7 habits that make a vegetable garden work

The people I know with good vegetable gardens are not doing anything clever. They are doing seven fairly boring things consistently, and the people whose gardens disappoint them are usually doing five of the seven and wondering what went wrong. So here they are, roughly in the order they matter.

1. They know what their soil is

Everything else sits on top of this. A veggie patch takes a lot out of the ground and gives nothing back unless you put it back, so the gardeners who do well know whether their soil is sandy or heavy, roughly what the pH is, and whether it drains.

Test it once rather than guessing for three seasons. If the pH is off, nothing you plant can take up the nutrients that are sitting right there, which is the most common reason a patch underperforms with no obvious cause.

2. They plant the right thing at the right time

Half of gardening disappointment is a crop planted at the wrong end of the year. Leafy greens like lettuce and kale want the cooler months, and zucchini, eggplant and capsicum want real heat and will sulk until they get it.

Write down what you planted and when. It takes a minute and by the second year you have a calendar built for your own block, which is worth more than a generic one, because a frost pocket down the bottom of your garden does not appear on anybody else's chart.

3. They water deeply and not often

A daily sprinkle keeps the roots at the surface, and surface roots cook in the first hot week. A good soak a couple of times a week sends them down where the soil stays cool and damp.

Early morning, so it goes in rather than evaporating. And mulch, which is the highest return thing on this whole list: straw, bark or sugar cane over the bed holds the moisture, keeps the soil temperature steady and stops most weeds germinating.

4. They keep feeding through the season

Good soil gets you started and a fruiting crop empties it fast. A tomato carrying fruit is a heavy feeder and it will stall if you fed it once in spring and walked away.

Compost, pelletised organic fertiliser or a liquid feed every few weeks. Liquid works quickest when something is visibly struggling, and the pelletised stuff does the steady background job.

5. They plant for the bees

No pollinators, no fruit. Tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and zucchini all need insects moving pollen around, and a zucchini plant covered in flowers that never sets fruit is usually a pollination problem rather than a plant problem.

Flowers in among the vegetables fix it. Lavender and marigolds are the usual suggestions and they work. Native flowering shrubs do it as well and they cope better with our summers.

And go very easy on sprays, because the things that kill the pest kill the pollinator too.

6. They look at their plants properly

Pest damage is easy to fix early and hard to fix late. Turn a few leaves over every time you walk past, look underneath, and check the growing tips where aphids gather.

Pick the big offenders off by hand. Snails and caterpillars come off faster than any spray deals with them, and an evening walk with a torch after rain will get more snails than anything else you do. Ladybirds eat aphids, so if you have got them, leave them alone.

7. They think past this season

Rotate what goes where. Growing tomatoes in the same bed year after year builds up whatever likes tomatoes in that soil, and moving them around breaks the cycle for free.

Rest a bed occasionally, or put a cover crop through it and dig it in. And save seed from whatever did best, because that plant has already proved it likes your conditions.

None of this has to be done perfectly

Pick up two of these and you are ahead. The gardeners who get discouraged are usually the ones trying to do all seven properly in their first year, and that is not how anybody learns it.

Shop related products

• Manutec Soil pH Test Kit. Habit 1, and it takes about 10 minutes.
• Neutrog Rapid Raiser 20kg. A pelletised organic fertiliser for the steady background feeding.
• Neutrog Seamungus Liquid Concentrate 1L. The liquid one, for when something needs help now.
• Neutrog Whoflungdung Mulch 20kg. Mulch that feeds as it breaks down.
• Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. For starting seed rather than direct sowing.

The garden centre carries seeds, mixes, fertilisers, pest control and tools, and the benches change every couple of weeks, so ring us on (08) 8536 4333 to see what seedlings are in. Online there is garden products, D.T. Brown seeds and pest control.

More on growing food

• Avoid these 7 mistakes in your vegetable garden
• The tools a new gardener actually needs
• Homemade plant food, what actually works

I have planted tomatoes too early nearly every year I have been doing this, because the first warm week in September gets me every time.

Cheers,
Candeece