About 15 years ago, our house was renovated and an extension which housed a butcher’s shop was removed from the front. This left us with a good-sized front garden, especially relative to our wee back garden – but not much skill or knowledge of gardening!
Even though our back garden is only small, it does benefit from having lovely brick walls and a sheltered aspect. So over the last few years we have enjoyed peaches, plums, redcurrents and rhubarb. We have a very vigorous Kiwi vine against the house, but unfortunately, the summer has never been long enough for the Kiwi crop to ripen properly. We also pop broad bean plants among the flowers, and last year grew peas in a tub. Mind you, not a single pea made it into the house – they were all eaten, pods and all, straight off the plant!
So when we had to do some remodelling work to the front garden last year, we decided to have a go at creating a vegetable garden. We dug the whole thing up so that the frost over winter could break up the soil. Then in the spring, Dave made up some wooden-edged raised beds. We wanted the beds to be narrow enough that we did not need to stand on the soil at all, with gravel paths which were just wide enough for access. We added lots of manure from the farm and some lovely river silt which was excess to requirements at a garden down the High Street. We have not grown any of our vegetables from seed this year – we don’t have enough space either in the house or garden for all the seed trays required. Instead we have bought seedlings where we can – the watercress farm, Cressman’s Corner or gifts from friends and relatives. We have lost very few seedlings once planted out, so I don’t think it has cost us much more than buying seeds.
We have been approximately following the principles of ‘square foot gardening’. You plant the vegetables very close together, but make sure you feed them well. So far all we have been doing is to add chicken poo pellets when we plant the seedlings, and that seems to be enough. Our biggest problem this year has been pigeons, pecking at our cabbage seedlings. Not too many slugs or snails have found us this year, perhaps because the garden was bare for the whole of last winter, leaving them with nowhere to hide. We are assuming they will find us sometime soon! Caterpillars have started to appear, but my rather blood-thirsty children seem happy to go caterpillar hunting most evenings. We like to throw pests like snails and caterpillars into the High Street for the passing cars to deal with – apologies to any cyclists passing at the time!
We have been pleasantly surprised by how little work the garden is, especially now that the vegetables have grown enough to suppress a lot of weeds. It’s literally a couple of minutes here and there, plus the joy of harvesting immediately before eating. So far we have enjoyed a variety of salad leaves, a couple of broad beans and peas, plus a lovely pointy cabbage – oh, and one lovely little round carrot, eaten while writing this article! I can’t wait for the Jerusalem artichokes, pink fir apple potatoes, sweetcorn and beetroot.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone about how much more nutritious freshly picked produce is compared to stuff which has been stored for weeks – or how much more tasty it is!
Even though our back garden is only small, it does benefit from having lovely brick walls and a sheltered aspect. So over the last few years we have enjoyed peaches, plums, redcurrents and rhubarb. We have a very vigorous Kiwi vine against the house, but unfortunately, the summer has never been long enough for the Kiwi crop to ripen properly. We also pop broad bean plants among the flowers, and last year grew peas in a tub. Mind you, not a single pea made it into the house – they were all eaten, pods and all, straight off the plant!
So when we had to do some remodelling work to the front garden last year, we decided to have a go at creating a vegetable garden. We dug the whole thing up so that the frost over winter could break up the soil. Then in the spring, Dave made up some wooden-edged raised beds. We wanted the beds to be narrow enough that we did not need to stand on the soil at all, with gravel paths which were just wide enough for access. We added lots of manure from the farm and some lovely river silt which was excess to requirements at a garden down the High Street. We have not grown any of our vegetables from seed this year – we don’t have enough space either in the house or garden for all the seed trays required. Instead we have bought seedlings where we can – the watercress farm, Cressman’s Corner or gifts from friends and relatives. We have lost very few seedlings once planted out, so I don’t think it has cost us much more than buying seeds.
We have been approximately following the principles of ‘square foot gardening’. You plant the vegetables very close together, but make sure you feed them well. So far all we have been doing is to add chicken poo pellets when we plant the seedlings, and that seems to be enough. Our biggest problem this year has been pigeons, pecking at our cabbage seedlings. Not too many slugs or snails have found us this year, perhaps because the garden was bare for the whole of last winter, leaving them with nowhere to hide. We are assuming they will find us sometime soon! Caterpillars have started to appear, but my rather blood-thirsty children seem happy to go caterpillar hunting most evenings. We like to throw pests like snails and caterpillars into the High Street for the passing cars to deal with – apologies to any cyclists passing at the time!
We have been pleasantly surprised by how little work the garden is, especially now that the vegetables have grown enough to suppress a lot of weeds. It’s literally a couple of minutes here and there, plus the joy of harvesting immediately before eating. So far we have enjoyed a variety of salad leaves, a couple of broad beans and peas, plus a lovely pointy cabbage – oh, and one lovely little round carrot, eaten while writing this article! I can’t wait for the Jerusalem artichokes, pink fir apple potatoes, sweetcorn and beetroot.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone about how much more nutritious freshly picked produce is compared to stuff which has been stored for weeks – or how much more tasty it is!
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