powering away.

I'm going to keep up my weekly photos of the garden from now until to February to document how the garden evolves over the next few months. As described in the Open Garden Guide, Sophia's garden will have all the unusual plants discussed in this blog, as well of plenty Asian vegies and for the first time this year, edible water plants. The aim of the garden is to make it both productive and attractive; we're keen to show that with judicious planting of perennial edible plants in amongst standard crops such as tomatoes and corn you can have your designed ornamental garden and eat it too!