The interest in growing your own vegetables is becoming ever stronger. The reasons are simple – they taste better; you can save money; you know exactly how they’ve been grown; you can choose if you want to apply pesticides to them; and there’s the general satisfaction of knowing that you’ve grown your own food. We hope you enjoy this series – Ed.
After much enthusiasm about my allotment to my fellow ‘Twitterers’, VentnorBlog have asked me to do a blog spot about growing your own, so here goes.
Minimum input – maximum output
My philosophy of gardening and growing fruit and veg is Minimum input – maximum output.
I’m one of the lucky ones with an allotment – I took it on about eight years ago when I lived in a small rented house with an even smaller garden, and wanted a patch of land somewhere to call my own.
The plot was thick with brambles (which still make a regular appearance) which were cut and dug as much as possible. A layer of farmyard mulch was put down, covered with carpet and generally left that way until I could work each piece of land.
Some of the plot was left for three years before being worked upon, but when the carpet was removed, at last the ground underneath was wonderful, all digging and composting care of Mother Nature (and Mr Worm and friends).
My allotment may look messy, but is extremely productive.
Permanent or quick crops
I use some raised beds for the more permanent or quick crops (these are filled with raspberries, strawberries, shallots, radish, and some other goodies).
Soft fruit, such as strawberries and raspberries, I find are really easy to grow. Once the plants are truly established (takes a year or so) you can pretty much leave them to their own devices.
I just pull up any weeds by hand every couple of weeks, it takes minutes. The couple on my neighbouring allotment say that this is the last year of using their raspberry plants as they have been advised to dig them up every 3 years and replace with new – why?
Mine have been there eight years and still going as strong as ever. I say, ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’. This is as relevant to ‘growing your own’ as with anything else in life.
My plot is full of weeds but only where I am not growing veg. I can’t see the reasoning for having what is effectively sterile ground between the beds. There are plenty of wild flowers growing there; attracting the bees and hover flies, who act as pollinators and predators to unwanted pests.
Easy start – radishes
If you want an easy start, then I recommend radishes as a quick win, particularly with kids, and don’t restrict your radishes to the salad either, they go great in stir fries as well.
If you only have a small garden or windowsill, herbs are worth a go.
I have two window boxes outside my kitchen window with spearmint and peppermint from which I make my own herbal tea (add some hot water to a couple of crushed leaves, a touch of honey and hey presto – refreshing herbal tea in an instant!)
Coming up
In my next post I will detail my attempt to make my own ‘pick and mix’ growing salad boxes for use throughout the summer.
Easy to do, cheap and no supermarket packaging and processing. Long live the vegetable plot!
Flickr updates
You can look at some allotment pictures on Flickr.
If you are wondering what the white stuff is behind the asparagus and shallots, it’s not snow – it’s shredded paper – great for mulch and turns into compost.
You can also follow me on Twitter @greenwight
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Another excellent read on growing your own things is the Ventnor Permaculture blog – Ed.
