Rhonda Jean - thanks for dropping by. I’m a bit worried that my corn might be *too* close together but we’ll see how it goes. Thanks for your help - will see about getting some potash. I wonder if the nitrogen might explain why my broccoli grew magnificent plants with very little heads?

I hope you plant all your corn fairly close together in a block so they can pollinate each other. Corn needs a lot of water too, they soak up every drop you give them.

I forget where you live now, is it SA? In the middle of summer you might need to give your plants some sun protection. I am an old fashioned gardener and use blood and bone and potash. They’re organic and will help you produce good crops. Basically the blood and bone (nitrogen) goes on leafy crops, and thing that fruits - tomatoes, strawberries etc need a bit of potash. It encourages flowering. Make sure you water in well. Don’t give your flowering plants too much nitrogen as they will tend to produce a lot of green leaves and not so much fruit.

Good luck with your garden. Don’t be put off by your failures, you will have them, but you’ll get better each year. The food you grow is the absolute you can eat, so you’re doing the best thing for your family.

Frogdancer - I kinda feel like a grandma. Mine was always the gardener in the family so I associated gardening with being “old”. LOL. I think you do an amazing job to fit in everything you do.

Madly Saving - WELL DONE on starting your own blog!!!! Your garden is looking great. I’m glad you’ve finally got the garden you’ve been hankering after for a while. Setting up is a bit of a chore but I LOVE my garden all divided up into squares. If you want to, you can sign in when you comment on here which will create a link for people to find your blog easily. I MUST remember to add you to my blogroll too.

SBW

(Of course, for 13 years I was living with/married to a fruiterer, so that may have had something to do with it!) I had a whole fruit shop to live out of.

Don’t silver beet and lettuce grow crazy? I’ve also got spinach that is as big as dinner plates. One of today’s jobs is to chop it and freeze it. I envy you having the time to potter around in the garden during the day. I normally just have time on the weekends (along with eveything else), though now daylight saving is here I have a bit more time up my sleeve. Did you get yellow cherry tomatoes? Extra yum.

Kez - I reckon if you only grow 1 thing over summer, tomatoes should be it. So you’ve made a good start!

Ali - yeah, it’s divided up into a square foot garden although the overall bed is too large for what they recommend. I have a bit of a path cutting through the middle (both ways) so I can walk the 1 track and not stop on the rest of the garden. It makes planting so much easier having it all divided up like that! I love it!

River - thanks for all that information. I’m still trying to get my head around crop rotation etc. Lots of trial and error type learning happening here. Our recycled water adds a certain amount of nutrition as well so I’m hoping that will help. I’ve been adding our chook manure to the compost but it isn’t doing all that well. Keeping it wet seems to be a problem.