Autumn Tasks - Vegie Gardens
Vegie patch - If your home vegie patch has been overrun by weeds, there are a few ways of renewing it.
Option one
Pull out all the weeds and plant a winter green manure crop. Green manure crop is made up of a mixture of seeds like oats ,lupins, rye corn and dun peas. Green manure will grow over winter, it will crowd out weeds and when dug back into the soil in early spring will provide nutrient to the earth. Green manure can be purchased on line, see Green Patch if you live in NSW or the ACT or see Green harvest if you live in Queensland.
Option two
Either pullout all the weeds or leave the weeds and cover with sheets of damp newspaper. If you leave the weeds in the patch use extra sheets of newspaper. The paper acts as a weed mat. Then place down a layer of mulch this can be Lucerne or sugar cane mulch. You can allow the patch to rest over winter or plant winter vegetables and winter annuals. If it’s to be the latter place soil over the layer of mulch / Lucerne and mix soil with compost, cow manure, blood and bone, and chicken pellets. Then place another layer of Lucerne over the top of the soil mix. When planting vegies and flowers make a hole in the Lucerne, drop some soil into the hole and plant your seedlings. Then spread Lucerne around the base of plantings. This is called a No dig garden.
for more information on No dig gardens .
Shady vegetable garden
Let them rest over winter, you could try green manure or just mulch with newspaper and Lucerne. In summer try leafy greens like Asian greens, all types of lettuce, Spinach, Silverbeet, some chillies and bananas.
For more information on
Winter vegetables and flowers.