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{Questions Answered} All About The Garden

I’ve had several questions about how we keep track of the garden and plan for it. Let me be clear, Country Boy does all the garden stuff. He has a degree in Horticulture, and many years of experience growing plants commercially, so he knows what he is doing. He has always been into gardening. I’m really good at nodding my head and making encouraging noises.

Country Boy has a diagram of our gardens which he uses to note what is in each row. He uses a new one every six months (Summer and Winter), and keeps the old ones so that he can remember what was grown in which place in the previous year. That way he can rotate the crops around.

One of the advantages of living on the farm is that there is plenty of space for a large garden, which Country Boy has taken full advantage of. There are about 80 rows available in the garden. Each row is about four meters long, and all of them have drip irrigation.

He also keeps a diary where he notes when he planted different crop, what he has picked, and when he pulled out various plants. He also notes down anything else he did in the garden. Again, it helps in the following year to know what worked and what didn’t.

Generally we like to grow heirloom vegetables, that is varieties of vegetables that have been handed down for many generations. The seeds can be saved and grown again (unlike hybrid varieties which are found in most nurseries). We like the ethics associated these types of plants, and that you can get heaps of different colours, tastes, and shapes of each vegetable which you will never find in a supermarket because they don’t fit their narrow ideas of what a vegetable should be.

Each year we like to grow a few new types of vegetables just to see what they are like. Country Boy has planted 11 different types of tomatoes this year.

We also consider how much we grew last year and whether it was enough. For example, we had way too many cucumbers last year (over 2000!) so this year we have cut back a little. Also we didn’t have enough broad beans so this year we have planted more

I hope that this answers your questions. Got any other questions about our garden (or anything else)? Ask away!

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Comments

  1. Jodie says

    November 15, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    Wow – what an amazing garden with such a well thought out plan to go with it. How wonderful that your husband has the time to run the garden for you and your family, that is such a great help for you I bet!

    My girls and I work our vegetable plot as my husband is pretty flat strap with numerous farm jobs. Our farm is fairly large and during the Summer months it takes almost a week to do a proper water run – not to mention that we are also pushing scrub, daily, due to the drought. The joys of living and working the land I guess…

    Thanks for sharing your garden with me this morning… xx

    Reply
  2. Elisha Ross says

    November 13, 2013 at 9:12 am

    Wow thats impressive. Should get myself a gardening diary too and start recording stuff. What do you do with 2000 cucumbers?
    Im only a tiny gardener compared to your 80 rows but I love it and will continue to grow more as I get better at it. You are lucky you have a qualified man at hand for sure.
    Love your blog. Just stumbled by very recently and keep checking in.
    Cheers

    Reply
    • Jo says

      November 13, 2013 at 12:32 pm

      Thanks for following along Elisha. CB is a keeper.

      Reply
  3. My Yellow Heart says

    November 12, 2013 at 1:48 pm

    Your vegetable garden is amazing. Even for my own garden, which is very small compared to yours, I think I might also benefit from keeping a diagram plan of our Winter and Summer garden. 2000 cucumbers…..what did you do with them all?!

    Reply
    • Jo says

      November 13, 2013 at 12:31 pm

      The pigs were well fed.

      Reply

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Hi, I’m Jo

I'm a city girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got through shearing without a hitch (thankfully 🙏) but we’ve had a run of the flu followed by Covid run through the family since then. The kids and I have tested positive (this is my second time getting it 🦠) though so far C has managed to avoid it. There has been a lot of lying on the couch feeling pretty ordinary. Han had to reschedule her driving test for a 4th time due to Covid, which is disappointing for her because she wants her freedom and for us because it would be so much more convenient if she could drive herself places. Just to add in to the mix, our hot water system has chosen now as a good time to die so we’re on cold showers until we’re all out of iso. This is not meant to be a whinging post but sometimes life just sucks a bit and it’s good to be real. Fortunately, the sight of the fire going with a stack of wood next to it cheers us up. Things will improve soon. Onwards we go…
A picture perfect Autumn afternoon to end the scho A picture perfect Autumn afternoon to end the school holidays. We’ve been busy spending time with friends and family, harvesting the last of the summer produce, as well as a short escape to explore the big smoke. After the craziness of last term it was the break we all needed. It’s back to school for me tomorrow, and the kids are back on Wednesday. Shearing starts soon and so it’s all systems go over the next few weeks.
Covid has made some late changes to our weekend pl Covid has made some late changes to our weekend plans so we are embracing the unexpected and doing not much at home. Plenty of time for hanging out on the dam and enjoy the perfect weather.
Autumn has arrived in the orchard and the apple tr Autumn has arrived in the orchard and the apple trees are full of fruit. Yesterday we filled five baskets of apples that had fallen off the trees. Then we had apple crumble for dessert last night. Between the orchard and the vegetable garden this time of year is always super busy as we deal with all the harvest. No so busy though, that I can’t grab the camera and snap a few pics.
On weekends he makes himself a hot milo and lies o On weekends he makes himself a hot milo and lies on the veranda in the sun, just chilling and enjoying the freedom (until mum grabs her camera at least 🙄🤣).
Late summer evenings spent picking fruit in the or Late summer evenings spent picking fruit in the orchard are just the best. We take baskets down to gather the fruit and we inspect the trees and plan what we will do with it all. Tonight we gathered blackberries, nectarines and the first apples. The kids eat the fruit right off the trees - it tastes so much better than shop bought fruit. All the rain this year has not been good for all our plants; no mulberries and a lot less of some of the others. It reminds us of how much we depend on the weather and how much is out of our hands.

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Hi, I’m Jo

City girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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