Growing veg the easy way

There’s nothing like the taste of fresh produce from your own garden and in these belt-tightening times there’s never been a better time to start growing your own. I have been at it for over 40 years, so have learned a few tricks and shortcuts along the way. Despite having a reputation for being complicated and hard work growing veg needn’t be, so long as you plan ahead and stick to it!

The key to making a veg plot productive and less work is to have no bare soil. This means planning your crops in such a way that one follows another in quick succession leaving no space for weeds to grow. The second rule of easy veg is no digging. That might sound a bit rich, but believe me it works. Here’s how…

No-dig beds

• Less digging
• Less waste
• Less weeding
• More crops

By growing your crops in beds that you don’t walk on means the soil doesn’t get compacted and so doesn’t need annual digging. If the beds are slightly raised by edging with wooden boards, you spend less time bending and it will be easy to see where each bed stops and starts. That means you can concentrate all the ‘vitals’ (organic matter, fertilizer and water) to the growing area only – reducing waste. With the paths at the edges, you can grow crops closer together with less bare soil, so few weeds can gain a foothold. On heavy, wet soil, raised beds make even more sense since they improve drainage and warm-up earlier in the spring, so you can start sowing and planting sooner. How to make a no-dig bed

Planning ahead

One of the joys of veg growing is crop planning. This means growing only vegetables you like to eat and growing them to achieve a continuous supply to the kitchen table without gluts or famines. With quick-growing crops, such as lettuce and radish, the best way to achieve this is to sow little and often so that each sowing matures a little later than its predecessor. This is known as successional sowing. To prevent our unpredictable weather mucking up your plans, don’t slavishly follow the calendar for each sowing. Instead, time the follow-on sowing when the seedlings of the previous sowing are just emerging.

Getting more crops

Using a bed system means there are no paths between the crops so you can grow them closer together. They will also grow faster and harvest earlier because the soil conditions are better and the ‘vitals’ are concentrated around their roots. Managing the changeover of crops when one batch is harvested and another planted is easier and more efficient, too. By having the next crop already growing in pots in a greenhouse or coldframe ready for planting as soon as space becomes available, you can save weeks in the cropping schedule and fit in even more crops – which really makes sense if space is limited. You can also make use of quick-growing crops to fill any bare soil, such as between widely spaced long-term crops like brassicas. This is known as catch cropping.

Crop rotation

So many would-be veg growers are put off with the first mention of crop rotation. It sounds so complicated….but it isn’t. It’s a very low-tech way of reducing pests and diseases, thereby reducing waste. You just group crops which suffer from the same pests and diseases and then avoid growing them in the same soil for a few years to prevent pest and disease problems building up. For example, by growing all the cabbage family together and moving them around the plot year after year, on a rotation, helps prevent the build-up of the dreaded clubroot disease. As luck would have it, these groups of vegetables also share similar cultural requirements making looking after them easier. In a no-dig bed system sticking to your crop rotation is easier, too, because the growing areas are so clearly defined.

Keeping it all in the family

• Cabbage family (including cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, oriental greens, radish, swede and turnips)
• Pea and bean family (including French and runner beans, broad beans and peas)
• Onion family(including onion, garlic, shallots and leeks)
• Potato family (including potato, tomato, pepper and aubergines)
• Rootcrops (including beetroot, carrot, celery and parsnip)

A simple crop rotation