Is there a more desirable fantasy than pottering around at the end of your garden on a syrupy summer evening, filling a trug with muddy homegrown produce for supper? The smug satisfaction of plonking a bowl of something on the table and knowing it has been grown in your garden is very hard to beat. There was a time when almost anyone with a patch of land would grow at least something for the kitchen table, one of the more positive relics of post-war Britain. But in our busy, convenience-driven lives, many of us have lost the skills to grow vegetables and have never experienced the pleasure of plucking a tomato still warm from the vine or podding peas fresh from their shells. The good news is that it’s not too late – spring has been slow to start this year and so a home-grown potato salad is well within your reach. To help, I spoke some of our most green-fingered growers about how to create the perfect patch.
Do embrace the no-dig method
The first step is always attending to the soil. If you’re growing your lunch in it, you want to look after it, but pleasingly, this is a relatively low-maintenance affair. Charles Dowding, the pioneer of the now widely accepted no-dig method, says there is a lot to be gained from leaving our soil alone. “It saves time and effort, and allows soil life to do a better job of maintaining fertility and structure.” As the name implies, no-dig involves covering the soil with organic matter such as compost, sometimes on top of a layer of cardboard if the ground is currently grass, and then planting directly into the compost, rather than digging it into the soil. Organic grower Anna Greenland, who has grown veg for chefs including Raymond Blanc and Jamie Oliver, is a committed advocate of no-dig. She explains “the soil is alive with a multitude of microbes - fungi, bacteria, nematodes, earthworms to name a few. Digging soil over disturbs the networks they have created which in turn help plants stay healthy, and can lead to compaction.”
Other benefits of not digging your soil are far fewer weeds because you’re not bringing them to the surface, and in Charles Dowding’s two-bed trial he noticed much less slug damage as well as consistently higher yields.
Only grow what you actually want to eat
It’s extremely easy to get over-excited with a seed catalogue and completely overwhelm yourself. Kathy Slack, author of From the Veg Patch, suggests you stick to growing what you eat. “It sounds obvious but when you start out it’s so easy to get carried away. I grew potatoes every season because that’s what you do in an allotment, isn’t it? It took me years to realise that I don’t really eat potatoes.”
Don’t struggle over things that are hard to establish and easy to buy
In her book A Year Full of Veg, Sarah Raven talks about what you’re going to plant in four categoriesL veg that will be generous, easy to grow, extremely delicious, or “unbuyable”. Most vegetables are annuals, i.e. you grow them from seed every year. But Anna Greenland says perennial vegetables are over-looked, when in fact they are much lower maintenance, and mean less soil disturbance too. For example rhubarb and asparagus take a bit of time to establish but will then be generous friends for a long time. There are also lots of unusual plants you won't easily find in a supermarket such as perennial kale, yacon (an Andean root crop), sea kale, the herb sculpit and Szechuan pepper.
Do thin your annuals out
When it comes to annual veg, the sowing is the easy part, but growing them on in the right quantities is harder. It’s tempting to go for quantity over quality, but it’s much better to have fewer stronger plants than lots of weak ones which will be competing for resources. Kathy says the trick is being brave when it comes to thinning out. “It seems counterintuitive to pull up perfectly good seedling but stay strong! The plants that are left will be far stronger and reliable if you thin hard.” And be similarly ruthless when it comes to planting out: “don’t be tempted to cram in plants that don’t have room to grow because you don’t want to waste your babies”. This will result in a poor harvest, so much better to give away spares as gifts.
Do embrace companion planting
Mixing flowers into your vegetable beds delivers a host of benefits too. Not only will it make everything look (even more) gorgeous, but it will help it thrum with life too. Anna grows both edible flowers such as calendula, borage and nasturtiums as well as cut flowers (dahlias, zinnias, cosmos, cornflowers, poppies) in amongst vegetables. They will all create diversity and attract beneficial insects that aid pollination.
Don't start too early
As soon as the clocks change it feels like a race to get everything into the ground, but we can have a frost as late as mid-May in the UK. Anna warns that starting late-summer crops such courgettes, squash and cucumbers too early can mean that they will be pot bound and vulnerable by the time you plant them out in May. “The key takeaway is that things catch up as the weather warms, so you don’t need to feel the pressure of starting to sow in the early months of the year. For fast crops such as lettuce, radishes and peas the trick is to sow little and often to avoid gluts – it’s hard to know what to do with hundreds of radishes and it is wasted space where you could be growing something else.
Don't be easily discouraged
Finally, be observant and enjoy the ups and downs. Perhaps more than any other type of gardening, growing veg can bring crushing disappointment when the slugs get to your lovingly reared tomato seedlings. But keep your eyes on the prize, because that home-grown salad is always worth it.
