As I am beginning to find my way through the addictive enjoyment that comes from gardening, I am learning quite a bit – purely by trial and error.

Some things happen purely by accident, and I call this ‘accidental gardening’ because that’s what it seems like: an accident. However, from these little accidents in our garden, I have learned a few useful things.

There are potatoes growing in my azalea bed. This happened because we shifted soil to this area from an area where potatoes grew last year. I know, this is hardly surprising and perhaps we should have sorted the soil a bit more thoroughly, but there you have it. I am not sure how well potatoes and azaleas mix. I suppose we will find out soon enough. I have thought about plucking the taters out, but I kind of like them being there.

Silverbeet grew in this spot last year and this year it has popped up in the bed of garlic. Again, not surprising, but I like the idea that the plant reseeded itself and we have another, accidental, patch of silverbeet. I suppose that if you let plants to to seed, this happens, which means we should expect leeks and spring onions to pop up everywhere…

This is my favourite. We eat a lot of lettuce – one lettuce each day, in fact – and I sliced the top off the lettuces, leaving the root intact. A few days later, this happened. We have new lettuces sprouting out of the original root. I am interested to see what the quality of this lettuce will be like. Do you know? Can you tell me?