Vegetable garden makeover

After a shopping trip on Saturday I was anxious to get out into the vegetable garden.  I had purchased some seedlings and soil amendments and seed starter mix.  This is the first time I have used seed starter mix, but I often have trouble with damping off.  I think it might be worse in this hot humid climate, so want to do all I can to prevent it, and losing all my precious little seedlings.  I will water them with chamomile and seaweed tea as this is also recommended.   So in the interests of full disclosure (so I cannot just remove the evidence if my seedlings die)  the seeds I planted were  Zucchini, spaghetti squash, parsley, tomato tropic, lettuce, Chinese broccoli.

Then I went out to the vegetable patch - looks different now doesn't it?

The first thing I did was remove the pigeon pea plants - I suspect they should not be kept in the garden for another season.  They were originally planted as a green manure crop, and then I thought they could stay as supports for climbing cucumbers and loofahs, but lately have been infested with stink bugs which is sign they were not in optimum health.  Praying mantis seem to enjoy eating the remaining stinkbugs.  The loofahs were picked still green and I am looking for a dry place to put them - not so easy as it is still raining every day.  I am not putting up the shade cloth as I think the soil needs all the sunshine it can get to dry out between showers. Then I cut back the asparagus - they have been mulched with seaweed, but will get a new layer soon. 
Talking of mulch I looked at the sugar cane mulch and balked at 13.00 a bale.  I see all the chemicals that most farmers spray on their sugar cane and really don't want to have that in my garden.  I often get organic hay from a neighbour but he hasn't cut any yet because it is all too wet.   So what to do?  I trimmed back my lemongrass and snipped that into smaller pieces, I still think it does act as a natural insecticide, but have no proof, just a hunch, then I mixed in some shredded leaves.  . .  that will be the mulch around my vegetables for now. 
The sweet potatoes in the back section are still quite weedy and the potatoes I have bandicooted have been quite small so they will stay for now.

   When harvested that area will grow squash, I wanted to grow butternut, but just had spaghetti squash seeds.   I am hoping that area will be big enough for squash, but they can clamber over the fence.  I also have to put the zucchini somewhere, so know that I will run out of room.  Down the side fence the long Chinese green beans are a bit slow - maybe too much rain and not enough sunshine.   In front of them I planted two eggplant.  There have been no solanacea in that bed for two years.   The ginger is starting to flower, so think I will harvest most of it and see if I can get some to winter over.  I cant see why it cannot be a perennial in this climate.

Then the big bed  with the pigeon peas removed was a blank slate.  I kept the basil, paw paw and a jalapeno chili, and then spread out some capsicum, cucumbers (at the back so that I can erect something for them to climb.. ) a few more eggplant, and silver beet.  I have amaranth popping up, but had no success with the mixed green seeds I got from green harvest. Maybe they are designed for  a different climate.  There is room in the front to add the lettuce and other seedlings when they need to be transplanted. 
During the week I had been reading "Carrots love tomatoes" and surprisingly she recommends growing tomatoes alongside asparagus.  So I got some marmande tomatoes and am holding thumbs.  I also put two along the back fence with the cherry tomatoes.  We suffer from bacterial wilt here and I am hoping the soil is so super rich now that it has been eradicated.  I  practice crop rotation, and the center bed is where I grew the tomatoes last year.  The cherry tomatoes don't suffer from it.
 

For another option I did plant a few greens into a pot next to the back door - if this rain doesn't ever stop at least I can move these out of the rain. 

So I think that is all I can do for now, other than pray that the rain moderates somewhat.

There are big changes to the herb spiral too, but that deserves a post all of its own.