Fresh fruit and vegetables picked straight from the garden have a flavour second to none. Every small garden or patio can produce some healthy vegetables even if you need to grow them in pots.
Our growing calendar and advice below will help you produce your own healthy fruits and vegetables in no time at all!
Download Growing Calendar
Vegetable Plot or Allotment
A traditional plot devoted solely to fruit and vegetables is a luxury in most small domestic gardens, but well worth the space. If you have enough room such as an allotment you can grow all the fruit and vegetables that appear in the seed catalogues, selecting the tastiest varieties that provide unusual servings.
Grow your favorites such as asparagus (always expensive to buy) peas (picked fresh they taste different to anything you’ve ever bought) and pull carrots early (when they are bursting with flavour).
Move your vegetables around your plot so that they are not grown in the same spot year after year. In this way you can avoid encouraging soil pests and diseases and provide the right nutrients and conditions that keep your soil in general good heart. The same crop on the same spot will lead to unbalancing of nutrient reserves and is best avoided. Follow a crop rotation plan for long term cropping.
Flower Borders - Food for Thought
Growing a few tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and carrots between your flowers will add another dimension to your flower border which can also be backed by raspberry canes, blackberry plants interspersed with gooseberry bush or blackcurrant. Brightest veg in winter will be chard ‘Bright Lights’ with yellow and red stems that deserve front line display space in December.
The keen vegetable grower however can usually find some extra space at the back of a flower bed where tucked away he or she can plant less attractive but worthwhile crops such as sprouts, cabbage, leeks and parsnips.
Pots, Tubs & Containers
You can grow vegetables if you only have a small space using Levington Tomorite Giant Planter for a tasty crop of tomatoes. The Levington Organic Blend Giant Vegetable Planter is enriched with organic nutrients to produce an amazing crop of tomatoes, peppers and aubergines.
Now that patios are so popular there is no reason why you can’t grow tasty and convenient vegetables and fruit throughout the summer. Any container will do as long as it has sufficient drainage. Terracotta may look good, but it takes more watering than a plastic one. With vegetable growing the bigger the container the better. It provides a good cool root run and watering is required less often.
Most plants will grow well in a John Innes compost that contains a good proportion of loam because this is a heavy compost that will firmly anchor the pot in place and is good for tall growing crops. Sow seeds in Levington John Innes Seed Compost and transplant the seedlings into Levington John Innes No.1 Compost. When large enough, pot up in their final growing containers filled with Levington John Innes No.3 Compost – a potting compost that is rich in nutrients that will grow plants to final maturity.