Shoots

Back in 2011 I was finishing up my HND and rather than spend my spare time studying or gaming (which I did do), I spent a great deal of it with my boyfriend (now husband) in his garden, turning it into something we could have some fun in...

The garden represented an opportunity in that the space was not heavily landscaped and his parents were also fine with us claiming the space for our own purposes. Whether or not they knew this to begin with I can't recall, but I think when we began removing a whole section of their lawn for a veg patch, they might have had an idea.

The garden had no shortage of issues and we spent a long time making general improvements before we got to growing our own.

The ground was not level which I believe contributed to some uneven drainage, with specific issues in one corner which never seemed to dry out. There were also a few areas where the lawn had encroached on the flower beds. The soil generally was very tired and needed some attention. There were also a significant lack of flowering plants besides the beastly shrubs.

Area by area we weeded, pruned, improved the soil and introduced some new plants including a number of climbers which these days have completely changed the look of the garden.

Then came the veg patch itself, after a couple of days digging this area and removing half a patio's worth of crazy paving and ballast, we had a space ready for planting out. We dug a good 2-3 125L bags of fresh compost into this to get it up to scratch, sieving the native soil to remove any large stones and other particles which would otherwise cause problems later on.

With root vegetables it's important that the ground you're sowing or planting into is free of obstructions like stones as you will get very gnarled looking carrots and parsnips. The root will carry on growing however it can so if you don't go through this process you will get either very sculptural root veg or very slim, dissapointing specimens.

Once it was generally all looking a bit better, we set about starting our veg off in pots, plugs and tubes. If you are growing from seed there are limitless options available to you. Most supermarkets will stock seeds from the early part of the growing season and then there's the bountiful stocks at garden centres and online.

You can buy veg already started off at your garden centre if you don't have anywhere to sow, but even then I would argue that you probably do. Many bought in the shops will still require care before planting out.

I recommend anyone grow some kitchen favourites which are going to crop well/regularly without any special treatment as there is no better feeling than topping up your salad drawer with your own produce every week. That said, also take the chance to grow something a bit out of the ordinary and that you can't find in your nearest Tesco.

Nearly every type of fruit and vegetable comes in dozens if not hundreds of varieties including all sorts of colours, shapes and flavours. Try those purple carrots, those stripey yellow and green tomatoes or those yellow courgettes.

Go for the rare and exciting! You'd be suprised how many people have never seen them before or even imagined that there are things other than just red tomatoes. Here are some from Dublin Botanical Garden we visited in 2018. There were two hall-length tables of these, just to show you how varied they can be.

On our first go we grew a generous variety of veg:

• Cordon Tomatoes (Roma and Gardeners Delight) - grown on into tomato pots

• Dwarf Tomatoes (Minibel) - grown on into 6" clay pots

• Runner Beans - started in toilet roll tubes (they biodegrade!)

• Parsnips - longest growing period, harvesting in December

• Carrots

• Beetroot

• Courgette - These guys produce both male and female flowers. Hand pollination is advised if you don't want to rely purely on our pollinator buddies. You can take a male flower to a female one and make sure that pollen gets in there. Alternatively, use a dry paintbrush.

• Onions

• Potatoes - grown in potato bags

From here on in, a long period of watering, feeding and potting on ensued until we ended up with a lovely mature plot like below. Courgettes start cropping vigourously pretty much straight away. Take your eye off the garden for a day and you'll miss your chance with some of the courgette flowers.

We had planted in some Nasturtiums as companion plants to help deter the pests but also can be added to a salad themselves (flowers and leaves). These also trail and climb so can make attractive summer annual climbers.

The thing to remember with any plant which crops, it requires a lot of support to keep it going. By asking it to bare any fruit you are encouraging it to prolong its natural cycle of flowering and setting seed than is actually necessary for the plant. Daily watering during peak summer (sometimes twice a day if you are growing in containers) and feeding as often as is recommended for the plant. They are hungry!

Our harvest period began in the middle of the summer and didn't really wrap up until just before Christmas when we pulled the parsnips up. These were impressive and all kinds of weird shapes. I can liken the scene to alien-autopsy. 👽

Ben and I learnt a lot during this year of what was possible with due-care and attention. The energy you put in you get back ten-fold in satisfaction as you tuck into your first crop of potatoes with your dinner.