Help! I Want To Grow Veg But Don’t know Where To Start

Posted on 16. Apr, 2011 by Tracey in Sow Seeds

Its the beginning of spring, the vegetable season is underway and now its your turn to put the power in your hands. With a little help from your friends (sunshine and water) you’ll be able to join one of the most satisfying, healthy and fun (with the exception of dealing with pests) hobbies around – that’s Vegetable Gardening.

So you’ve made the decision to grow your own veg and bought a few seeds or if you are stuck for what to grow, read my Vegetables to Sow Now and Next Series. But what do you do now? where do you start sowing and when? In this post and ones to follow in this series – Back To Basics, I will guide you through where to start on your vegetable growing journey, where to sow and when and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me here as I’m happy to help with your queries.

Places to Start Growing Vegetables

Back Garden

Build a Raised Bed

Positives: use the flower beds to grow vegetables, vertical gardening for small spaces, pots in a small courtyard, veg tables, raised beds of all shapes and sizes.

Negatives: dogs and cats sharing the garden, not all gardens are south facing, footballs coming over the fence and crushing your veg!

Ideally it would be great if we all had a south facing gardens, where the sun could shine on your vegetables all day long, but its worth knowing that some vegetables like lettuce and root vegetables can still grow into up to 80% shade and some only need a couple of hours of sun a day. For more vegetables that grow in the shade, see David Derbyshire’s Allotment Blog on the MailOnline.

There are many possibilities of growing vegetables in a back garden without doing a lot of back breaking work, for example you could grow your own vegetables in amongst the flowers in your garden borders or islands (this is called Permaculture). This particularly works well with runner or climbing french beans trained up willow or metal obelisks. Bean seeds can be sown in pots now until July and plant out into your garden after the risk of frost which is end of April (south of england) and Mid May (northern UK).

Herbs and Lavender

If your planning to grow a few vegetables in your borders, its worth doing a soil test first (Soil PH test kits can be found in garden centres or ebay) and cross your fingers in hope that you haven’t got acidic or heavy clay soil. If you have its not the end of the world but you might have to consider raised beds and filling them with the ideal soil mix (compost, topsoil and farmyard manure) for an easy life. Raised Beds can be built quite easily – here’s a quick How To Guide or there’s plenty of raised beds at reasonable prices online. Look out for the seasonal sales and grab yourself one for approx £10-£20.

Check out My Veg Plot section at iGrowVeg for more details on how to grow your own vegetables in your own back garden.

If you only have a small patio or courtyard back garden, theres still ways to grow vegetables in containers, varying sized pots and hanging baskets. If you want to clump them all together in a space saving way, there’s plenty of plant stands or ladders on the market to keep pots tidy and numerous vertical planting innovations. Try the blog Vertical Veg for more inspiration.

Front Garden

Hanging Basket Tomatoes

Positives: space to grow, talk with the neighbours, hanging baskets
Negatives: pollution, dogs, cats, on show to all, you may have a block paved drive and no garden.

How can you grow vegetables in your front garden you may ask, well there are a few methods but most rely on growing vegetables close to your house or using hanging baskets. If your front garden is away from busy roads, cherry tomatoes are great for growing in hanging baskets especially varieties suited to trailing like Tumbling Toms (both red and yellow) or Hundreds and Thousands.

A nice accompaniment to tomatoes is the herb basil and there’s loads of varieties of loose leaf lettuces which can be grown alongside or in the same container. To save yourself time, buy vegetable plug plants and you’ll have fresh home grown salad picked from your front garden in no time. There’s a good deal from Suttons on Mixed Lettuce Plug Plants at the moment for 18 lettuce plug plants, see here for more details.

Herbs are most at home in the front garden and can be grown in amongst your flowers or in pots next to the front door so that an aroma is released when you or the postman brushes past them. Good herb flower mixes include lavender and rosemary and marigold and purple sage. Some herbs even have small flowers like marjoram, chives and oregano which adds interest to your containers.

Allotment

Veg Garden

Positives: Bigger plot with more space, cheaper seeds and manure from allotment shops/societies, local community feel and other allotment experts/newbies.

Negatives: Waiting lists, restrictions, rent, travel, making a commitment to keep up the work, back breaking digging work if clearing the plot from scratch.

If you haven’t got the room for a few raised beds or need more space to grow vegetables, the ideal location is an allotment close by so you don’t have to travel too far. To find your local allotments, contact your local council or type your postcode into this link – Find Your Local Authority. Click for more information on How To Rent an Allotment.

Bloggers Specialising in Allotments are:

• Allotment Vegetable Growing
• Allotments-UK.com – Forum for Allotment Holders
• Mal’s Allotment

Balcony

Spinach in a Pot

Positives: You don’t have to walk far to harvest some veg, easy to maintain, sheltered.
Negatives: Depending on what floor flat or apartment you have, it could be heavy lifting for compost/pots, drainage issues, shady spots.

Vegetables can be grown in the tinyest of places even on a balcony. There are plenty of innovative ways to use containers and save space at the same time. There’s VertiGarden where you can plant up module trays, with self irrigation tubes and wall mount them to create a living wall or there’s other vertical growing ideas like Woolly Pockets, Living Frames and Vertipockets which can also be planted up and mounted on a wall, trellis, balcony, shed or fence.

Find more inspiration at these great blogs about growing vegetables on balconies:

• The London Vegetable Garden
• Life On The Balcony
• Vertical Veg
• Urban Organic Gardener
• Aerial Edible Gardening

Back To Basics Series

• Raised Bed Materials
• My Back To Basics Veg Plot Plan

Related Blog Posts

• Growing Vegetables in Weird Places
• Growing Vegetables on a Windowsill
• Growing Vegetables in the Office

Sign up to my iGrowVeg Newsletter to keep up to date on my Back to Basics Series, other veg growing advice and vegetable seeds to grow now and next month.

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