Really Random Garden: New growth

I thought I'd split myself, much as one does, say, with a bulb of garlic, and plant a new blog to hold all my growing thoughts, findings and photos on matters vegetative.

After last year's practice work with growing tomatoes in big pots, and a few random potatoes, this year marked my first of serious vegetable growing. And I'm not all that sure how serious it is even now. Random, certainly, as the blog name suggests, but I wouldn't confuse what I'm doing with a fully functional vegetable patch.

I'm working with poor light, in a small north-facing garden overshadowed by tall (protected species) trees, and one mature yellow transparent apple tree; had I not chopped down the energetic and youthful plane tree someone once saw fit to plant here (and whose roots still intrude on the wee veg plot I made where it stood) I'd have no light at all. Most of the best of it falls on a paved area that once housed a carport.

The front garden is in dappled shade all summer, its flowerbeds protected from both sun and rain by two towering trees. I get a cool breeze every afternoon which can be a bit too brisk for some plants, as it whistles up my driveway and into the back.

My garden boasts some of Victoria's hardest and poorest clay soil, on which grows a scrappy pair of lawns and a number of elderly and aphid-plagued, blackspotted rose bushes. I'm on the lower part of a downward slope, so my lawn, like most around here, resembles a very wet sponge in the winter.

My garden beds, which I've been coaxing back to health with leaf mulch and expensive helpings of Sea Soil, are tiny. They are homes to slugs, snails, wireworm, leaf miners, earwigs and something that may be cutworm or crane fly larvae or both; ants and aphids are everywhere; this year's entertainment has included the encroachment of tent caterpillars and a bumper crop of yellowjackets. Plants that love it here include bluebells, day lilies, morning glory, English ivy, holly, hawthorn, Himalayan blackberry, daisies and dandelions.

And of this I am making what I can, largely through the use of containers. I thought I'd experiment with them and then see if I wanted to start biting into my lawn, using some lasagne (sheet mulching) techniques to improve drainage and start with better soil. Another thought I have is to cover some or all of my patio area with a hoop house, or add a greenhouse-type extension to my garden shed.

In addition to the garden beds, I'm using wading pools (with holes punch in them), wine barrel halves (ditto), pots of many sizes, one topsy-turvy tomato bag, and car tires, in which I am growing:

apples (yellow transparent)
arugula
artichokes
beans (bush and scarlet runner)
beets (red and golden)
blueberries
carrots
celery
celeriac
day lilies
eggplant
fennel
kale
leeks
mustard greens
onions
peppers
physalis (cape gooseberry/ground cherry)
potatoes (red norland, yukon gold, banana fingerlings)
purple sprouting broccoli
rhubarb
spinach
squash (hubbard and acorn)
strawberries
swiss chard
tomatoes (beefsteak, roma-style and mystery volunteers)