Bring on summer in the vegetable garden

Summer is almost here. About how to turn a Makkelijke Moestuin into a difficult vegetable garden, watering, slugs and snails, and what to do when you go on holiday.

Just a few more days and it will officially be summer. What kind of summer will it be? Warm and dry like the past week, or wet and cold like spring?

Or something in between, of course 🙂

It will remain warm and dry for the time being. And that means watering.

Your plants now regularly need some extra water. Without it, newly sown seeds won't germinate and seedlings will stay far too small.

But because Makkelijke Moestuinmix holds water so well, you only water where it's needed: at the base of the plants. That uses up to 80% less water than an ordinary vegetable garden.

Everything about watering in a Makkelijke Moestuin.

I still owed you an answer to that question. But it's better to turn it around, because if you set up a genuine Makkelijke Moestuin, that won't happen.

Here are ten points that make the difference between success and failure. You'll also see how I started out and gradually became wiser:

What is a genuine Makkelijke Moestuin?

Yep, it's that time again. They're everywhere: large snails, small snails, black, brown and grey ones, with shells and without.

They all have one thing in common: they're looking for something tasty, preferably something growing in your raised beds or mine.

Fortunately, there's plenty you can do. You can easily move MM-minis somewhere slugs and snails find difficult to reach. They won't get onto a table or pallet nearly as quickly.

An MM-air grow bag also fits perfectly on a small table:

The Knowledge Base has several pages about slugs and snails. They're full of tips, home remedies that do and don't work, brilliant inventions and countless photos of my experiments. Really, I've tried just about everything 😉

Start on this page.

Unfortunately, our electric slug fence is already sold out. That's a real shame, because it's about the only thing that genuinely keeps them out of your raised beds.

Its only drawback was assembly, which was quite a challenge. So we went back to the drawing board, but a new version is taking much longer than we expected.

For now, I'll also have to make do with all those other remedies 😐

Yes, I'd like that too, although I don't yet know whether I'll manage it this year.

But if you are going away, what do you do with your raised beds?

Tips for what to do before you go on holiday.

The community is a joy right now. Beautiful raised beds full of fresh greenery, the first harvests, and budding MM gardeners trying their first little vegetable garden: wonderful.

Below are photos of Annemieke 2005's helper, Amanda123's first harvest, Silvia's flowering vegetables and Sanne Bo's fresh smoothie:

And yes, there are also lots of questions, doubts about whether things are going well, frustration with pests and birds, and questions about what to do about them.

There's already a wealth of information in the Knowledge Base, but new MM gardeners sowing for the first time don't always know that yet. Fortunately, experienced hands help them or point them in the right direction.

We're delighted about that, so if you'd like to help, please do 😀

I've written before about Lutje's wonderful project, Minima Moestuintjes. Through it, she has already helped 50 people in her municipality start their own Makkelijke Moestuin. She's now supporting other projects too and is already talking to other municipalities.

What do the Planty seeds have to do with that? Here's the story:

At the end of 2019, we planned to launch Planty with twelve seed varieties, just for Plantys and MM-minis. We had the seed packets printed and filled. Later, we decided to merge Makkelijke Moestuin and Planty and use the same products for both, so those packets were no longer needed.

So what now? Sell them after all?

Together with Lutje, we came up with something much better: we sent all the seeds to her, and she'll distribute them among different projects, including specialist schools and organisations. Read more about it here.

If you're thinking, "I know the perfect place for those seeds", email Lutje - actually Laura 😉 - and tell her about it. Perhaps together we can help another wonderful project. Her email address is [email protected].

The packets are written in English, but you can use them with the Makkelijke Moestuin app or the Planty Gardening app. One more thing: the expiry date should read 2024 rather than 2022; it was printed incorrectly.

No, I'm not going to talk about all our sold-out raised beds. I'm just as disappointed as you are. If all goes well, some MM-minis should arrive again this week. Fingers crossed.

Enjoy the beautiful weather and keep harvesting thoroughly, even if you aren't going on holiday. Be strict occasionally and make room for something new.

Normally, I'd replace the snow peas around this time with a climbing zucchini or cucumbers. But because it stayed cold for so long this year, my snow peas are far from finished.

So they're patiently waiting for me to harvest them:

One more thing about snow peas, sugar snaps and winter peas: you can still sow them now. You may have more than enough at the moment, but in a few weeks your plants will have finished producing. Sow another round now and you'll have a fresh crop in about six weeks 😀

The next newsletter will be about little creatures, both welcome and unwelcome, and how to keep your summer vegetables in top condition.

See you then!

Share your story and photos in our very active community, or leave a response below this post. I look forward to seeing it!