It's been just over 2 years now since we first cobbled together a Makeshift Victory Garden for the New Home and it's served us fairly well even though I didn't really put a lot of work into it. We got a decent crop of Chillis and Cherry Tomatoes in the first season and last season we had some self-sown Tomatoes that were OK, but the Chillis really blew us away and were still producing fruit deep into the Winter. This Spring I've decided to expand and see if I can do even better. Introducing Makeshift Victory Garden Version 2.0...
We've extended the garden along the relatively level Western fenceline and also down the sloping Southern fenceline too. We're still using left over bricks but this time we made an effort to try and get the boundaries deeper AND straighter plus we bought in some garden soil rather than just using the topsoil that was in place (which is still fairly decent)
I originally was thinking that I would try to "Winter" our original Cayenne Chilli Plants and then move them over to the Southern fence so that they would get Full Sun. However after I pruned them back late Winter they started sprouting again almost immediately. They are a bit close together and do tend to shade each other but they're already fruiting again so figured I should leave them in place. On the left there is another self-sown Cherry Tomato plant from the original garden too. It's not an heirloom variety but this is a grandchild of the original plants and I'm curious to see how it goes. I just didn't have the heart to pull it out.
My wife wanted me to grow some Capsicums (I never have before) and I figured they would be similar to growing my hot Chillis so this section is a bit of an experiment. It's North facing so will get great sun and I decided to try 4 different Chilli varieties (Birds Eye, Brazil, Caysan and Hot Thai) and 4 different Capsicum varieties (Delight, Long Sweet Yellow, Snack Red and Sweet Stuff Red) to see what grew best and what tasted best. Those varieties are shown Left to Right in the picture above and you can also see some interplanted Onion seedlings (more on that later). Plus I have some leftovers of other seedlings in plastic pots on that side too incase some seedlings don't survive the transplantings.
This year I also wanted to try and train my Tomatoes properly so I erected a 2 meter x 1.8 meter Trellis. Here I've planted 6 Cherry Roma Tomato seedlings 40 centimeters apart and added a couple of companion Climbing Green Beans in between plus a row of Onions in front. I'm also thinking that I might put some Basil and Marigolds in this space to really experiment with the Companion Planting concept. I want to make sure all these little guys settle down properly and get established first though.
Just next to the Tomatoes I've put another Trellis where I've planted a section of Climbing Green Beans. I've never done these before and I'm not expecting that I'll need to train them as much as the Tomatoes but I feel like these guys are going to love it here and produce a good bounty. Again I have a row of Onions in the front so I hope they will become good friends.
Finally I have just a dedicated Onion Bed. They are on the Northern-most side of the garden but I don't have to worry about Onions shading out the rest of the garden. These guys are kind of my Control Group for the Companion Planting experiment and I'm keen to see if they do as well as the other Onions that I have interplanted. Also, you can never have too many Onions...
All up I am pretty excited to see how my upgraded garden goes this season. We still don't have the funds to landscape our backyard properly but I always wanted gardens along these fence lines anyway so they won't be too disrupted when we finally do landscape.