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21.08.2023 - 12:03 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
Hot off the presses, I have a garden plan for 2017. It’s not set in stone – last year’s got changed around during the season a bit due to unexpected arrivals and departures – but I have a guideline for what I’m hoping to achieve in the garden next year. 2017 will be the first year in which I start the year with all 12 raised beds in the garden built and available for planting. We still need to finish the margins of the back garden, and there are plenty of plants in pots that need permanent homes. We planted the front garden this year, and there are only minor additions to make to that.
One of the unexpected successes of the 2016 was sweetcorn. I hadn’t planned on planting any, but ended up with some rescue plants (of unknown variety) from the garden centre. They didn’t all grow; the ones that did were mismatched heights, which meant patchy pollination. I didn’t take any photos, because the plants weren’t pretty. The cobs were the very opposite of uniform. They came in different sizes and widths, the kernels were different sizes, and arranged in interesting patterns. But they tasted divine and we devoured them, and so a better attempt at sweetcorn became the bedrock for the 2017 garden.
The bedrock of this year’s garden, from last year’s experience, was a Triffid – a Rugosa fruilana courgette/summer squash. We loved the sheer enthusiasm of Triffid as it tried to take over the garden, and we love the fruits, which are less watery than traditional green courgettes. I wanted to add a patty pan (‘flying saucer’) squash this year, but that didn’t work out. So a Triffid and a patty pan are in the plan for next year.
There are 12 raised beds in the back garden, each 1.2m x 1.2m. Four of them are filled with perennial crops. One bed
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How does a kitchen gardener choose what to grow? It’s about balancing quite a complex set of variables, which include the space and time available, the local climate and soil, the gardener’s skill level and what they like to eat. That last one is, itself, quite a complicated topic as culture plays a significant role. There are many thousands of edible plants on the planet; most people only eat a small number and grow fewer still.
Whether you made a New Year’s resolution to cut your carbon footprint, or the credit crunch is putting pressure on your food budget, now is the perfect time to try growing some of your own vegetables. You don’t need a lot of space, or expensive kit, to get started – and it doesn’t need to take up a lot of your time.
If there’s one thing that makes gardeners gnash their teeth with frustration, it’s watching their favourite plants being eaten by pests. We’ve moved on from the ‘any bug is a bad bug’ mentality, and many chemical controls are being removed from sale amid safety fears, but this doesn’t mean that we have to abandon hope of an attractive and productive garden.
Plastic bottles are everywhere these days, even floating around in the oceans. Fortunately for the environment, recycling facilities are improving (here in the UK at least) but a lot of plastic bottles still end up in landfill, where they just don’t break down. If you would like to give your plastic bottles a new lease of life once they’re empty, and save money too, then try recycling them into something useful for the garden.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (also called the Doomsday vault) in Norway was officially opened in February 2008. During the 3 months prior to the grand opening, engineers pumped refrigerated air into the vault to bring its temperature down from a chilly -5°C to an arctic -18°C.
Now that the days are longer and the first flush of spring is over, gardeners all over the country have a chance to step back from frantic seed sowing, transplanting, digging and weeding and carry on gardening at a slower pace over the summer.
It is one of the big ironies of gardening that the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers we use to keep our lawns green make them one of the least ‘green’ areas of the garden. Many gardeners put a lot of effort into maintaining their lawns, and this diligence can be a real asset if you want to go green, because it requires a fair amount of work to keep your lawn in top-notch condition using organic methods. The good news is that a more relaxed approach rewards you with a beautiful, wildlife-friendly lawn.
Organic gardeners aim to feed the soil, and let a healthy soil take care of the plants. The best way to add fertility to your garden is to make compost, but in most gardens there is never enough compost to go around and there will be times when supplementary feeding is needed.
Climb the cast-iron steps to the roof garden at the Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC) and you can almost forget that you’re in the heart of the city. Just 30 by 6 metres, the garden manages to fill every vista and the breeze through the trees drowns out all but the loudest city noises.
There’s nothing quite as British as a nice cup of tea, and sitting down for a good cuppa can certainly brighten up your day. A tea bush is unlikely to thrive in most UK gardens (although there are a couple of tea plantations) because of the climate, but there are plenty of herbs that are easy to grow and make a refreshing brew. They’ll even grow well in containers – so they make ideal plants for a windowbox or a patio. Having them close at hand means you can harvest leaves as and when you need them.
This was the garden earlier in the month, when it experienced quite heavy snow. We had a bit more over the Christmas break, but it gone again now. Like many people, I choose to use these wintry days to plan my spring/summer garden!