Home Front: Vegie Garden update

Perhaps I am overly proud of my little veggie patches, but it's something I've always enjoyed doing, and for as long as I've lived in places with enough plot to plant in, I've done so. Let me be the first to admit, I'm not very good with germinating seeds and keeping them alive to "seedling" size, although I planted sunflowers for Triceratops Girl last season which grew happily.
Here's an update on our main vegetable patch (as opposed to the  more herb-filled bed).

This first shot is of the "first quadrant" and hosts three variates of tomato, two of chilli and three garlic plants.The stringy grass is pervasive and a real pest to remove, it roots deeply.


This is the second quadrant, recently weeded, and plays host to green-red kale (the big leafy thing), reclaimed leeks (the bright green on the left, which sprouted from the discarded cut rooty-ends of supermarket leeks. The two big green shoots on the center left edge are more garlic, sprouted from gloves that germinated on our shelf. The long spindly looking thing is the remains of the broccoli that went to seed. I wanted to let it go full term so we could maximize our chance of getting a second season out of it. Some potatoes can be seen poking through the top right of the shot. Need to replant those to save them from going green.

Quadrant three hosts celery (top right), which is shooting up, spring onions shoots through the middle and matured, "gone-to-seed" plants along the top of the frame, and spinach all along the right of the shot. Retired kendo shinai slats make great garden stakes. Recycled futon planks make my walkways. More potatoes throughout. They are invasive but a welcome find when they aren't stifling other crops. The pumpkin is the same way.

Here are the new additions. two punnets of sweet corn (NOT popcorn variety like the last rather unsatisfying crop we grew, accidentally). I also planted basil, in between the rows of corn.In the process I dug in a bucket of chicken poop and old nest-hay, harvested from under the chookens. Digging it all in gave me the ability to clear out a bunch of grass-toots, and other detritus, as well as find and re-home some more potatoes.

I'm really hopeful that these two will be good "companion-plants"  and I may even rish another set of beans, once the corn-stalks mature. So far we've had zero success with beans.