Going potty

With the Covid-19 lockdown, growing your own veg is all the rage, but what if you have limited space? Leslie Bliss discovers a whole new world of container crop growing

- Leslie Bliss

Months of stay-safestay-home lockdown has made everyone appreciate more than ever how precious it is to have your own outdoor space. With gaps suddenly appearing on supermarket shelves, it isn’t surprising that Britain, as a nation of gardeners, has turned to growing its own veg en masse.

I am one of them, an amateur gardener and lapsed veg grower of 10 years. With garden centres shut and a long wait for online orders, it became a challenge of resourcefulness to start again from scratch. The other issue was where to put the plants. As I wanted to keep the lawn and flower borders intact, every corner of the garden and house was scoured for potential planters. A rusty old cast iron wok had a hole drilled in the bottom to grow cut-and-come again salad, while the lid of a broken plastic water butt was also put to use — and it had a hole in the right place. Tomato grow bags were snapped up at Tesco, a set of five large felt bags was bought on eBay and, hey presto, the patio has come alive with greenery that includes runner beans, French beans, various lettuces, curly kale, chard, chilli peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, courgettes, spinach, sprouting broccoli and butternut squash.

It’s been interesting to watch their progress and compare how they’ve fared in different containers and positions. So that begs the question, what are the best containers? After all, the options seem endless: felt, grow bags, plastic, concrete, stone, terracotta, glazed, hanging baskets, Air-Pot containers, guttering, old dustbins, animal feed troughs, wooden crates, barrels, cast iron, hessian sacks and wicker baskets, to name but a few.

THINK SIZE AND DEPTH