Taking the 'Simulator' out of Farming Sims

RESULTS & REFLECTIONS

Well, here I am at the end of my first DK30 project.

I set out to create a vegetable garden (from scratch) to grow various vegetables and fruits throughout the year. I went into the project with very minimal experience in growing… anything! Like, never grown a thing! And minimal experience with woodworking.

I feel I have been very successful in building a moderately-sized planter box(es), including a small garden bed, in which I can grow a variety of vegetable, including Baby Spinach, Kale, Garlic, Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Pak Choi & Beetroot (all Fall & Winter plants).

The only setback that I had was our family dogs digging through portions of planted soil, setting back the gowing time as I had to replant the damaged areas.

https://imgur.com/ZAiZdyP (Here is a picture of the garden w/plenitful Spinach and Garlic growth)

Despite the setback, I’ve managed to do far more than I set out to do, building a third (deeper) planter box out of the leftover wood.

https://imgur.com/QWDHRR5 (Here’s a pic of the entire thing, you can also see some of the broad beans growing in the back of the garden bed)

As far as the future of the project goes beyond these first 30 days, well, more of the same. I have plants growing in small seedling pots that I will transplant into the garden bed when ready.

https://imgur.com/htbLH3g (Here are all the plants that will be transplanted in when matured – From Left to Right; Pak Choi, Kale & Broccoli)

I’m a big believer of learning from failure, so rather than researching every little detail and optimised way of planting certain vegetable species, I’ve opted to approach this project in a ‘plant it and see how it goes’ mentality, meaning that I’m excited to see where I succeed & where I fail, and learning from both.

So… what have I learnt so far…? How to grow Spinach… lots of it! And here’s a pic of my first harvest.

https://imgur.com/X8hb10i (A bowl full of baby spinach)

As stated in the project description, week 4 was a month long week to allow for plants/seedlings to grow for the final Results & Reflections report.

As such, I shall mark the project as complete.

Week 3 didn’t quite get off to a good start… a dirty mongrel mutt or two got into some of my freshly seeded plants! Arrgh!

Still love 'em though.

They mainly got into the garden bed and second planter box. Didn’t take a picture of the damage but suffice to say, it’s a good-bye to the pak choi and kale. Broad beans remained untouched. Instead of replanting the kale and pak choi directly into the soil again, I opted to plant them in small seedling trays for transplanting at a later date.

With some spare time in the week, and some spare pieces of wood left over from the pallets, I made another (rectangular and deeper) planter box for planting carrots and sugar-snap peas.

On another positive note, the spinach and garlic continues to grow very well! And on top of that, the broad beans have started to shoot.

That concludes week 3.

Okay, so I have no idea how the image feature of this site works, so I may just have to copy past the links directly.

Week two was another smooth sailing week as I built the second planter box (exactly the same as the first). As a nice bonus, I also had enough wood leftover from the two pallets to create a small garden bed between the two boxes.

https://imgur.com/1JX0BSG

Earlier in the week though I planted some seeds in the first planter box, mainly Spinach (LOTS), Garlic and Beetroot.

I then proceeded to fill the second planter box and garden bed with a mixture of soil, manure and fertiliser, ready for seed planting. After leaving the soil for a few days, I planted some Kale and Broad Beans in the second planter box as well as Pak Choi and more Broad Beans along the back, with some bamboo sticks to tie the stalks to later. Also planted some Broccoli seeds in some plastic seed trays for future transplanting.

That just about covers week 2.

Week One Update:

Week one went smoothly as a wet… dolphin? Is that a saying?

For the first few days of the week, I purchased a whole mass of different seeds types from a hardware store, namely Spinach, Garlic, Kale, Broad Beans, Snow Peas, Broccoli and Beetroot. Work on Planter Boxes went VERY well. Managed to obtain two free wooden-pallets (woo-hoo!) and decided on a plan/style for the first planter box. Dismantled one pallet as carefully as possible so as not to damage the wood planks and proceeded to remove the old nails.

Midweek I began work on actually building the boxes. I decided on a plan that used not nails and no glue and instead connected by interlocking. Using only a small amount of tools:

Tape Measure Pencil Hand Saw Wood Chip Wood Chisel

… That’s it!

Was able to measure, cut, and assemble the first planter box in one whole day! And it was very easy to do.

The final result for the first planter box.

With the remaining time for the week, I went and purchased the potting mix, fertiliser and manure to fill the box(es).

Lastly, here is the final progress result for week one, ready for planting next week.