Veg patch aspirations…

So I have finally got around to planning our new veg patch…

Until a few months ago this was a patch of concrete in our back garden. We hired a pneumatic drill and spent an entire day digging it up with my husband in charge of drilling and me practising my weight-lifting with chunks of concrete… we both needed a massage after that as you can imagine!

Unfortunately, since then, we haven’t got any further. So as soon as the weather warms up a bit, I will be out there, turning the scraggly weeds,  gravel and rock strewn area into a beautiful veggie patch… Having previously shared an allotment, I have no illusions of how hard this will be to begin with! I first took on half an allotment with a friend back in 2008 when I lived over in Jericho. It was a labour of love, and we eventually had to give it up due to our work and relationship commitments. However, we succeeded in turning a grassy strip into a very productive area of land within about 10 months. The produce in the first summer was unbelievable – we were giving it away in the end we had so many beans and giant courgettes! The only problem was that we were only really able to get down there once a week, so we often had to fight our way through the weeds to get to the veg…

I’m hoping our garden veg patch will be a little more manageable as I will be able to do battle with the weeds daily. My other challenge will be the slugs. I’m an organic gardener so I don’t use slug pellets or fertiliser. My sketch below shows my basic plan, but is based around companion gardening – basically planting things that like each other nearby (e.g. carrots and beans, strawberries and spinach, squash and sweetcorn), and also plants that will ward off the slugs and bugs with their smell (e.g. leeks, marigolds and nasturgiums). I love flowers to so I’ll be interlacing my climbing beans with sweet peas, and the flowers of borage, marigolds and nasturgiums make a pretty addition to summer salads too.

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Watch this space for veg patch updates! Oh – and if you’re a keen gardener and have any tips for me, do let me know!

 

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