Having your own veggie garden is extremely rewarding.  Not only do you have fresh veggies on hand, but you will also find the entire process relaxing and rewarding. 

The first step to take when toying with the idea of starting your own veggie garden is to plan your garden.  Where will you lay it out?  How big do you want it to be?  Which veggies do you want to grow? You need to do your research!

You should draw up a design for your veggie garden layout; preferably to scale.  When deciding on where to situate your veggie garden you should consider an area that receives 5 to 8 hours of direct sunlight and which is protected from frost and wind.  The soil should be fertile and have proper draining.  Furthermore, your veggie garden should be close to your home, for easy access, and it should be close to a water source, such as a tap or even an irrigation system.

Your veggie garden beds should be accessible from all sides, so it is advisable to plant in beds measuring 2 meters in length and 1 meter in width.

Finally, you should carefully select the types of veggies you would like to plant.  For a beginner, these veggies should be hardy and resistant to pests and diseases.  Therefore, it would be wise initially not to plant veggies such as peppers (capsicums), eggfruit, potatoes and tomatoes.  A safer choice would be radishes, spinach, beans, peas and beetroot. 

Make sure you research each species properly, so that you will know when to sow or plant, when to harvest, and the like.

When planting your vegetable plants, you should water them thoroughly while they are still in their nursery trays to ensure that the roots are entirely wet.  You should also gently loosen the roots to ensure optimum growth potential.  Another helpful tip is to our a little bone meal into the holes, before planting your veggies. 

Veggie gardens are not just functional, but can be decorative too and form part of your over-all garden design and lay-out.  You can demarcate the various areas of your little veggie garden with stepping stones, cobble edging and strips of pebbles, gravel of quartzite rocks.  You can border the entire veggie garden with neatly trimmed hedges – such as a viburnum or buxus hedge – and you can construct a pergola over the area, which will still allow enough sunlight and rain water through.

Once you have planted your veggie seedlings or sown your seeds, you should water them properly during the first week or so.  After that time, you should only water them when the top layer of about 3cm’s of soil is dried out.

Applying a layer of mulch over your veggie beds, will retain moisture in the soil and protect your veggies against weeds, pests and the harsher elements.

If you want your veggie garden to produce optimally, you should mix organic fertilizer into the soil, once a month during summer.  During winter 2 or 3 times will suffice.

Pruning away dead leaves and flowers regularly will also ensure the most favourable growth for your veggies.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner and can provide the home owner with any exterior decorative feature.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

The Euphorbia Finger Plant (euphorbia tirucalli) – also known as Rubber Bush – is yet another beautiful and ornamental succulent, which enhances the sleek beauty of our mild steel Cubedec pots, manufactured by our in-house décor company, Badec Bros Deco.

This unique plant, with its fleshy, green and yellow-red “fingers” is drought resistant and hardy; making it very low maintenance.  It will contrast marvellously with pebbles around the base of the plant.

Pot – or container – gardening is a very low-maintenance way of creating a garden and is also ideal for small areas.  Another advantage to pot gardening is that you can bring the outdoors indoors.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Indigenous gardens are not only less expensive, water wise, hardy and proudly South African, but also very versatile.  You have thousands of indigenous plants to choose from, which means you can design your garden in a variety of styles, ranging from tropical to bushveld.

Another advantage to indigenous gardens is that you will attract birds, insects and animals to your garden; creating your very own ecosystem in your backyard.  You will also be contributing to the preservation of our indigenous plants.

Typical indigenous plants that we use include tree aloes, cape aloes, marlothii aloes, honey suckle, clivias, agapanthus, arum lilies, bulbines, wild garlic, acacia trees, olive trees, white stinkwood trees, and indigenous grasses, such as three awn grasses, thatching grass, buffalo grass, broad-leaved turpentine grass, bristle grass, Natal red top grass, red grass and fountain grass.  

Ultimately, the garden design of an indigenous garden should harmonize with the architectural style of the home and with the tastes of the home owner.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

The landscaping professionals at Kingfisher Landscaping can incorporate ornamental grasses into your garden design, should you be looking for plants that are decorative, perennial, hardy and low maintenance.

Ornamental grasses add movement and texture to your garden, and are both heat and cold tolerant.  They can grow in full sun or in the shade and can adapt to just about any type of soil.  They will complement any type of garden design and create a natural eco system in your garden.  Ornamental grasses are available in an extensive array of heights, colours and textures.

Examples of Ornamental Grasses are as follow:

Ophiopogon grasses, such as mondo grass (ophiopogon japonicus), dwarf mondo grass (ophiopogon japonicus kyoto), jaburan grass (ophiopogon jaburan vittatus), and black mondo grass (ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens).   

Sedge grasses, such as orange New Zealand sedge (carex testacies), New Zealand hair sedge (carex comas ‘frosted curls’), New Zealand leather leaf sedge (Carex bacchanalia ‘red rooster’) blue sedge grass (carex flaccid Glauca), evergold sedge (carex hachijoensis), gold band sedge (carex morrowii), and little midge palm sedge (carex muskingumensis).

Fescue grasses such as, large tufted fescue (festuca amethystine), spring blue fescue (festuca cinerea ‘fruehlingsblau’), bearskin fescue (festuca gautieri), giant fescue (festuca gigantea), blue fescue (festuca glauca ‘Select’), Elijah blue fescue (festuca glauca ‘Elijah blue’), boulder blue fescue (festuca glauca ‘Boulder blue’), Idaho blue fescue (festuca idahoensis), atlas fescue (festuca mairei), green fescue (festuca ovina), and hedgehog fescue (festuca punctoria).        

Rushes, such as corkscrew rush (juncus effusus ‘Spiralis’) and hard rush (juncus inflexus ‘Lovesick Blues’).

Acorus grasses, such as golden Japanese rush (acorus gold), broad leafed variegated acorus (acorus calamus variegates), variegated Japanese rush (acorus gramminus variegata) and mini golden Japanese rush (acorus mini gold).

Three-awn grasses, such as the annual three-awn (aristida adscensionis), spreading three-awn (aristida congesta barbicollis), tassel three-awn (aristida congesta congesta), and the gongoni three-awn (aristida junciformis).

Restios, such as Cape thatching reed (chondropetalum tectorum).