Create your own vegetable patch

DO your bit for the earth and for your health and grow your own veggies at home. You don't need a lot of land, either!

Vegetable garden

DO your bit for the earth and for your health and grow your own veggies at home. You don't need a lot of land, either!

One of the first and most important considerations when it comes to planting your own veggies is choosing a nice sunny place that gets plenty of heat.

If you are limited by space and are planting in pots, make sure you choose the sunniest part of your balcony or courtyard.

Begin by digging over the soil, adding two kilograms of compost or cow manure per square metre and then mix in well.

By adding two handfuls of dolomite limestone every square metre it will prevent blossom end rot in tomatoes and will also add essential calcium to the soil.

I like to dig compost into the garden beds four weeks before planting seedlings. It’s important you don’t use too much manure, though, as the nitrogen it contains will encourage leaf growth rather than fruit.

Hot-weather vegetables such as tomato, eggplant, capsicum and zucchini are grown through spring and summer and love warm soil, so don’t plant them before the last frost. In order for the seeds to germinate, they need a soil temperature between 15-24˚C and air temperature between 15-30˚C.

Arm yourself with some techniques to control fruit fly, caterpillars, aphids and other insects and you will be well on your way to optimum fruit yield.

Aphids can be controlled with pyrethrum, while sticky yellow traps hung throughout the vegetable patch attract and trap flying insects such as the ubiquitous fruit fly and thrips.

Placing pantyhose over the developing tomatoes will also prevent fruit fly from ruining the fruit. Serious diseases such as tomato spotted virus wilt, caused by nematodes, can rarely be cured and affected plants should be pulled out.

Tomato treatments are safer than ever before. Sprinkling tomato dust over growing plants is one way to prevent insects such as thrips before they take hold. Yates Dipel and Yates Success Naturalyte Insect Control are organic and will prevent caterpillars.

Watering the soil, rather than watering the foliage, can prevent leaf fungal diseases.

If pests are under control, yet your fruit is still suffering, a lacklustre crop can also be attributed to rain during flowering, a lack of bees, possums, thrips, and dry or waterlogged soil.

More: For a step-by-step guide to planting vegetables visit, Homelife.com.au