Test and learn – our kitchen garden

Ten years with a tiny London-terrace garden meant we spent a lot of that time trying to work out how to make the most of the space we had, with homemade vertical planter constructions, and flower beds mostly taken over by vegetables of sorts.  

So now we’ve got a proper space for vegetables, of course we wanted to squeeze in as much as possible (maybe too much in some cases…!). We spent most of winter planning, and came up with a long list of all the things we’d ever wanted to try, with a couple of extras added after seeds and seedlings were kindly donated by neighbours and family. We decided to treat this year as an experiment, to learn how things grow and what’s easy vs requiring extra effort. We also wanted to see just how much we could grow, and whether we could offer vegetable/fruit boxes to our future guests, while having enough to see us through the summer/autumn months. 

And it’s fair to say we’ve had some successes, and some serious learnings! Like most people, we’ve not been helped by the weather – the wet weather mixed with hot sunny days meant we lost most of our tomato plants in late July, and didn’t act quickly enough to prune out the suspect-looking branches before it spread. Luckily we managed to save enough green tomatoes to make our first chutney of the year – albeit a few months before we’d expected to! For the first time ever, I also agreed to include flowers in the kitchen garden to encourage pollinators – hard to admit but I think it worked! 

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We’re still debating whether our cabbage and kale was a success or not… Most of our seeds sprouted but then died – but a lovely neighbour gave us some seedlings to plant. They loved the new raised beds and grew prolifically – they’ve mostly survived unscathed from caterpillars as they’re under a butterfly-net cover (at least compared to the chinese cabbage that the caterpillars love!!) – but next year we’re going to try insect sheeting too, as a few leaves have completely disappeared! 

And another lesson is to label the seeds… I have a habit of assuming I’ll remember what I planted in each tray… cue finding a random pumpkin growing within the courgettes, a runner bean amongst the dwarf beans, and spinach and chard intermixed… Not helpful when there’s not enough space for them to grow! 

Safe to say that we still need a bit more practice – and we’re hoping our amazing new propagator will help with the seeds as well. We may have a long way to go, but we’re so grateful for the space we now have, and will keep trying until we make the best use of it!