There’s never been a better time to grow your own!
Healthy home-grown veg will throw off the cares of these times like nothing else. In this essential new series – continuing all this week in the Irish Daily Mail – Monty Don shows you how easy it is, no matter how much, or little, space you have
Truly, it’s astonishing how quickly we’ve all gone e from blithely shopping for any veg we like right across the year ar to occasionally empty shelves and a realisation on that our food supply system is fragile.
But one answer to this his – both this spring and summer and in the future – is to get back to growing our own. This ensures you have fresh h veg on your doorstep, it’s cheap and healthy – both as food and the exercise spent out in the sun growing them – and is one of the best ways of throwing off the cares of these times and getting back to the essence of what matters in life.
Almost any garden can accommodate vegetables, including balconies and even a window box. While you may prefer a conventional allotment-style veg plot, you can also make it decorative and mingle in flowers with the carrots, peas and cabbages.
I have yet to meet a person who does not agree that anything grown carefully, picked when ready and eaten fresh does not taste better than anything from a shop. Those first new potatoes or baby broad beans, carrots pulled from the ground or a lettuce cut, washed and eaten within the hour are food fit for kings – and yet are within the grasp of anybody with a scrap of land to sow some seeds into.
But do accept the rhythms of the garden. Forget the instant gratification of buying veg, as the quickest items – radishes or rocket leaves – take at least four weeks to produce anything edible from seed. It is a game played by Nature’s rules and the greatest satisfaction comes from working with this rather than trying to get round it.
BASICS FOR BEGINNERS
If you are an old hand at growing veg and have been successfully doing it for years, then congratulations and long may you continue to do so – but this bit is not for you! However, if you are a novice or perhaps have yet to try to grow any vegetables at all, then here are some basics based upon my own 50-odd years of growing a wide range of vegetables every year.
CHOOSE YOUR SITE CAREFULLY
Make the most of whatever you have, even if it is only a tiny yard. Vegetables all need as much sun as possible so do what you can to avoid shade. This may not be entirely possible and some vegetables like lettuce, runner beans and root vegetables will cope with some shade, especially in the full glare of a hot summer, but an open, sunny site is ideal.
Cherish your soil. All goodness starts in the ground and the better your soil, the better your vegetables will be. However ‘better’ is not an absolute term. No matter how much goodness you add and however carefully you tend it, you cannot change the nature of your soil. So heavy clay will always be heavy and a sandy free-draining soil will always have that character. Likewise, if your ground is very acidic, and you can verify this by seeing what is growing around you – if there is an abundance of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and acers then it will be acidic. If your soil is very chalky it will be alkaline and nothing you ca n do will cha nge those facts.
However, what you can do is improve the structure of any soil and this is really important. Adding lots of orga n ic matter such as compost will make any soil moisture-retentive while simultaneously free-draining. Roots will be able to grow deep and yet have access to nutrients and water and it will be easier to work. The simplest and most effective way to do this is to add a generous layer of compost as a mulch twice a year and let the earthworms work it into the soil for you.
WATER WISELY
When I plant out young plants that I have raised from seed I make sure to always soak them really well, and many crops will need very little water thereafter. But some like lettuce, spinach, rocket, leeks, fennel, celery and celeriac are quick to bolt – ie run to seed – if they are stressed by water shortage, so it is important to give them a steady water supply.
As with all watering, it is much more effective to give something a really good soak once a week than a sprinkle every few days. A soak will encourage deep roots, which will in turn mean that they will be able to access more water. It is a virtuous circle.
Ideally, you’d have a standpipe connected to the mains as well as generous water butts or tanks for rainwater, but whatever you have should make watering easy rather than a chore. I find the retractable, concertina-ing hose pipes very useful, and also that collecting rain water in an open tank makes filling a watering can much quicker and easier because you can dip into it rather than waiting for it to fill via a small tap.
RULES OF SOWING AND THINNING
You cannot cheat the weather. If the soil is cold to your touch then few seeds will germinate. A good rule of thumb is that if the weeds are not growing then it is too cold for your vegetable seeds. When a flush of weeds starts to grow, hoe them off a nd sow your seeds. They will then avoid competition in the first vital weeks of growth.
However you sow, do it as thinly as possible and thin the seedlings as soon as they’re large enough to handle, so you are left with a row of maturing plants 1020cm apart.
Seedlings can emerge and then stop growing if we get a bout of cold spring weather, which is entirely possible. At this point they are very susceptible to snails and slugs. But even if it is miserably wet and cold outside
you can sow seeds in spring under cover in a seed tray or in plugs (that is, trays of small modules or pots) using peat-free compost.
A greenhouse is best, but cold frames are very good and a porch or spare windowsill or two perfectly workable. When they have germinated and reached a reasonable size, put them outside to harden off (adjust to the cooler temperature) for a week or two before planting them out at 20cm spacing (or as recommended on the seed packet) when the soil is warm and they are big enough to withstand any kind of slug or snail attack.
SOW A STEADY SUPPLY
Succession is the key for a steady supply of fresh veg for as long as possible. What this means is sowing batches of your favourite vegetables in two or three goes across the growing season so that as one batch is coming to an end another is just ready to be harvested with perhaps a third one being sown or grown on.
Obviously this takes a little organisation. Start with a small amount of fast-growing salad leaves raised indoors in plugs so they can be planted out as soon as the ground warms up and follow this with regular additions, both raised in plugs and directly sown into the soil, right through to September. Crops like peas and beans, chard, carrots and beetroot grow more slowly but can be spread over months to provide two or three overlapping waves of harvest.
Finally there are the long, slow crops like most brassicas, chicory, garlic or celery that are going to tie up space for most of the growing year. I always interplant these with a catch-crop (fast-growing crop) like radish or rocket that can be eaten before they start to compete with the slow-grower.
RAISED BEDS CAN HELP
Raised beds, in which the soil sits higher than the surrounding ground, are ideal if you are limited with space or mobility, and they are also the best way of coping with poor or thin soil. Soil from the paths can be shovelled into them to increase the depth of topsoil or can be brought in if necessary. The greater depth of topsoil means better root run, improved drainage and it’s noticeably quicker to warm up in spring.
Mark the beds out with string and dig the ground deeply, adding as much manure or compost as you can obtain. This will raise the surface of the soil.
For many years I had raised beds that were simple mounds of soil, which worked well but did tend to spill onto the paths. Solid edging is better. I have found recycled scaffolding planks are cheap and ideal for the purpose. Fork over the paths and shovel a layer of topsoil from them onto the beds. Use bark chippings, paving or grass for the paths. Rake over and top dress the beds with a layer of compost and they are ready for planting or sowing. You should be able to reach everything from the paths without ever having to stand on the bed itself, so every square inch of the beds can be planted.
Do not be tempted to make your raised beds too wide – 1.5 metres is the maximum workable width and it is best to keep them to less than 4.5 metres long so they remain easy to walk around.
I always have a length of scaffolding board cut so it rests firmly on the outside edging boards, so I can stand or kneel on that when planting rather than the soil. But most of the time you should be able to reach anything you want from the paths.