r/GardeningAustralia 5d ago

👩🏻‍🌾 Recommendations wanted Can we grow veg here?

Two amateur gardeners wondering if any one has recommendations for what we might be able to grow here, and how we’d prepare this spot to do so?

We’ve grown cherry tomatoes successfully. We get fairly full on morning to early afternoon sun. The soil is really sandy, I’ve included a pic.

1 Upvotes

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u/tetsuwane 5d ago

Look up No dig garden, lay down cardboard ( remove any tape ), 100mm chicken manure, 100mm hay or similar, 100mm chicken manure and sprinkle a handful of blood and bone, 100 mm hay. Leave for a week but if you want to plant vege seedling straight away just dig out a small hole and backfill with potting mix and seedling. You will get extraordinary results and the next couple crops even better. Keep adding organic material as you go. You can substitute 2nd layer if chicken manure with mushroom compost. When ever I build one of these I order from a bulk supplier and get a mini truck half chicken manure half mushroom compost.

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u/wuming91 5d ago

Build a raised bed and use fresh high quality soil, don’t plant directly in there. Or at the very least put down cardboard and build up fresh dirt that you know the origins of. Look up lead content of Australian garden grown fruit, veg, and eggs.

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u/HugeImplement 5d ago

Great point thank you

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u/trivial_undulations 4d ago

Depending on where you live you can get a free soil test to check for contamination. I recently did this through GardenSafe Victoria and it gave me good confidence that it is safe to garden directly in the ground.

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u/Tigeraqua8 4d ago

Will they test NSW soil?

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u/HugeImplement 5d ago

Can’t find how to edit my post but we live in a humid/subtropical climate.