Getting to know a garden is a long process and a luxury. I have had the luxury of working in an organically managed walled vegetable garden in the Cotswolds for the last 12 years and I feel like I have finally got to grips with what works and what does not.
Salad crops, beans, and peas, for instance, work beautifully. Root vegetables do not. Over the years I have added ton after ton of well-rotted manure, homemade compost, and leaf mould but the Cotswold brash soil keeps throwing up stones. A few years ago I would spend hours on my hands and knees picking individual stones out of each bed. These days I spend my precious time matching the right crop to the right conditions.
The vegetable garden was newly constructed when I arrived to take charge in November 2009. The adjoining glasshouse and potting shed were a figment of the owners’ imagination. The owners had great plans of self-sufficiency and spending lots of time out there themselves. In reality, their busy lives meant that the garden quickly became my opportunity to experiment.
CAGED CARROTS
This story is from the August 2021 edition of Kitchen Garden.
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This story is from the August 2021 edition of Kitchen Garden.
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