Starting a Vegie Patch

Things to Consider, to Get You Started

• It's a good idea to start small and ease yourself into it. A 1x1 metre square vegie garden can be surprisingly productive!
• Growing vegies and herbs in pots is a great option (generous 40-50cm diameter pots are best for vegetables). You might end up with more seedlings than you need at first, but you'll be able to give the extras to friends and whānau.
• You can move vegies into an existing garden bed, or steal some lawn space.
• Raised garden beds are an excellent way to grow vegies. You can build a raised bed with a wide range of materials, depending on your budget. If you're handy with tools, you can get creative with recycled timber, or roofing iron. Attractive raised garden kits are available at hardware stores and garden centres; these tend to be quick and easy to assemble.
• If you don't have outdoor space, or you need a portable solution, you still have options. A compact raised bed or planter doesn't take up much space on a balcony, porch or paved area. Large pots, fish bins, upcycled kitchen sinks, or bathtubs make ideal vegie containers; they'll work perfectly if you remember to water them daily.
• You can also create a low garden bed by recycling what you have on hand. Lengths of timber, bricks, logs, pipes, ponga or wheki trunks all work well as edging, to hold in prepared soil or a layer of garden mix.

Tips to Choose the Best Site for Vegies

• Look for the sun – most vegies need at least six hours of direct sunlight to do well. Sunlight is really important for fruiting vegies like tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis. Some leafy vegies and herbs, like lettuce, silverbeet, spinach and basil, can be grown in a spot with a few less hours of sun per day. Seed packets and seedling nursery tags will indicate how much sun each plant needs.
• Locating your vegie patch near a tap, for hose access, is a good idea. Lugging full watering cans backwards and forwards to a vegie patch quickly starts to feel like hard work!

How to Create New Vegie Beds

• To switch over lawn space to vegetables, begin by removing as much of the grass and its roots from the surface as possible, with a sharp spade. It's a big job to remove every last bit of lawn, so you can also lay damp sheets of newspaper (at least six sheets thick), or cardboard over the area, to smother any remaining grass. Then, cover the area with a 10–15cm layer of potting soil or bulk garden mix. It helps to surround your new vegie patch with timber or bricks, to help keep the soil contained.
• Raised garden beds can be positioned directly on top of existing lawn. If your raised bed is more than 30cm deep, the lawn doesn't need to be removed first. Just lay down wet newspaper, at least six sheets thick, where the bed will be placed. Next, the bed needs to be filled with soil. Fill it with garden mix, up to about 10cm from the top edge.
• One of the many benefits of raised beds is that it doesn't matter if your garden has sandy soil, or clay soil. Filling the bed with quality garden mix elevates the root zone of your vegies above ground level, so the soil underneath doesn't need any improvement.

Soil is the engine room of your vegie patch, so beginning with healthy soil is critical for success.

• Don't use topsoil as fill, it tends to compact quickly in a raised garden, which usually impedes aeration and drainage. Your local garden centre will have bagged or bulk garden soil that's been specially blended for the job, so it has the appropriate 'structure' to perform in a raised bed.
• Before planting seedlings or sowing seeds, mix some handfuls of Yates Dynamic Lifter Plant Food into the soil. Yates Dynamic Lifter contains a concentrated blend of organic ingredients that enrich and improve the soil, to help give new plants a great start.

What to Grow and Where to Place It: Planting Out Tips

• Sow seeds or plant seedlings, straight into your new bed or pot. For inspiration on what vegie seeds are suitable for your climate at this time of year, visit our Yates Seed Finder. Just click the filter checkboxes to select the month you want.
• There are countless different types of vegetables to choose. If you're new to gardening, lettuce, zucchini, silverbeet, spring onions, rocket and salad leaves, parsley and basil are all really easy to grow and don't take up too much space.
• It’s also a great idea to sow the vegies that are consistently expensive in supermarkets – capsicums, tomatoes and chillies are good examples.
• Position larger plants at the back of the vegie patch, and more compact plants at the front. If your vegie patch is next to a fence, attaching a wire frame to the fence will let you grow climbers like cucumbers and beans.
• If your vegie patch is in a pot, a 50cm diameter pot will allow you to grow a variety of loose leaf lettuces and a dwarf tomato plant, or a handy combination of kitchen herbs like basil, chives and parsley.
• Make space for some flowers in your vegie patch. They look lovely, they act as companion plants for your vegies, and they attract the beneficial insects your vegies need for pollination.

Water and Mulch, to Maintain Soil Moisture

Vegies need their soil (or potting mix) to be consistently moist, but not wet. It's easy to check moisture levels in the soil by digging around in the top few centimetres with your finger. You'll be able to feel whether the soil is moist enough, or if it's dry and needs watering. Depending on the weather, you'll need to water your vegie patch several times a week. During the hottest weather, watering may be needed more than once a day. Vegies growing in pots or containers always need to be watered every day, as they dry out much faster than vegies in garden soil. 

Applying a layer of mulch (e.g. pea straw) over the soil surface helps to retain moisture. The added benefits of using mulch are that it can suppress the growth of weeds, plus it gradually adds organic matter to soil as it breaks down.

Easy Feeding, While You Water

It's important to feed your vegies regularly, so they can feed you! Vegies need lots of nutrients to build delicious leaves and tasty fruit. Fortunately, feeding is simple! Just mix two capfuls of Yates Thrive Natural Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food in a 9L watering can and apply it around your plants every 1–2 weeks. It's a real time saver, as you're watering and feeding at the same time.

Protecting Vegies From Pests

Snails and Slugs can decimate seedlings very quickly, so it's a good idea to lightly sprinkle some Yates Blitzem Slug & Snail Pellets around the plants. As plants get bigger they become more resilient to being chewed and they aren't as attractive to the snails as seedlings are.

Keep monitoring vegies for chewing pests like caterpillars, especially if you see cabbage white butterflies fluttering around them. Control caterpillars with a spray of Yates Success Ultra Insect Control.

Sucking insects like aphids or whitefly can cause vegetable leaves to yellow and distort. As soon as you spot evidence of insect pests, protect your vegies with Yates Nature’s Way Citrus, Vegie & Ornamental Insect Spray.

And finally, if you don't get the results you were hoping for, don't give up! Overall, growing vegies is extremely satisfying, but you might run into challenges along the way. It's completely normal to have a fail now and again, even for experienced gardeners.

Check out the 'How to Grow' pages on the Yates website, for more details about how to grow particular vegies and herbs, along with solutions for commonly-encountered problems.