The first step is to ensure you have a good start for your vegies. Intensively grown food in small spaces needs good soil and good food. Oh no, do you have terrible soil? Don’t worry, a no-dig bed will be a great start and will improve the soil as it grows your vegies above the soil level. Go to my website for a step by step guide to creating a no dig bed. You can even do this on grass without having to dig it up first.

A regular liquid fertilise is essential during the life of your vegies. Harvest first then fertilise the remaining plants so you don’t get the taste of fish or seaweed on your salad. With good care, you can expect to be harvesting from a new bed or productive pot in as little as 4 weeks. Imagine dishing up a meal from your own garden so soon! How proud will you be?

To learn more about the preparation of your soil and the growing of backyard vegies, join in one of the great workshops. I have plenty coming up from October through the December on many topics. A new brochure is due out next week, so I’ll send one out as soon as it’s to hand.

Both the Children's holiday workshops are filling remarkably fast. Jack in the beanstalk this Thursday and Garden Art second week. Book your child in now. 3349 2962

I’ve been chatting to executive chef Brent about our Gourmet Gardening workshop on Sunday 26 September. He’s got an Asian theme happening this time. Come along to find out how to grow water chestnuts and much more in small garden spaces. For food, Brent will reveal how to create the perfect stock, an excellent rice dish to accompany the best simple Asian food and a wonderful rich soup. He’s also going to teach you how to make a delectable mango and banana dessert with chocolate ganache. How fabulous! And most of the food harvested from the garden too!

The workshop still has a couple of spaces to fill, so call me for your spot now. 3349 2962 or linda@ecobotanica.com.au

If you have plenty of flowers but not many broad beans yet, remember to liquid fertilise and keep the growing bed moist.  Each flower will potentially make a bean and they are slow to develop. A little spray with Vitaguard (see the garden boutique pages) will help keep aphids away as it builds the plant’s resistance to pest and disease attack.

Bush (French) beans the small , compact bushes can be planted as seeds about 20-30 cm apart. Climbing beans I often plant closer, 15-20 cm apart and give them a tall teepee or frame to climb over.  We’ve had kilos from our Climbing princess and Purple king beans so far this spring. The latter are not stringless but their handsome colour makes up for the need to string them.

Here’s a great way to save space in your backyard and still get a healthy crop of pumpkins. Alison sent in this picture for us. “Have you ever seen pumpkins hanging from a washing line? In the picture the roots of the pumpkins are in the hillside behind the wall but I harvested the most pumpkins from the washing line. It worked surprisingly well. Needless to say, I had somewhere else to hang the washing.”

I recently gave a workshop on establishing no-dig beds at the Jane St community garden open day. The community garden has undergone a radical change in the last 12 months or so with the help of the dedicated leader Jacqui Purse and the community gardeners. They harvest a wonderful selection of vegetables from the plots with a rainbow of colours to tempt the palate. All the gardeners share in the harvest and some of the extras go to an organic food system in Brisbane.

Isn’t the photo of a recent harvest, sent in by Jacqui just gorgeous? If you’d like to be part of the happy gardens group, growing and harvesting fresh vegies like these, email Jacqui at magnetic21@bigpond.com