Vegetable Patch

setting up the pump to fill our water tank

Just in case I was in danger of running out of things to do, a friend and I have decided to start a small project growing vegetables. I'm tired of the thought of living on a farm and having to buy in all of our vegetables, it can't be that hard to grow your own? right? well, it depends who you ask... So far everyone has an opinion, mostly consisting of variations on "it'll never work". Problems these cynics cite include: bad water / soil / too much sun etc. etc.

Luckily we weren't too drawn in by this negativity and have tried to follow the philosophy of 'its worth a try'. Knowing that it possibly might not work has also meant we are doing some experimenting, using different fertilisers (cow manure and  industrial stuff) and are watering some by hand and some with a home made drip irrigation system. Aptly called drip irrigation as every join / bend / even straight piece just drips the whole time from leaks as the pipe is all salvaged scrap pieces held together with glue, insulation tape and binding wire! However the upside of this is it hasn't cost a lot of money (we have had to buy some fittings) so we won't be going bankrupt just yet.

Our tap water on the farm comes from a borehole underground and is barely drinkable let lone good enough for watering plants. To solve this we have set up a water tank - raised on a stand to create pressure - and plan to pump water from a small lake (see photo above) filled with rain water into the tank. We're almost there but need some more fittings to make it work. The first time we attempted it, all the pipes jumped off at the connections and we got a bit wet...

We have already planted some chilli's, cabbages and beans and have made a small herb garden as well, with basil and a few other things

Chilli rows with water tank in background

Herb Garden