We had a 4 year plan – at least I had one in my head. In 4 years I believed we were going to have a beautifully laid out vegetable garden and a tunnel with raised beds, crops on rotation and our soil covered with protection and fresh compost or manure feed as soon as we harvested a crop. We wanted to use a No Dig method and I spent ages sourcing cardboard, laying it down and putting mypex or old carpet on top.
In reality we had couch grass that defied all our attempts. And life isn’t so ordered that we could keep up with the work involved. What’s more we had never been neat and tidy in our allotments. I favoured artistic non-conformity over order, more inclined to grow in zigzags and spirals than straight lines.
Nevertheless, voracious seed planting from early spring and lots of pricking out and potting up (which is my favourite activity) creates its own urgency and somehow our beds get prepped, plants are put in, they crop and then we pick and process the abundance (probably my second favourite activity). Our larders fill with chutneys, pickles, soups and sauces; our garage becomes home to garlic, onions, potatoes and yacons, our freezer groans with fruit, beans, peas and tomatoes and our empty fireplace becomes a squash and pumpkin store. Here’s a list of the fruit and vegetables we grow:
- Potatoes – several different varieties that see us from June to February
- Hispi cabbages – gourmet flavours always wins our choice of veg
- Broad beans – aquadulce, bunyards exhibition, red epicure are favourites
- Runner beans and French beans – climbing and dwarf, lots of different varieties
- Barlotti beans and Slovenian coco beans – grown for the beans
- Peas, petit pois and sugar snaps – several varieties, many saved from previous years
- Yacon, and Oca, – Peruvian root vegetables that we love
- Tromboncino, squashes and pumpkins – crown prince, uchiki kuri, dulce de horno, and more
- Courgettes – we are growing Nice courgettes, we also like Zephyr but there are always too many
- Beetroot – boltardy, cylindra, flat egyptian and detroit 2
- Cardoons – a majestic perennial and a delightful treat around Christmas
- Leeks, onions, shallots
- Tomatoes – sungolds, cuor de bue, gardeners delight, alicante, orange beauty, rio grande
- Peppers, chilis – we find these so hard to grow
- Aubergines (black beauty), okra (a new experiment),
- Salads – a mix of lettuces, rockets, mustard (red frills) and Shinjuku
- Rhubarb (disaster so far), apples, pears, cherries, hazelnuts, raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, ugni fruit, plums blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, wineberries, mulberry, rosehips, tayberries and loganberries.
- Lots of herbs – sages, thymes, rosemary, ginger mint, other mints, marjoram, lemon verbena and oodles more
