Veg garden update August 2023

Back at the end of October last year I recorded my goals for the veg garden. The main ones were:

• By the end of 2023, have grown 15-20% of our fruit and veg
• Don’t destroy the wildness and diversity of the plot
• Don’t destroy myself in the process!

Now that the best part of a year has passed, it’s time to reflect on how well I’ve performed in relation to those goals. I’ll go one by one.

Goal 1: Grow 15-20% of our fruit and veg

Well I can confidently say we won’t get there with the fruit, and I was a bit foolish to include fruit at all to be honest. Everything except strawberries and rhubarb has failed to produce well this year – it’s simply too early for the soft fruit trees I planted in the veg garden, and we aren’t yet at the stage of planting the orchard (although news to come on that front very soon!) The rhubarb looks great, but I’m not harvesting it at all this year, as it is supposed to weaken the plant. Next year though!

Veg is a different story, however, and here I’ve actually done much better than expected, considering we didn’t really have a functioning veg garden until quite late in May. For the past two months we’ve been getting the majority of our vegetables and all our herbs from the plot here, and most things I have planted have had at least some success. This has included, in no particular order:

• Tomatoes (5 or 6 varieties – about 20 plants altogether)
• Potatoes (3 varieties, filling 3 entire beds)
• Chard – slow to start, coming on well now
• Parsley
• Broad beans
• Climbing beans (including Cosse Violette)
• Endive (over now), Various other types of lettuce, including Romaine
• Courgettes
• Squash (3 different varieties, including Leckor and – my favourite – Crown Prince)
• Beetroot (2 varieties)
• Cabbage (only 2, but they survived the dreaded pests)
• Kohl rabi (a brilliant gift from my cousin’s partner – will definitely grow these again)
• Artichoke – not enough to eat, but the plants are getting established, and I hope to have plenty next year
• Wild Garlic – I don’t strictly grow this – it just appears everywhere in Spring, but we use it to make massive amounts of pesto, so I’m counting it.
• (When I can be bothered to sow them in trays) Microgreens, including pea shoots and broccoli shoots.

What I’m still buying at the supermarket or farm shop:

• Onions
• Garlic
• Carrots
• Mushrooms
• Hispi cabbage
• Fruit
• Watercress (although I’ve found I can get some from a friend in the village, and I definitely want to try growing this in our stream)

One notable veg failure has been asparagus. I planted 20-30 crowns earlier this year, but only 4 of them produced shoots. This means I need to plant more again next year and that I’ve effectively lost a year in creating an asparagus bed (it takes 3 years or more before you can harvest). Frustrating and mostly my fault for waiting too long to plant the crowns.

Overall, I’m not scientific enough about recording purchases to say whether we will get to 15-20% this year. We are definitely well above that percentage for the past two months, and I have some successional planting coming along to keep us going, as well as starting to stash tomatoes in the freezer. I think we should hit at least 15%, so I’m pretty pleased. Then there’s all the other little things, like I’ve started growing and drying verbena, which is a tea we both love. And there’s no need to buy any more nettle tea bags either!

Next year the goal is to get to above 50% of all veg and fruit coming from the garden. This is trickier and is going to require careful planning. I think fruit is unrealistic, but I hope to make more of an impact in 2024 than we did this year. I’ll need to sort my sowing and successional planting calendar and be much more organised about that. It should be much easier now that I don’t actually need to create the beds or do much landscaping.

Goal 2: Don’t destroy the wildness and diversity of the plot

I’ve been quite careful about this, and have kept the edges of the plot as wild as I can, as well as letting the plants in the wall grow crazy and letting weeds grow in some of the less full beds. This has meant a lot more hand weeding in the veg beds than I would like, but the diversity on the plot is amazing. It is full of flies, bees, moths, butterflies, grubs and beetles. I even saw a dragonfly the other day. There are of course lots of so called pests, like the cabbage white butterfly, and its caterpillars have munched plenty of my produce. Mostly they have munched my companion plants, however (check out the poor nasturtium). Slugs have destroyed a fair few potatoes and munched into my cabbages (along with some earwigs), but all in all, there has been enough to go around.

Next year I will need to mow perhaps a little more than I did this year. Grass seed has blown liberally into all the beds, meaning I am constantly picking out little grass seedlings. I hope that by sticking to the #nodig methdology, and by being a bit more careful to mulch, the need to weed will subside a bit. It’s a tricky balance to ensure sufficient diversity close by and limit weeding. I shall no doubt learn a lot more next season.

Goal 3: Don’t destroy myself in the process

I can safely say that the veg garden has given me back way way more than I could ever put in. Every moment I spend in there is worth a dozen sessions of therapy. I feel completely at home in the space, and can lose myself for hours potting on, weeding, watering or just looking around. I wander over there 4 or 5 times a day and have been known to curl up on the dog mattress and have a quick snooze in the greenhouse! Plus it is a brilliantly social space during winter and spring when the plants die down and people can see over the wall. I usually have 3 or 4 chats a day with neighbours, dog walkers, tourists or friends driving by. If you’d told me that I would enjoy this sort of thing 10 years ago when I lived in London I would have laughed at you, but there you go – middle age brings all sorts of fun changes.

All in all, Year 1 in the veg garden has been a big success. I’ve learned an enormous amount, fed us quite a bit in the process (and now giving away excess to friends) and I’ve enjoyed myself more than I thought possible. Vive le potager!