Autumn planting in the raised garden beds

On 23 January I wrote about the raised garden beds and how they were coping with the extremely hot summer.  About a month ago, I prepared them for autumn planting (digging them in the cool of the night under spot lights).  The large lavenders have been transplanted into the ground over near the shed.  The tomato plants went into the compost heap and lots of paca poo, compost and sulphate of ammonia was added to the beds.  The strawberries had taken over half of one bed, so I pulled almost all of them out and put about 10 plants into the second bed.    I left 2, just in case the ones I transplanted did not like their new home and the other 30 plants I gave to my spinning friends.  Eight little lettuce plants have replaced the strawberries in the first tank and I am already using leaves for lunch most days.  I mentioned in January that I let a couple of self seeding pumpkin vines do their thing.  They really struggled growing over the gravel and although the abundance of flowers turned to little pumpkins, they all fell off.  But once on the pavers, a couple of the flowers turned to pumpkins.  The vines were very unsightly, so I pruned them back to 2 vines and put them back up into the tank.  They produced 2 little pumpkins which you can see here.  The eggplants are still growing strongly, but they may not like the cold nights, so we will see what happens to them.  I planted an asparagus crown and it also looking very happy now and hanging over the side.  I let the large fennel plants go to seed before cutting them down and as well as a couple of bottles of seed to use for cooking, I also have about 50 little fennel plants coming up all over the place.  The shallots look just as healthy as they did in summer and on the other side of the tank capsicum, sage, thyme and oregano are growing rampant.

The second bed where the strawberries went now also has celery, beans, English spinach and parsley.  Last year I planted garlic in with the strawberries and I had absolutely no trouble with pests, so this year I did the same. The great thing was that this year I used the garlic I grew last year and already it has sprouted to about 10cm high. Some of the beans have flowers and I am already picking the spinach to put in my morning vegetable juice.

The third bed still has the 2 chillie plants - one edible and the other beautiful with plump yellow chillies, but supposedly inedible.  I tried to plant some petunias around the edge, but  little bugs keep nibbling them at night, so I don't like their chances.  I may have to put them back into pots to keep them above the soil level.   I wanted snow peas here, but couldn't find any, so in the middle I have planted some snap peas.

I still have the sweet potato sprouting in the pantry, so may cut it up and see what happens if I plant it in the third garden bed.  Luckily in the nearby garden under the clothes line, there are two rosemary bushes madly flowering and the bees are going crazy and hopefully they will stick around to help me with my veges.