How to get a tired vegetable garden going again

When the veggie patch has gone flat on you

Every gardener hits the point where the patch stops doing much, and the plants are alive but they're not really going anywhere, and you find yourself walking past it rather than doing anything about it. That happens to people who have been growing food for 30 years as well as to people in their first season, so there's nothing wrong with you or with the garden, and it usually comes down to one of a few things that are all fixable.

Start with the soil, because it's nearly always the soil

A bed that has grown two or three crops without anything going back into it is running on empty, and no amount of watering or encouragement makes up for that. Dig through some compost or an aged manure, get a decent layer of mulch over the top so the surface stops baking and setting hard, and then leave it a fortnight before you judge it. Soil that has been fed comes back faster than most people expect.

Check what you're planting against the season

The commonest reason a patch goes nowhere is that the wrong thing is in the ground for the time of year, and lettuce through the hottest months is the classic one because it bolts before you get a feed out of it. Work out what the season actually suits and plant that, even if it isn't what you were hoping to grow, because fighting the calendar is the one argument in gardening you cannot win.

Move things around

Growing the same family in the same bed year after year pulls the same nutrients out and lets the same diseases build up in the soil. Shifting your tomatoes to where the beans were, and the beans to where the brassicas were, costs nothing and it's the cheapest fix on this list.

Grow what you actually eat

It's easy to end up growing things because they looked good in a photo, and then resenting the watering because nobody in the house wants to eat them. If you plant what gets used in your kitchen you'll go out and look after it, and that motivation is doing more work than any product on our shelves. Herbs are the quickest way back into it, because you get something usable within weeks rather than months.

Try something you haven't grown before

• A colour you don't see in the shops. Purple carrots and golden beetroot taste much the same as the usual ones and they make the patch interesting again.
• An heirloom variety. Generally better flavour than a supermarket hybrid, which is the whole reason people bother growing their own.
• Something fast. Radish and rocket give you a result in weeks, and a result is what you're short of at the moment.
• Companion planting. Putting flowering things through the veggie beds brings in the insects that do the pollinating, and it makes the patch look like somewhere you want to stand.

Deal with what's eating it

Sometimes the garden isn't stalled at all and something is quietly harvesting it before you get there. Snails and slugs work overnight and they do enough damage to convince a beginner they've killed a crop themselves, so go out with a torch after dark and have a look before you blame the soil.

Raised beds, if the ground itself is the problem

Where the soil is heavy clay or full of tree roots, a raised bed lets you skip the argument entirely and start with a mix you've chosen. They drain better, they're easier on your back, and they stay tidier, which matters more than it sounds when tidiness is the thing keeping you out of the garden.

And ask somebody

Plenty of people who have been gardening for years still get this stuff wrong, so there's no such thing as a question that's too basic for the counter. Bring a photo or bring the actual leaf in a bag, and we'll have a look at it with you.

Shop related products

• Brunnings Ultimate Garden Soil 30L. For rebuilding a bed that has had everything taken out of it.
• Neutrog Bounce Back 20kg. Pelletised organic feed that suits a general veggie bed.
• Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Mulch to stop the surface setting hard between waterings.
• D.T. Brown Carrot All Season Seed. Somewhere easy to start again when the patch is empty.

Did you know we stock snail and slug control in the shop, including pellets, barrier tape and traps, and some of it never makes it onto the website. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

The garden centre at H carries the soil, the feed and the seed for a restart, so have a look through the garden range or come in and talk it through with us.

Read next

• 7 habits that make a vegetable garden work
• 7 mistakes to avoid in a new vegetable garden
• Compacted soil, what it does and how to fix it

I've got a bed out the back that I've been meaning to deal with for a while now, so take everything above as advice I'm also giving myself.

Cheers,
Candeece