As part of my work at VegBox Recipes, I was, up until recently, using myself as an experiment to see how easy it is to grow some of my own food, rather than sticking to eating food lovingly and healthily grown by others.
When I moved into my new house in April, I pulled up 9 square feet of paving slabs in the back yard and got as far as digging half of it over and removing the rubble I found.
But as some of you know, I’ve been fighting somewhat up-hill for the last few years with a lot of pain in my shoulders, spine, hips and now knees.
So while I did manage to pull off a couple of things in pots until they were decimated by slugs or black fly (grrrr!), I got no further with the veggie bed because I couldn’t even weed, let alone pull up any more rubble or dig in any more compost.
It’s been really quite disheartening.
But after a bit of a slump, I want to try again.
The thoughts I’ve had so far about how I can do things differently are:
1) Forget about finishing off creating the veggie bed. Clearing rubble = A Bad Idea.
2) Opt for container growing.
3) In particular, get those containers up at waist height.
4) Next year, go for runner or french beans instead of broad beans, and grow them from tubs up over an arch or across a bit of the fence.
I’m not sure how to get the containers up at waist height without having to build something, which is not an option for me. Maybe I can ask for old garden tables on here or on SnaffleUp or Freecycle? Any other thoughts?
And in the meantime, I have packets of seeds for:
sweetcorn
kohlrabi
pak choi, and
purple sprouting broccoli
Is it still worth trying to grow any of these in containers? What kind? Long trough types? Or individual pots?
And are there other low maintenance fruits or veggies that are particularly suited to pots or troughs that I could have on a table top that can still be planted at this time of year or later?
I’d love any advice anyone has… I’m really hoping it’s not too late for another go!
Categories: food, seasonal eating
Hi, we’ve been experimenting with growing veg in plastic buckets filled with compost this year and have had success! They are on the ground, but I see no reason why buckets on a table would be any different. We have had success with carrots and mouli radishes (several plants to a bucket) and perpetual spinach (1 plant per bucket). In fact the carrots, which won’t grow at all in our ‘pure clay’ soil, are particularly sweet and tasty. We’ve also got new potatoes growing well in thick polythene rubbish sacks. They haven’t been gobbled up by woodlice which is their usual fate in the ground and don’t seem to mind being a bit hemmed in by the sack. We have just cut a ‘door’ in the side to harvest them gradually. The sacks are very heavy once full of compost though so do make sure they are in their final position before you start! Finally, we have cherry tomato plants in hanging baskets which are actually really pretty (they’re flowering at the moment) and will hopefully rise above the tomato blight which ruined our crop last year. Sorry for long post, but hope it helps!
Steph – thank you so much for your long response. I’m very grateful for your encouragement and great ideas. It’s really reassuring to hear that you’re getting great quality veg from tubs, bags and buckets. I have found a table and am going to gently lift come containers onto it and put some seeds in this week.
Tomatoes are excellent in containers, as are chillies, and tomatoes in particular grow tall so that you don’t have to bend to reach them. Potatoes grow well in containers too, with the advantage that you don’t have to wreck your back digging them up to harvest them, simply upend the pot/cut open the bag they’re growing in. You could construct/buy simple raised beds, possibly by filling old furniture frames with soil (think chests of drawers etc) or joining old floor boards or similar into frames, so that your raised beds are at a better height and have rubble-free soil that needs no digging. If you can get large enough containers and plenty of organic fertiliser, courgettes and squashes will grow ok in containers, as will brassicas like your brocolli. If you’re stuck with smaller or more shallow containers though, try salads, including spinach, herbs and radishes, and perhaps anything oniony too. Small and deep containers are ok for carrots and beets. Hope that helps, happy gardening!
What a brill reply, Waveney! Thanks! As I really need to not have to kneel down / bend over, I think table tops is the way to go. I’ve started my experiment thanks to the encouragement here. I think I’m glad to say that I still need help from other people when it comes to filling the containers with soil and fertiliser – I really can’t do that myself. Raised beds would have to be so high they’d need tonnes (ok not literally) of soil, so yeah I think containers on higher surfaces is the way to go. Maybe VegBox Husband can be convinced over the summer to create some different vertical levels in the garden with old bricks or slabs or old crates… I just planted cabbage, kohl rabi and pak choi seeds and they’ve sprung up literally over night. I really thought I’d missed the sowing window, it being past midsummer now, but the Royal Horticultural Society tells me that I can still make sowings of beetroot, calabrese, carrots, French beans, lettuce, kohl rabi, radishes, rocket, salads generally, spinach and turnips and herbs such as coriander and parsley. Not only that, but their Summer advice is that “courgettes, cucumbers, French and runner beans, marrows, melons, pumpkins, runner beans, squash and sweetcorn can now be sown outdoors, in sheltered mild districts, where they are to grow. In fact, sown in situ, they develop superior roots systems that help them grow fast and need less watering than those transplanted from pots.” In addition, apparently I can sow the following in late summer: chicory, endive, Florence fennel and the Oriental greens including Chinese cabbages. So although I think I’ll leave the sweetcorn now (just CAN’T imagine it will work in pots), I reckon I should still be able to add these to pots on the table from the stock I bought: more kohl rabi more lettuce more pak choi squash endive I didn’t buy anything in to plant in late Summer for next Spring – the cabbage I have is “bog-standard” rather than Spring cabbage. But it’s planted now, so perhaps I can simply eat the sprouts in my salads. I wonder what cabbage sprouts taste like!
Liked your ideas – has any body suggested free pallets from a local trading estate or building site – I use them to keep pots off the ground but there is no reason why they should not be piled one on top of t’other to get the right height and you could do things with the gaps.
Oh and another thing – filling the containers I use a flower pot of size I know I can manage
Those are brill suggestions Gill – thank you! Perhaps you can help me think this one through a bit more … VegBox Husband and I are not really on the same page when it comes to the garden. I love a ramshackle make-do-and-mend kind of a look but he really wants it to be sleeker and more polished than that. I’d be worried to suggest pallets for this reason. Any thoughts?