Top Tips For a Beautiful Garden

Hey Farmers! This week, we've got some hot tips for creating a great show of veggies in your garden. So, here are some tips to help you fertilise your soil and create some magic!

• Choose the right balance of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (also known as NPK). You can buy these individually but it is nice and easy to buy a ready made blend from Bunnings or at your local nursery. They can be organic such as manure or blood and bone. Or they can be artificial such as Osmacote, Acticote or Miracle Gro. If you're like us and love to recycle, head down to your local showground, pony club or take a country drive to pick up some poo from someone's farm gate. Helps them dispose of waste and you pay the farmer a couple of dollars for the fresh stuff!

• If you fertilise before it rains (hahahaha - unless you're living in Queensland right now!) it will help the fertiliser settle into the soil without you having to water it in.

• When you scatter fertiliser onto your garden soil, it is a good idea to scratch or lightly dig it in to prevent it from forming a hard crust on top of the soil. We always top this off prior to watering with a layer of fresh straw from the chicken coop. Check out your local produce store for hay, lucerne or some garden straw.

• Fertiliser is best applied to a plant's drip line. A drip line is where the leaves finish. To check this, grab your hose and wet the leaves of the plant.... where the drips fall off into the soil, this is the drip line.

• Don't over do it! If your plants aren't thriving it could be due to lack of water, the light levels may be incorrect or you might live in the wrong climate for the type of plant you are trying to grow. So if you are stuck, talk to the guys and gals at Bunnings or your local nursery to help find the cause.

Here is what you should be planting in your garden right now!

Amaranth

Asparagus Pea

Beans - climbing

Beans - dwarf (also French beans)

Beetroot

Broccoli - Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks.

Capsicum

Carrot

Chilli Peppers

Chives

Cucumber

Eggplant

Leeks - Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks.

Lettuce

Mustard greens (also gai choy)

Okra

Onion - Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks.

Oregano

Parsley (curly leaf or flat leaf (Italian)

Pumpkin

Radish

Silverbeet

Squash

Sweet Corn

Turnip

Follow these simple steps and you are sure to have the most amazing garden filled with healthy plants, bursting with fab, healthy veggies for your family. Let us know how your garden is going. What do you plan on planting this weekend? Until next time. Happy Farming!