Australian Bush Life

Dill companion planted with coriander.

Dill – Anethum graveolens is a great tasting herb and smells fantastic too. We regularly add dill to salads, fish, soups and it is great with white cheeses, mayonnaise and potatoes. This autumn we have grown our best batch of dill. We grew it alongside our coriander crop as they seem to be like companion plants, not so much helping each other but the 2 crops are very similar. They like the same amount of water, soil type and dill & coriander both germinate quickly and are ready for harvest in similar timeframes.

Just like coriander the best tip was to let dill go to seed so that you have plenty of seed to grow a good crop with. By letting 1 to 2 plants go to seed provides us with hundreds of seeds far more than ever comes in a packet from the shops.  Once the seed starts falling off the plant you can harvest, dry and store seeds for use later on. Planting the seed thickly in autumn and spring seems to work best for us to get a good healthy crop that will be ready for eating after about 6 weeks.

More on growing herbs and vegetables…

A vegetable garden space saving tip.

Vegetable garden space saver: climbing beans up corn stems.

This summer we grew climbing beans under our corn and the climbing beans used the corn to climb on. It was so much easier than having to put in a climbing rack for the climbing beans and makes the climbing beans really easy to see and pick.

It left less plant spread cluttering around the base of the corn and bean stems and therefore made hand weeding and adding mulch easier too. We always hand weed as we don’t want weeds to seed and blow out into our indigenous bush right beside our vegie patch and we grow organic – so no herbicide.

The beans are also nitrogen fixers so deliver nitrogen (nutrient) straight to the roots of the corn which  are very hungry.