Vegetable trials in a small garden

This year, my wife has decided that she wants to try growing some vegetable in our own garden. I should explain that we are renting a large Victorian end-terrace house not far from the centre of Halifax. That's an important bit of information as it means that we are quite limited in what we can do with the garden. A small vegetable patch in the front garden is out of the question as the landlady probably wouldn't allow it. We're fine to put ornamentals into both the front and the back gardens if we want to, as they will only complement the appearance of the house; a small vegetable garden would probably bring the weight of the lawyers down on us! This means that we have to be quite careful about what we can grow, and most of the vegetables need to be temporary and grown tidily in pots.Having a love of plants, I have in the past tried growing all sorts of ornamentals from seed - mainly annuals and the odd perennial here or there. This has usually resulted in propagators all over the attic, the landing & hallway and every available windowsil, all to no avail as when they do germinate I have no space in the garden to do anything with them so they end up getting leggy or drying out or damping off as I don't have the time to look after them properly.This year I have taken a different approach to growing. I'm barely growing any ornamentals from seed, almost all of them being vegetable and salad crops. I have left sowing and planting much later, until things can be grown in propagators in the garden, sitting quite neatly on a bench or lining the steps up to the front door. I've got a few herbs which my wife has sown which seem to be doing well so far. I suppose I should give a list of what I'm growing so...*Rocket (small bowl pots, sown at about 3-4 week intervals)*Mizuna (just one small bowl pot)*Spinach & Lambs Leaf Lettuce (one large trough divided in half)*Spring Onion (2 small containers made from old olive oil tins)*Radish (2 square planters)*Runner Beans (3 large bucket-type pots, bought as small plants)*Mangetout (2 large bucket-type pots, again bought as small plants)*Basil & Black Basil*Dill*Chives*Flat-leaf parsley*Rosemary (common culinary & prostrate ornamental)*Sage (common, culinary)*Various seed trays sown with a mix of leftover salad crops*3 tomatoes, grown from seed by one of my clients - these are going to be grown outdoors in large pots as I have no greenhouse.*4 sweet peppers, again from one of my clients and grown outdoors in large pots.I also have three blueberrys, all in large pots, and a small patio apple tree, again in a large pot, and strawberries all over the place. I expect to lose most of the blueberries to birds but I'm not really all that upset about it. I don't have any bird feeders in the garden, so if the blueberries do end up as birdfood I'm not all that bothered.Most of the vegetables have germinated but are only just beginning to grow. I'll try to update this blog to record what does well and what is worth trying. If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would be happy to hear them.

Andrew,
This sounds great - I started vegetable gardening in pots outside my kitchen door and still get great results with salad in them (see my blog post at http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=35).
I thought you might be interested in our article on Growing in Small Spaces at http://www.growveg.com/growguides/growing-in-small-spaces.aspx which actually confirms a lot of what you have already decided - you've picked plants that make use of vertical space, grow well in pots and don't take up a lot of room.
In future years I would consider adding blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries as your landlady is unlikely to object to these (could she be bribed with a cut of the harvest?) and they are very high value crops - you save a lot on shop prices (and they taste much better) for the amount of room they occupy. A little netting can keep birds off if required (though don't let the bushes grow through the netting as it's a pain to untangle them).
I often grow nasturciums amongst my strawberry plants but you do have to watch out for aphid infestations.
Don't forget to give the tomatoes and peppers some dilute liquid seaweed feed every week or so - soil in pots rapidly loose nutrients in my experience.
Best wishes,
Jeremy

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Comments

Andrew Fereday May 26, 2008 at 10:07pm

I have just added some Franchi seeds to the list - most of the seeds (being quite common varieties anyway) were just Wilkos seeds or Johnsons seeds, so I'm quite interested to see how the Italian seeds come up. The packets seemed to be very generous in the quantities supplied, so I daresay I will have plenty to trial.

The varieties of the Franchi vegetable seeds that I'm trying are large-leafed Italian Basil (I'm not sure of the specific variety name) and Chickory. I also have some Pomodoro tomato seeds which will be passed on to my father to try out next year and some globe (or round) courgettes, which I will be trying out myself although not until next year now - I bought the seeds from one of the traders at the Chelsea Flower Show so I have missed the opportunity to sow them this year for any decent crop.
PRO

Craig McGinty May 28, 2008 at 1:10pm

Hi Andrew, that is a really useful article and has got me thinking hard as like you I am limited in space.

And considering the blandness of veggies and herbs I get from supermarkets I'm sure with a little imagination I can do better.

All the best
Craig
Andrew Fereday May 28, 2008 at 3:00pm

Actually, I could probably do with uploading a few pictures - my back garden is only just a little larger than one of the courtyard gardens at Chelsea and the front garden is possibly about half as big. They're both in a bit of a state at the moment as I've not had the chance to keep up with things over the last couple of weeks, even though I'm sowing even more stuff. I'm planning on taking out a poorly performing honeysuckle which is growing over a wall and replacing it with a 'saddle' planter (a planter which sits on top of the wall but with sides which sit lower than the top of the wall, if that makes sense), which I'm going to try to use to grow some more beans or peas. I'll take a couple of snaps of the finished product and upload when I get a chance.

I also forgot that I'm growing loads of nasturtiums in wall planters - I always forget about nasturtiums as a salad crop.
Jeremy Dore May 28, 2008 at 3:25pm

Andrew,
This sounds great - I started vegetable gardening in pots outside my kitchen door and still get great results with salad in them (see my blog post at http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=35).
I thought you might be interested in our article on Growing in Small Spaces at http://www.growveg.com/growguides/growing-in-small-spaces.aspx which actually confirms a lot of what you have already decided - you've picked plants that make use of vertical space, grow well in pots and don't take up a lot of room.
In future years I would consider adding blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries as your landlady is unlikely to object to these (could she be bribed with a cut of the harvest?) and they are very high value crops - you save a lot on shop prices (and they taste much better) for the amount of room they occupy. A little netting can keep birds off if required (though don't let the bushes grow through the netting as it's a pain to untangle them).
I often grow nasturciums amongst my strawberry plants but you do have to watch out for aphid infestations.
Don't forget to give the tomatoes and peppers some dilute liquid seaweed feed every week or so - soil in pots rapidly loose nutrients in my experience.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
Andrew Fereday May 28, 2008 at 7:39pm

Ah, thanks for the reminder on feeding the tomataoes and peppers - I use tomato feed on my ornamentals to encourage them to flower (another trick is to use liquid lawn feed for foliage ornamentals such as Bay trees - works on the same basis).

I don't really have space for raspberry canes but have a very nice bramble running all over a bit of waste ground just beyond the garden on the front road. I'm going to try a bit of guerilla gardening on the waste ground when I get a moment but the soil is almost completely sand and rocks - it's at the very end of an unmade / unadopted road made of coarse rock and sand.
Andrew Fereday May 29, 2008 at 12:45am
Andrew Fereday May 29, 2008 at 12:55am

These two photos should give an idea of the size of my garden. They were taken about a month or so back, before the weather had a chance to do its worst. The front garden was replanted just before the photos were taken so has filled out a little since then. Just as an extra note, I have used Strulch - a sort of treated straw mulch - on the border in the front. It seems to have done a reasonable job at discouraging annual weeds from germinating although there are a couple of perennial weeds which I still need to pull out every so often.

The soil in the front garden is in awful condition - completely depleted of any nutrients whatsoever leaving just a silty grey nastiness. I'm slowly improving the soil as I put in new plants, removing about an 18" diameter of the existing soil and replacing it with fresh compost mixed with fish blood & bone. I'm mixing that with some of the existing soil in the planting hole, just to give it a bit more body. I really ought to lift everything out and completely recondition the soil but I just don't have the time...
Richard Loader May 29, 2008 at 7:21am

Just a note to say how interesting this discussion is for me. Although I have unlimited space for growing veg I am growing all kinds in pots this year as photographic subjects - part of trying to meet a demand for images that meet the current passion for home grown veg.
I'll post some shots shortly as I'm pleased with results this year - veggies can certainly look very decorative and be productive when contained in pots and baskets.
I'm finding that some subjects are better grown in pots than the garden due to ease of weed and pest control. Once we are past the longest day I am going to have a serious go at oriental veg in pots as they always fail for me in the garden.
What compost do you guys use in you containers?
Cheers
Richard
PRO

Phil Voice May 29, 2008 at 7:47am

Andrew, How do you manage to cram so much into a small space? - you really look organised.

Richard, I look forward to seeing the pictures - just one question, is the longest day significant to growing oriental veg?
Richard Loader May 29, 2008 at 9:40am

A lot of Oriental veg are Brassicae (cabbage family) and are inclined to bolt if sown while day lengths are increasing so I wait until days are getting shorter. They mostly seem to need good watering and highish nutrient levels too. I'm no expert on this though - just had a good many failures through sowing too early.
Flea-beetles are a PITA too so I hope will be less of a prob in a raised container away from garden soil.