Has anyone else been watching Alys Fowler’s The Edible Garden? Well, we have, and we’ve been inspired. Our vegetables have, so far, been confined to the corners of the garden, almost literally. The raised ‘veg’ bed by the house (in what used to be a coal bunker) and the fairly disastrous veg bed down the other end of the garden.
I’m hoping that the far bed will be better this year since we’ve ripped out the Swiss Chard which seemed to be a haven for black-fly, and in it we’ve currently got onions and garlic (which are growing!*) in there. There will be some potatoes, if they ever get around to sprouting, and my mum’s going to throw some into her allotment** (which will be more or less untended for the rest of the year, but if they survive we’ll nab them). And we, yesterday, did something daring even by our puny gardening standards.
Most of what we’ve planted in terms of beans and carrots are resiliant F1 hybrids, things that any idiot should, hopefully be able to grow. Last year we got a pretty good haul of carrots, beans and tomatoes (the tomatoes, to be fair, came from a plant we planted, not a seed). This year, in addition to our F1 (grow anywhere) hybrids we’ve gone out and spent 16 quid on a selection of mixed heirloom and interesting seeds. Our front windowsills (the house faces North/South, so the front ones are the only ones that actually get sun), shall be home to a selection of seeds which we’ll hopefully be potting, growing, and then planting out.
We’ve got sweetcorn, old fashioned (non-orange) carrots (sadly not purple ones, which are apparently one of the original carrot colours, white and purple, but we could only find white), parsnips, broccoli and something that’s a bit like broccoli but not, some fennel, some (*shudder*) cucumber (Kathryn loves Cucumber, but I hate it, and so we never get it because she doesn’t feel she’s likely to eat an entire cucumber from the store before it goes soggy; we’ve therefore bought a pickleable one (because i love gherkins, and a small variety)) – there’s probably loads more that I’m forgetting, but I’m looking forward with much excitement to our own edible garden. :)
Nyum.
* I may have mentioned before, but when we were clearing out the shed we found that last years unplanted onions had started to sprout – so we planted some new ones from this year *and* last years pre-sprouting ones, which are looking very good at the moment.
** Unless the new people moving in want the allotment, apparently.
