New veggie bed

A couple of weekends ago I decided it was high time to build a new veggie bed. This involved weeding an area that roughly measures 2 metres (6 feet) by 1 metre (3 feet). Heading into the garden after several days of sustained soaking rain makes lots of good sense, especially when weeding is on the agenda.

This is what I was faced with:

The vast green mass is couch grass. It's a thick stemmed, deep rooted grass that spreads on long (over a foot long) stems. It's actually quite rewarding to pull out, when the soil is moist, because it comes out in long tangled clumps and it feels like you're actually making progress.

The deep roots are a problem though, and it's near impossible to get absolutely every part of it.

Here I am partway through, thinking that I should be being paid for this.

Mum, bless her, helped immensely by carrying away the vast pile of debris and helping with the digging and yanking. Eventually (finally... many aching muscles later), it looked like this:

That one last mass of brown shows the root system. And yes, even that eventually came out.

Two weeks later, this is the veggie bed, complete with a wire fence (thanks mum!), concrete stepping stone and happy seeds.

The first seeds to sprout are rocket:

Further over to the left some bok choy are also peeking through, but so far no sign of the chinese cabbage (wong bok), tomato (grosse lisse), snow peas, beans or carrots. I'll keep hoping.

While we're waiting, let's tour the rest of the garden.

This is a view of the back part of the garden, with the greens beds, the new veggie bed tucked in the shadows behind and the nectarine tree and pots to the left.

Paddy enjoys the sunshine (damned hot it is too) while the tomatoes wilt and Chester seeks out the heavy shade.

The tomato garden may not be glamourous, but it's prolific. That's all that matters, right!?

The coriander has gone to flower, and soon will seed. I've never collected fresh coriander seed, but I guess there's always a time to start (and learn).

Then, by the back door, I'm growing sprouts in soil. I've never tried this before either, but figured it may be easier than doing them in water and jars. Here's some pea sprouts just coming through, and below that are the alfalfa sprouts.