Market Nosh, Using your garden effectively.

Green Fingered, Fresh Eating Gardener

The garden, a place for beautiful plants with lovely flowers and an abundance of greenery. If you’re like me, the garden in the morning is calming to look out upon and in the evening is that quiet place where you can gather your thoughts for the day.

So what about making it edible too?

Woooooaaah now slow down there! I am not suggesting digging it up and replanting it into the local allotment site down the road (although that is perfectly acceptable and is a growing trend – visit Green City Acres or their Facebook Page Green City Acres to learn more)

Why not look at your garden in a different light? The roses are beautiful, that lavender that attracts all those bees, amazing! Then add between the spaces a little fruit and veg.

Grow your blackberries up the fence and have a lovely crop of fresh berries with your cereal in the morning?

Strawberries, for a desert snack, where you can wander out and pick straight from the plant.

There are purple cabbages, bright red tomatoes, green courgettes, yellow peppers… The colours of our fruit and veg is amazing. With that much variety you could really spruce up your garden colour and know that you are going to get something out of it in the end.

The bees will love you too for all the different variety you will be offering them too. Think about the diet of different pollens and nectars for them to gorge on.

Of course you’ll have insects who want a small piece of your delicious pie too. That is where permaculture thinking comes in. The idea of planting companion plants next to other plants to attract insects away from foods you are trying to grow.

You can be creative with the way you also place your plants. Who says they have to be at ground level? Place them on different levels and see how your garden explodes into different colours with the seasons.

Think about a small space in your garden today that you might want to start with. Look at the vegetables that can be planted now and when you can harvest them.

You don’t need to plant the whole garden in a day! A farmer doesn’t plant his whole farm in a day and then sit back. He selects the fields to attend too. Then prepares the soil, then plants and nurtures.

That’s your role now.

How much more exciting and enjoyable than watching the TV for another night of rubbish! You get the colour show, the satisfaction of growing your own food and of picking it to eat right outside your back door!

This also begins the discussions with neighbours who may follow your example and with whom you can trade fresh veg with during the season. You can meet up with other local garden farmers and discuss ways of improving your crops.

New friends, outings and lots lots more, and all for a bit of planting in a garden that is just sitting there already!

If you do start one, let us know on the Market Nosh Facebook page. You’ll get to see how I am getting on when the year begins to warm up and I am at home again.

 

NOTE: If you are planting edible plants in the garden DO NOT use pesticides on or near your plants.

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