HoneyDale Retreat: What we have learnt about growing veggies

We have had good success in growing tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, peas and beans in Brisbane and so we thought it would be easy to transfer this success to Honeydale.

The previous owners had a small garden and we started by ripping the ground, applied gypsum to break the clay up, spread lots of compost we made using our mulcher and gave the garden a good working over with the rotary hoe.

During our first growing season we had plenty of Zucchinis and tomatoes but no eggplants or capsicums.

We found that growing tomatoes in the shade housed produced a large amount of foliage but no fruit.

Last growing season we had much more success growing tomatoes, eggplant and capsicums on outdoors with a trellis for support.

Our first planting of rhubarb went gangbusters but got root rot and died. We replanted rhubarb in raised beds and we are have had several good harvests. The crowns are splitting so we will be digging them up in the dormant seasons for replanting.

Rhubarb

Last year we planted a test bed of broad beans and we had a good crop. This year we mass planted broad beans and have been rewarded with masses of flowers. Hopefully the flowers will turn into a bumper crop of broad beans.

Our best success appears to come from using heritage climbing beans and peas. We constructed a trellis and planted older varieties of climbing peas and beans. The purple climbing variety did not take well the green variety more than made up for the short fall. We have had four pickings from the green beans and they are still flowering. The beans are slower growing but they have plenty of pods and we are not too far away from having fresh peas.

Climbing Beans

When the climbing peas and beans have finished we plan to rest the soil, put down some fertiliser and use the trellis for our summer tomatoes.

Climbing Peas

Pea Pods

Okra is a hardy vegetable used in African and southern US cooking. Last year we had good results with a test planting. This year we planted a larger garden bead and have been rewarded with sturdy plants with lots of flowers.

Okra Pods forming

This year we planted a test bed of soya beans, soya beans can be used for a variety of dishes but we plan to take the pods and boil them to eat as edamame to have with drinks or as a side dish.

Soya Beans

We still grow herbs and lettuce in the shade house. However, the shade house is slowly being taken over by strawberries, there are now have two rows of the plants and we get a steady crop of sweet red berries to have with desert or on our breakfast yogurt.

Fresh Strawberries

Last year we over ordered garlic and it got off to a great start. The year wore on and not a single bulb formed. We researched the reasons and found that we had planted cool weather garlic, it needs cold weather to form bulbs. This year we got two varieties, one sourced from far north Queensland and another from south east Queensland.